A journey to excellence

Modern Foreign Languages (MFL)

Subject Vision

"One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way."

Frank Smith, Canadian psycholinguist

Language learning is an asset for future studies and job opportunities and will of course help you communicate with others, but also understand other cultures and your own better.
It also has great benefits for your brain: memory improvement, longer attention span, and a reduced risk of age-related cognitive decline, are just a few of the known positive effects of speaking two or more languages.

Therefore, we believe learning a language is important to develop well-rounded students.

Our aims include:

enabling our students to use foreign languages effectively for practical communication
enabling all students to achieve their full potential
enabling our students to understand the structure of languages and how they work.
creating an environment where our students enjoy learning a foreign language.
promoting awareness and understanding of different culture.

In French lessons, students learn key phonics from the start of Year 7 and the sounds and written language correlation is reinforced in every unit of work. Students start their French learning journey at Ivanhoe School by introducing themselves in the present tense, give opinions and describe themselves and others. This allows students to learn key grammatical concepts such as the gender of nouns, using adjectives and some basic verb conjugation. This knowledge is essential in order to be able to access the Year 8 and 9 curricula, where students learn to describe events in the past and future as well as complex structures.

Students can opt to learn French or Spanish in Year 9. In Spanish, they start with basics to build from such as phonics, introductions and descriptions.

At Ivanhoe School, in languages lessons, students develop listening, speaking, reading and writing skills to express themselves and respond with confidence. Students also focus on language learning skills which will help them to learn other languages in the future. They also develop awareness and understanding of other countries and cultures. For instance, students learn about Christmas celebrations, monuments to visit in France/ Spain and French or Spanish-speaking countries, discuss Francophone music and artists or Spanish-speaking artists to name a few.

French 5 Year Journey Map (Click to pop up)

Year 7 Topics

Autumn	Spring	Summer
Introducing myself Describing myself and others	Talking about school	Discussing hobbies and Sports

Year 8 Topics

Autumn	Spring	Summer
Talking about my family and friends and getting on. Imagining or describing a visit to Paris	Continuing the visit to Paris Talking about my home	Discussing and ordering food and drinks