Spanish
Interim Curriculum Leader: Jamie Andrews
Mr Andrews is our Languages Leader and is responsible for this curriculum area. This means ensuring we teach an ambitious curriculum, supporting our teachers to implement our curriculum through high-quality lessons and checking that lessons are helping our children to know more, remember more and do more.
Purpose of study
Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and read great literature in the original language. Language teaching should provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries.
Aims
The national curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils:
- understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
- speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation
- can write at varying lengths, 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.
Progression
Here is an overview of what we expect children to be taught, know and do by the end of each year group.
Year 3
Through Year 3 the children will be taught to listen to and enjoy short stories, nursery rhymes & songs. Recognise familiar words and short phrases covered in the units taught. Communicate with others using simple words and short phrases covered in the units. Read familiar words and short phrases accurately by applying knowledge from 'Phonics Lesson 1'. Understand the meaning in English of short words I read in a foreign language. Write familiar words & short phrases using a model or vocabulary list. EG: 'I play the piano'. 'I like apples'. The children will also start to understand the concept of noun gender and the use of articles. Use the first-person singular version of high-frequency verbs. EG: 'I like…' 'I play…' 'I am called…'
Year 4
In Year 4 the children will learn to listen to longer passages and understand more of what we hear by picking out key words and phrases covered in current and previous units. Communicate with others with improved confidence and accuracy. Learn to ask and answer questions based on the language covered in the units and incorporate a negative reply if and when required. Read aloud short pieces of text applying knowledge learnt from 'Phonics Phonics & Pronunciation Lessons 1 & 2'. Understand most of what we read in a foreign language when it is based on a familiar language. Write some short phrases based on familiar topics and begin to use connectives/conjunctions and the negative form where appropriate. EG: My name, where I live and my age. The children will better understand the concept of gender and which articles to use for meaning (EG: 'the', 'a' or 'some'). Introduce simple adjectival agreement (EG: adjectival agreement when describing nationality), the negative form and possessive adjectives. EG: 'In my pencil case I have…' or 'In my pencil case I do not have...'
Year 5
Over the course of Year 5, the children will learn to listen more attentively and for longer. Understand more of what they hear even when some of the language may be unfamiliar by using the decoding skills we have developed. They will learn to communicate on a wider range of topics and themes. Remember and recall a range of vocabulary with increased knowledge, confidence and spontaneity. Understand longer passages in the foreign language and start to decode the meaning of unknown words using cognates and context. Increase their knowledge of phonemes and letter strings using knowledge learnt from 'Phonics Lessons 1 to 3'. They will learn to write a paragraph using familiar language incorporating connectives/conjunctions, a negative response and adjectival agreement where required. Learn to manipulate the language and be able to substitute words for suitable alternatives. EG: My name, my age, where I live, a pet I have, a pet I don't have and my pet's name. The children will also revise gender and nouns and learn to use and recognise the terminology of articles (EG: definite, indefinite and partitive). Understand better the rules of adjectival agreement and possessive adjectives. Start to explore full verb conjugation (EG: 'I wear...', 'he/she wears...' and also be able to describe clothes in terms of colour EG: 'My blue coat'.
Year 6
In year 6, the children will learn to listen to longer texts and more authentic foreign language material. They will learn to pick out cognates and familiar words and learn to 'gist listen' even when hearing language that has not been taught or covered. The children will also learn to recall previously learnt language and recycle/incorporate it with new language with increased speed and spontaneity. Children will also engage in short conversations on familiar topics, responding with opinions and justifications where appropriate. Children will also be able to tackle unknown language with increased accuracy by applying knowledge learnt from 'Phonics Lessons 1 to 4' including awareness of accents, silent letters etc. Decode unknown language using bilingual dictionaries. In their writing, they will learn to write a piece of text using language from a variety of units covered and learn to adapt any models provided to show a solid understanding of any grammar covered. Also start to incorporate conjugated verbs and learn to be comfortable using connectives/conjunctions, adjectives and possessive adjectives. E.g.: A presentation or description of a typical school day including subjects, time and opinions. Pupils will also consolidate our understanding of gender and nouns, use of the negative, adjectival agreement and possessive adjectives (e.g.: which subjects I like at school and also which subjects I do not like). Become familiar with a wider range of connectives/conjunctions and more confident with full-verb conjugation - both regular and irregular. E.g.: 'to go', 'to do', 'to have' and 'to be'.