Introduction
French cafe
Some pupils have never studied French when they come to Breckenbrough or have any interest in another language. All pupils irrespective of their previous experience of a Modem Foreign Language are expected to attend French lessons up to Year 11 and to take GCSE. There is a further expectation that all pupils will not only take French but will succeed. Indeed the structure of the subject often provides pupils with their first real and continued success in an academic classroom.
Although there is no actual formal teaching of other modern languages, pupils are encouraged and supported to follow their interests. Some pupils have studied German and Spanish at evening class in the local colleges, but most direct their own learning through appropriate web sites. Over the years pupils have studied Swedish, Russian, Hebrew, Japanese and Welsh.
Aims
The aims of the department are to develop:
- the skills necessary to learn languages
- success in learning
- improved skill in presentation
- an interest in all languages
Programmes of study
- MFL Lesson
Year 7 : OK series. This has proved highly successful with our pupils as it is very user friendly and has a high proportion of tasks that are visual and oral. The series is broken down into small sections which allows pupils to progress quickly and provides them with evidence of their progress and therefore their success They can see that they are achieving.
Years 8/9: Key Stage 3 National Curriculum Work book which is backed up by a number of computer packages and web sites. These include ‘Linguascope’, ‘Zut’, ‘Houlala’ and ‘Smart Start’.
Pupils in Year 10 and 11 follow the AQA linear GCSE course. The advantage of this course is that the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing are assessed independently. For example a pupil who has difficulty with reading can be entered for the foundation level reading paper, but the same pupil might be very good at listening and he can be entered for the high level listening paper.
Successes
The French Department is proud of its success in building a positive attitude to the classroom. This enables pupils to achieve and encourages a large proportion of pupils to take the subject to GCSE level.
The department has developed what has become a traditional event, Café Breck, where pupils write a French menu, prepare the food and serve it to fellow pupils and staff. This proves very popular and is becoming increasingly cross curricular.
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