Spanish at St Nicholas
Spanish
Intent
‘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.’ (National Curriculum 2014)
At St Nicholas, we believe that the skills, knowledge and understanding gained and built upon through learning a language contribute to the development of children’s oracy and literacy and to their understanding of their own culture and those of others around the world. We feel that the earlier a child is exposed to a foreign language, the quicker the language in question will be acquired and utilised. We believe that the early acquisition of Spanish will facilitate the learning of other foreign languages children may encounter or learn later in life. We will prepare children for the KS3 language curriculum to enable them to transfer confidently and successfully.
Implementation
At St Nicholas, we teach Spanish across Key Stage 2. The school uses the ‘Language Angels’ scheme of work to support the teaching and learning of Spanish. This provides clear progression for the development of speaking and listening and vocabulary acquisition. There are resources to improve teacher pedagogy and subject knowledge in turn supporting the teaching and learning opportunities for pupils.
We use a variety of the following techniques to encourage children to have an active engagement with Spanish:
· Games – in order to develop vocabulary through repetition, reading, writing, speaking and listening skills.
· Role-play – these should relate to the situations the children may find themselves in the future.
· Action songs and rhymes – to develop phonetic skills, memory skills and to further vocabulary.
· Reading and writing quality materials.
· We build children’s confidence through praise for any contribution they make in the foreign language, however tentative.
We base the teaching on the 2014 National Curriculum through the Language Angels. We have adapted this to the context of our school. This provides teachers with clear unit overviews, progression grids and content for teaching and learning.
Impact
Through the high quality – first teaching of Spanish taking place, we will see the impact of the subject in the following ways:
· Children will become aware that a language has a structure, and that the structure differs from one language to another.
· Children will develop their language and communication through development of the four key skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing.
· Children will enrich their language learning by developing an understanding of the Spanish culture.
· Children will enrich their language learning by participating with enrichment days such as food tasting, sports and assemblies, as well as cross-curricular links in subjects such as Geography and History.
· Children will transfer to KS3 effectively and successfully and will be well prepared to continue and develop their language skills.