French

French at KS3

In years 7 to 9 we use Metro rouge or vert (for the purpose of differentiation) as our main textbooks. It gives a balance between speaking, reading, writing and listening so that you develop all your communication skills in French. This year, we have introduced another the text book ‘Clic Interactif’ mainly for year 9. The purpose is raise the awareness of the importance of languages and make youngsters experience more authentic and real circumstances in the target language; using videos, games and exciting visual and engaging materials.

In year 7 students will learn how to: introduce them self, give information about them self, say what they study and what school is like, describe people, talk about their family, and describe where they live in some detail. Even though pupils start at level 1 at the beginning of the academic year, many of them are able to achieve levels 3 or 4 in the summer term.

In year 8 students will learn how to: talk about their free time, make future plans, make invitations, talk about their town and the weather, talk about celebrities, and make excuses. During this year, pupils start to have a taste of grammar and tenses. They also become more familiar with the use of some connectives and opinions. By the end of this year, Pupils can achieve levels 3 to 5.

In year 9 students will learn how to: talk about holidays in the past, describe meals, go shopping, and order in a restaurant, talk about clothes and give opinions about them, give directions, and read short stories in French. During this year pupils should be able to use different tenses and more sophisticated vocabulary and challenging connectives and opinions. Pupils who continue to progress consistently throughout Key Stage 3 can achieve level 6 or above by the end of this year.

These are just a few examples: we do lots more, keeping the focus always on learning the language bit by bit through communication and discovery

French at KS4

At Key Stage 4 students develop a more sophisticated set of communication skills, and can talk about more difficult topics, such as the world of work and the environment. They learn how to manipulate the language, to say what they want to in a wide range of social situations. They will also have fun: we do activities in French, to go to a local restaurant or language village trip, or join in the annual trip to France!

During the two years of KS4, pupils prepare two controlled assessment, each one should be between 200 to 300 words; two speaking conversations (for example: hobbies; sport, jobs, etc). At the end of year 11, pupils have a listening and reading test.