Intent
At Whitmore Park Primary School, we believe that good quality language education can help pupils to develop a curiosity for other cultures and deepen their understanding of the world. We aim to enable pupils to be able to actively participate in a multicultural and mutually respectful world. At Whitmore Park we began our journey into teaching Spanish in MFL in the 2021 / 22 academic year.
As well as celebrating the diverse range of languages spoken by our school community, we provide all students from year 3 with the opportunity to learn Spanish. We ensure that students have access to a rigorous Languages curriculum taught by a subject specialist.
Building ‘cultural capital’ is central to our curriculum. Through learning about the countries where Spanish is spoken, pupils become motivated learners who see the value in learning other languages and understanding other cultures.
We also place a strong emphasis on phonetic awareness. This is based on evidence that learners are most able to store language in their long-term memory if they can hear how it sounds, and connect this to how it looks on the page. All students in year 3 start their language learning journey by learning ‘Physical Phonics’, where each sound is introduced with an action. This phonetic knowledge is then referred to throughout their time at Whitmore Park to help pupils become successful listeners, readers, writers, and speakers of Spanish. Our curriculum helps students develop the foundations they need for further foreign language study from Year 7 and a seamless transition to Secondary school.
Implementation
Curriculum and Planning
Our Spanish curriculum is informed by research-based evidence, where students are introduced to ‘chunks’, or patterns, of language, rather than single words, so that they learn how to use words in context and develop their grammatical awareness. At the start of a new unit, sentence builders and real-life contexts for learning are shared with pupils, to help them to understand the ‘big picture’ and purpose for their learning. Sentence builders are used as scaffolds to support children in producing and structuring new language, and are then gradually removed to promote fluency and spontaneity.
The Spanish curriculum is carefully planned so that language chunks are interleaved throughout. Through revisiting and developing vocabulary, alongside learning new chunks, we strive to ensure students leave Whitmore Park with a secure and deep foundation in Spanish. Students are provided with the opportunities to practise manipulating the language, individually and in groups, through a wide range of activities including listening and speaking. This will help them to become a confident and successful language-learner at secondary school, whether they go on to study Spanish or a different language.
As you can see below, students learn both implicitly and explicitly and topics are carefully mapped out to allow for sufficient interleaving of learning. Assessments also ensure that students are assessed against a wide range of language skills:
Grammatical awareness
Students are exposed to grammatical structures and lexical patterns throughout. Students learn to use different tenses and grammatical rules, which are continually revisited and build in difficulty. This allows students to demonstrate a sound knowledge and are able to manipulate the language.
Cultural Capital
At the start of each year, students are exposed to a Cultural Capital unit, where they start to appreciate other cultures and learn about the history and traditions of Hispanic countries. Students embark themselves in a journey, exploring contrasting cultures and revisiting language they have previously learnt. Each year of learning is then delivered in a thematic way so that this learning is well embedded. Talking points and authentic language opportunities are offered to students throughout the year.
How are SEND students supported?
At Whitmore Park, we believe that students with SEND should have access to the same broad and balanced curriculum as the rest of the class. All children, regardless of ability, will have the opportunity to learn Spanish. Lessons are adapted to support them, these include:
Differentiation, including the use of Sentence Builders.
- The use of Gimkit quizzes to learn and rehearse vocabulary.
- Allowing students that find difficulty in reading and writing, but who possess good aural skills, to excel at speaking in Spanish.
- Use of visual aids
- Technology (including IPads) to access resources such online dictionaries and GimKit
- Audio-lingual activities such as singing and chanting, to help learners store language in their long-term memory
- Kinaesthetic activities such as ‘Physical Phonics’.
- Regular interleaving of vocabulary to reduce cognitive load
- Additional adult support in class
Impact
Students really enjoy learning languages, and continually look forward to learning languages. Students seek additional opportunities to learn Spanish in their day-to-day life.
Students transition to Secondary schools with a secure knowledge and foundation in languages. As a consequence many learners are able to take an additional language qualification in Secondary school.
To ensure that the children are making progress, the subject specialist teacher will embed formative assessment into Spanish lessons. This could be, for example, through a retrieval practice quiz, self-differentiated translation exercises, or listening games using mini-whiteboards. Children will be assessed both on the language chunks that they are currently learning and on chunks learned in prior terms. This is to ensure that all children have a secure foundation of vocabulary which they will be able to retain and build on as they go forward into secondary school.
Please click here to see a full copy of our MFL intent statement.