Modern Foreign Languages (MFL): French
‘One language sets you in a corridor for life; a second opens the doors along the way.’ At The Latimer Arts College, through the study of a MFL, students have the opportunity to broaden their future opportunities through developing their practical language skills as well as understanding more about the cultures of the wider world.
Our key principle in MFL is to provide opportunities for our students to experience a world beyond our school, encouraging them to become more inquisitive about the wider world in which they live.
Curriculum Aims
Our curriculum is challenging, and we strive to ensure that we deliver a high standard of academic achievement in order to open doors for our students that provide a whole range of ambitious options for their future pathways.
Through the study of MFL our students have access to a rich, broad and varied curriculum, learning more about diverse aspects of other cultures and articulating their own views and opinions in the target language. Our curriculum aims for MFL are based on the National Curriculum and the exam specifications, and we seek to deliver topics and themes that will engage and enthuse the students in our own community in order to meet these goals.
Our students will be able to listen to and read from a wide range of sources, including native speakers, in order to develop an extensive and relevant range of vocabulary. They will develop and enhance their productive linguistic skills, enabling them to communicate in speaking and writing with increasing levels of fluency, challenge and accuracy.
Students will learn to transfer their skills across topics, with frequent opportunities to revisit and practise the building blocks required to communicate at an appropriate, yet challenging level.
Curriculum Design
The Modern Foreign Languages curriculum is designed taking into account the Ofsted research review series which stresses the concept of students needing to know the ‘Building Blocks’ of language in order to communicate effectively and authentically. The introduction of each building block is carefully timed to provide a logical, but ambitious, progression of grammatical understanding. Students' understanding of how languages work will grow through carefully structured, progressive programmes of study.
Our focus on sentence builders, comprehensible input and the importance of listening is influenced by the work of Gianfranco Conti and we are developing our phonics teaching in line with the new GCSE. Our curriculum spirals 6 content strands: My Personal World, Lifestyle and Wellbeing, My Neighbourhood, Media and Technology, School and Future plans and Travel & Tourism.
We provide engaging and increasingly challenging thematic content through which to teach the core skills, with current music and up-to-date films used to engage and enthuse our students. By the end of Year 11 our students will have a sound understanding and interest in the culture of France, and are able to communicate spontaneously and effectively in spoken and written French.
Please click the link to view our Modern Foreign Languages Curriculum Year Overview
Future Pathways and Next Steps
The study of MFL is designed to provide our students with the opportunity to develop their problem-solving, resilience and communication skills, preparing them to be successful in the next stage in their education, training or employment. Through the study of MFL we aim to unlock each students' potential and inspire them to achieve excellence by being the best they can be. This can lead to a wide range of future opportunities, some of which include:
University Degrees: Classics, European Studies, French Studies, International Relations, Marketing, Business
Apprenticeships: Cabin Crew, Travel Consultant
Careers: Aid worker, International Business, Armed Forces, Translators, Interpreters, Travel industry, International Law, Teaching
Students can find out more about the subject and careers above by logging into their Unifrog account at https://www.unifrog.org/sign-in and using the Subject Library and Careers Library tools.