Language skills and learning strategies

Modern Foreign Languages

Primary

A primary teacher learns and teaches French at the same time

Primary teacher Andy Gaunt is facing the biggest challenge of his professional career - teaching French to his pupils with no knowledge of the language whatsoever. This daunting challenge will be familiar to many primary teachers, with every seven-year-old set to be entitled to learn a new language from 2010 under new government policy. Andy learns a little French for each lesson and then uses a puppet called Pierre to help communicate with the class. The concept is that Pierre is teaching both the pupils and Andy at the same time.

KS1/2 MFL - Absolute Beginner

Skill sharing between primary and secondary teachers

This programme shows how Nottinghamshire LEA has adopted a family model of primary schools grouped around a secondary school with a focus on strategies for delivering an MFL curriculum at Key Stage 2. We look at how Dave Gilwhite, MFL teacher from Manor Secondary School in Mansfield is working as an AST with Nicola Blount, a teacher at Peafield, one of the primary schools grouped around it. The programme explores the idea of skill sharing between secondary and primary teachers and how each can bring their particular experience and mindset to the learning situation.

KS1/2 MFL - Sharing Skills - Secondary with Primary

How "team teaching" can help to deliver the MFL curriculum

Can sharing expertise between primary and secondary schools boost the confidence of teachers to deliver their own lessons? The idea of team-teaching to deliver the MFL curriculum at Key Stage 2 is explored in this programme. We follow the experience of Nicola Guy, a primary trained teacher with a B Ed in modern languages, supporting primary teachers in two schools. We see how she is working to enable members of her teams to gain the confidence to deliver their own lessons.

KS1/2 MFL - Sharing Skills- Primary with Primary

We look to Scotland for some great advice on teaching primary MFL

As English primary schools gear up to teach modern foreign languages, we look north of the border - where schools have 10 years experience of MFL - for some top tips and advice. Deep in rural Aberdeenshire, Easterfield has only 23 pupils, while inner-Edinburgh Bruntsfield Primary has 460, with a fair share of EAL. Local advisors Anne Moncur and Bethan Owen agree there's no perfect model for all contexts. In rural, "composite" Easterfield, Kate Miller is class teacher for children from seven to 12. Gentle immersion in French games and songs is fun but carefully planned to include the youngest and oldest at different levels and over successive years. In contrast, language teacher Jim Wilson is a specialist at Bruntsfield. As deputy headteacher, he explains some of the management issues involved in MFL provision, and we see him teach a more traditionally structured German lesson complete with lesson objectives, success criteria and "Knowledge about Language" input to a P7 class (the equivalent of the English Year 7).

KS1/2 MFL - Teaching

Introducing Spanish to the primary curriculum

In anticipation of the need for every primary school to deliver Key Stage 2 Modern Foreign Languages by 2009, we visit Arnot Community Primary in Liverpool to see how they are introducing Spanish to the curriculum. Pupils from Reception to Year 3 are taught greetings, names of animals, colours, days of the week, simple conversation and basic numbers through a variety of inventive methods. Non-specialist classroom teachers are supported in their teaching by a group of experts including LEA advisor Sheila Grady, MFL co-ordinator and AST Teresa Miller and dedicated foreign language assistant Lucia Abalos. Sheila Grady asserts that MFL integrates productively into KS1 schemes of work and believes that starting this process early can only benefit teachers and pupils as the KS2 requirement approaches. See the resources and support materials page for links related to this programme.

KS1/2 Modern Foreign Languages - Integrating Spanish - Reception to Year 3

How progression in grammar and literacy can be built into MFL

This programme explores how progression in grammar and literacy can be built into a school's Modern Foreign Languages strategy and asks what wider value can be gained from teaching MFL at primary level. Arnot Community Primary in Liverpool is a Centre of Excellence for MFL with Spanish speakers on staff and pupils learning the language from Foundation onwards. We visit the school and take a look at what they are achieving with their children by Year 6. We also discover what being a Centre of Excellence for MFL entails. More specifically, we focus on the numeracy work and games in Martin Fitzgerald's Year 5-6 class and speak with LEA advisors Jayne Patten and Sheila Grady. We also speak to foreign language assistant Lucia Abalos and hear from the non-specialist teachers who are delivering the strategies in the classroom.

KS1/2 Modern Foreign Languages - Strategies and Pay-offs - Spanish to Year 6

Pupils learn to talk about themselves through activities

Activity-based Learning focuses on a French lesson which aims to help pupils talk about themselves. The class learns vocabulary about pets and how to use structures '"j'ai" and "mon/ma" in different situations. CPD trainer and advanced skills teacher, Christine Capon, takes this lesson which could be led by teachers with any level of French. The lesson follows three stages, with the first focusing on a range of audio, visual and kinaesthetic approaches to introduce and consolidate new vocabulary. The class then practices their new vocabulary in small groups using cue and response techniques. The third stage provides a context for the pupils to use the new vocabulary, which avoids pure repetition. The class teacher leads an "introductions' game", where the pupils' dress in wigs and respond spontaneously to other pupils' characters. Anne Farren, general advisor for modern foreign languages at Richmond, provides expert commentary.

KS2 Modern Foreign Languages - Activity-Based Learning

Encouraging modern foreign languages at primary level

In many ways Greenhill Primary School is a primary like any. Yet here, the learning of modern foreign languages is embedded within the school's ethos. Pupils from nursery to Year 6 are shown the wealth of cultures that language learning unlocks. This draws, in part, on the skills and interests of teaching staff and fits into classroom life with comparative ease. Foreign language assistants from overseas add another dimension to the learning process and continue links with the school even after they return home. The children, more susceptible to learning language at a young age, are taught a variety of languages including French, German, Italian and Spanish. Innovative ideas and modern technology are used to engage their attention and promote a lasting enthusiasm for MFL. See the resources and support materials page for links related to this programme.

Mind Your Languages

A primary teacher uses a single language approach to teaching

Teacher Alex Hallinan brings a singular language approach to Almeley Primary School in Herefordshire. Almeley Primary is a rural school with fewer than eighty pupils, but already they are delivering French lessons to their pupils ahead of the government's future plans. With only GCSE French as her language background, Alex has developed her language skills through courses and personal study to a point where she's confident teaching a combined Year 4, 5 and 6 class. Alex takes her class through a French lesson that includes songs, language refreshers, structuring sentences and group work. Rosalind Venables, the advisory teacher for Primary Languages at the school, talks with Alex about the teaching styles and techniques they use, as well as the reasoning behind a singular language approach. This is part of a series looking at the introduction of languages to the primary curriculum, ahead of future government plans.

Primary Languages - Teachers and Children Starting French

It's a game of two halves for pupils at The Arsenal Double Club

Just like football, The Arsenal French Double Club is a game of two halves; but this consists of 45 minutes of French in the classroom and 45 minutes of football skills with a French twist. Working with the pupils at St Luke's Primary School in Islington, French teacher Marilyn Dhissi insists on speaking French throughout the classroom sessions. Vocabulary is linked to Arsenal players through workbooks and an interactive whiteboard to grab the pupils' attention. When working with the Arsenal football coaches later, they are again subjected to French vocabulary. At the end of each session the pupils receive fact file cards about the players as a reward, and are given the opportunity to go to the Emirates Stadium for a behind-the-scenes tour.

Professional Development for Quality Teaching

Subjects

> Primary Modern Foreign Languages

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