Purpose

As an MFL department within an inner-city school, we seek to celebrate our rich linguistic and cultural heritage and instil in our students an intrinsic love of language. We passionately view languages as a portal to a wealth of personal, social and professional experiences that will create outward-looking, tolerant individuals ready to seize all opportunities that come their way.

Through actively engaging our students in Hispanic and Francophone culture, we strive to create good communicators and listeners and lay the foundations for life-long language study. This means being able to communicate for practical purposes, adapt to new ways of thinking, develop resilience and independence and have a natural curiosity for language and culture. Enjoyment and active engagement from our students are essential to achieving this aim.

Big Ideas

• Communication
• Listening
• Language structure
• Empathy/tolerance
• Language function
• Cultural understanding
• Purpose/real life goals
• Language learning strategies
• Appropriacy

Principles

• Appreciate the value and enjoyment of language learning
• Develop an appreciation of Hispanic and Francophone culture
• Make meaningful links between languages
• Increase understanding of one’s mother tongue
• Deepen active listening skills
• Establish effective language-learning routines and problem-solving strategies
• Analyse and break down linguistic pattern;
• Maintain high standards of linguistic accuracy
• Use language effectively to achieve practical aims
• Express and discuss points of view appropriately