Modern Foreign Languages (Spanish)

A high-quality languages education should foster children’s curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. At Colham Manor, we are committed to ensuring that teaching enables pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. We recognise that competence in another language enables children to interpret, create and exchange meaning within and across cultures.

The 2014 National Curriculum for Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) aims to ensure that all children:

• Understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources

• Are able to speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and that they are continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation

• Can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt

• Discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied

Our Approach

We teach Spanish using the 'Language Angels' Scheme of Work. Each lesson is built around specific goals and subject themes so that pupils can develop their language skills as a series of building blocks. 

The three ‘pillars’ of language learning (phonics, grammar and vocabulary) are all built into our approach and, as pupils progress through the units and teaching types, previous language is recycled, revisited and consolidated and any new language introduced gradually becomes more complex and sophisticated. These three pillars of learning contribute to substantial progress in Spanish by the end of our pupils' time at primary school.

The four language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) are catered for. Early Learning units focus on listening and speaking but still provide age-appropriate materials for reading and writing. As children progress, there is an equal focus on all four of the skills in progressively more challenging activities.

What Spanish Looks Like

We are committed to ensuring our Spanish teaching provides the foundation for learning further languages, as well as the means to access international opportunities for study and work later in life.  Children are introduced to Spanish from Year 3. The teaching of Spanish provides an appropriate balance of spoken and written language and lays the foundations for further foreign language teaching at Key Stage 3. Throughout Key Stage 2, children receive a 30–minute lesson every week.

The ‘three pillars of language learning’ of phonics, grammar and vocabulary are all built into all of our lessons.

• Phonics: There are four sequential and progressive phonics lessons incorporated into all our long-term planning. These build up pupils’ phonetic knowledge, moving from the phoneme on its own, to seeing it in high frequency words and then finally incorporated in context in a longer piece of text. Each year group has a particular group of phonemes to focus on. These are constantly revisited and revised in the subsequent lessons, including the end of unit revision lesson.

• Grammar: Grammar is woven into every unit. It is introduced implicitly in the Early Learning units then moving towards a more explicit approach in our Intermediate and then Progressive units. The grammar is age-appropriate and is what we consider most useful for pupils at this stage of their language learning journey. Once introduced, any grammar is constantly revisited and recycled in the units that follow. 
• Vocabulary: Essential vocabulary to be covered is the minimum, most useful age-appropriate, non-negotiable language to be taught at each stage of learning. Every unit will recap and consolidate the core vocabulary and then add on more language so that pupils gradually expand their range of language helping them to understand more and start to say and write more.

Children are taught to listen attentively to spoken language and respond, joining in with songs, rhymes and games. They develop an appreciation of a variety of stories, songs, poems and rhymes in Spanish that are delivered through the curriculum content.

Pupils and staff at Colham Manor benefit from the support of a native Spanish speaking MFL lead.

Curriculum Celebrations

We have facilitated international residential visits to Barcelona. On these visits, children made some lifelong memories. Our pupils who attended also benefitted from maximum exposure to the language during their trip, providing constant opportunities for learners to use their Spanish in a real-world setting so that they see the benefits of learning a second language.

How Can I Support My Child's Learning?

You might like to support their learning at home by trying some of the following:

1. Learn alongside them: Find out the language they are learning and get them to teach you some key words and phrases. You may also wish to invest in a child friendly Spanish dictionary to look up further words.

2. Make it multimedia: 

• Duolingo is a free, fun and effective app to learn languages on. 
• Bitesize Spanish have lots of songs, games and activities to support the learning of Spanish.
• Bitesize languages have lots of activities linked to other languages your child may be interested in.