Learning a foreign language provides an opening to other cultures. At St Catherine’s Primary School we help pupils to express their ideas and thoughts through the teaching of Spanish, and to understand and respond to its speakers; both in speech and in writing. We also provide opportunities for the children to communicate for practical purposes.
At St. Catherine's, we have chosen to teach Spanish as our Modern Foreign Language. Spanish is the world's second largest spoken language and is also offered at all of St. Catherine's feeder secondary schools as a language option. It is a lively and vibrant language which the pupils have shown a real desire to learn.
To deliver our MFL teaching, we use a scheme called Primary Languages Network. By using this scheme, our teachers are able to learn on-the-go, teach interactively, attend CPD events, have the opportunity to practice conversationally and use videos of native Spanish speakers during lessons to introduce content to the pupils. This is a key aspect, as we are giving pupils an authentic learning experience whilst at the same time supporting our staff in what to many has been a new language to teach.
Within each lesson, children recap and review previous work and then learn something new. The language acquisition activities are taught through a mixture of games and songs as well as listening and repeating and partner work. Pupils will cover aspects of Spanish from numbers and colours to clothes, holidays and the weather. The language elements that they learn are designed to support day to day interactions with another speaker of Spanish.
Below is the scheme of work. Most year groups are currently working within Stage 1, as this is the first year that Spanish has been taught at St. Catherine's.