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Hungerhill School

Spanish

Modern Foreign Languages Curriculum Intent

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world,” said Ludwig Wittgenstein. At Hungerhill, our aspirational MFL curriculum ensures that our students are anything but limited in what they can achieve. Through our ‘Big Picture Projects’, they are also able to see the real-life relevance of the language and understand links between their prior, current and future learning. Students here develop a strong understanding of both the language and culture of French or Spanish-speaking countries.  In doing so, they develop excellent communication and interpersonal skills and an appreciation of the values of tolerance and respect for others. We provide regular opportunities to recycle knowledge through reading, listening, writing and speaking to ensure it is embedded, and to bridge gaps in knowledge identified by assessment. Therefore, our students are prepared, both academically and personally, for a wide range of opportunities in their further education, career and social lives.

Our curriculum will:

Develop the character of all students

  • Our aspirational, yet accessible curriculum, develops students who are resilient and passionate language learners.
  • Students are taught the values of tolerance and respect for other cultures, to broaden their perspectives and prepare them for the opportunities and challenges of life
  • In respect of reading, they are exposed to current, authentic texts, both within and outside of lessons to further stimulate their knowledge and understanding of different cultures and of a wider variety of language.
  • Students are expected to use the target language for routine conversations, and over time, become confident speakers of French or Spanish. Thus, they develop excellent communication and interpersonal skills required for success in life.

Ensure all students are literate and numerate

  • The MFL curriculum is driven by grammar. The essential grammatical knowledge for each learning sequence is clearly identified and increases in challenge over time. This ensures students have a sound knowledge of grammar as the foundation on which to build their subsequent linguistic knowledge. This includes the ability to apply known grammar in new contexts.
  • Students are encouraged to become inquisitive linguists, who are able to find links between languages, allowing understanding to be transferred between subjects.
  • Students are explicitly taught phonics to support their understanding of sound-spelling links for writing and improve their pronunciation.
  • Students develop a love of reading and are a taught a range of strategies to cope with increasingly challenging texts from a range of literary and non-fiction sources. This includes a variety of authentic materials.
  • Students have opportunities to develop their numeracy skills, often in real-life scenarios, such as restaurant bills and understanding time.

Build knowledge and aspirations of all students

  • Our engaging KS3 ‘Big Pictures’ ensure that students clearly see how their knowledge is developing throughout each learning sequence. These also set their language learning in real life situations, making it more relevant and thus raising their aspiration to succeed.
  • Schemes of learning are coherently planned, following a consistent lesson structure with frequent opportunities to recycle knowledge, review learning and assess understanding. They also incorporate time to address gaps in knowledge identified through assessment, in a way which is tailored to the individual needs of students.
  • SEND students are fully supported in accessing the full curriculum offer.
  • Students are provided with regular opportunities to showcase their achievements, for which they are praised and rewarded, thus increasing their aspiration to succeed.

 

Ensure all students have the secure foundations to progress into further education and employment

  • The MFL curriculum begins with an awareness of students’ KS2 MFL experience. Subsequently, it develops students’ linguistic knowledge as well as their confidence and communication skills to prepare them for Key Stage 5 and beyond.
  • Students are constantly provided with opportunities to build on their grammatical knowledge whilst recycling their knowledge of vocabulary and grammatical points in new contexts, to ensure that their knowledge is secure.

 

Develop cultural capital of all students

  • Students develop a strong awareness of the culture of French or Spanish-speaking countries through experience lessons, working with our Foreign Language Assistant, educational visits and the regular use of both paper-based and digital authentic materials.
  • Students are provided with a range of extra-curricular activities which allow them to further develop their linguistic competence and awareness of French and Spanish culture.
  • Students are encouraged to participate in a variety of trips and visits to the country of the target language they are studying.

Mrs H Turner

Curriculum Leader

 

 

 

 

Mr S Newton

Assistant Curriculum Leader 

 

 

 

 

Spanish KS3

​How parents/carers can support their child's learning in KS3  ​​​How parents/carers can support their child's learning in KS4 
  • ​Assist with regular vocabulary learning, using the MS Forms retrieval quizzes
  • Supervising students' use of school authorised websites (Memrise, etc)
  • Encourage their child to share their learning at home
  • Ensuring homework is completed in a suitable environment to a good standard and on time
  • Assist with regular vocabulary learning, using the MS Forms retrieval quizzes
  • Supervising students' use of school authorised websites (Memrise, etc)
  • Encourage their child to share their learning at home
  • Encourage their child to regularly revise tenses (present, past and future) and expressing opinions
  • Ensuring homework is completed in a suitable environment, to a good standard and on time

GCSE Spanish

Exam Board:

AQA

Qualification:

GCSE

Assessment:

Examination 100% - (four skill areas)

Students will be assessed in the following skill area:

Students will sit terminal exams in the four skill areas of Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing - all of which will be equally weighted (25% per skill area). Students sit the papers at either Foundation or Higher tier and must sit the same tier for all elements of the exam.

 

The Listening exam will require students to respond to questions and demonstrate an understanding of clear standard speech, noting details, opinions, past, present and future tenses and also deducing meaning from a variety of short passages. 

 

The Speaking exam will involve communicating and interacting effectively in speech using accurate pronunciation and intonation to be understood by a native speaker. Students will take part in a short conversation, asking and answering questions, exchanging opinions, conveying information and narrating events to express and justify their own thoughts and points of view. 

 

The Reading exam will require students to understand and respond to different types of written language (including authentic materials) to identify the overall message, key points, details and opinions (recognising the relationship between past, present and future events). A new skill will also be examined under the new specification - translation where students need to translate a short passage from the assessed language into English. 

 

The Writing exam will involve writing short texts, using simple sentences and familiar language accurately to convey meaning and exchange information presenting facts, ideas and opinions appropriately for different purposes (to interest, inform or convince) and in different settings using a variety of vocabulary and grammatical structures, to describe and narrate with reference to past, present and future events. Translation of sentences and short texts from English into the assessed language to convey key messages accurately will also be examined on this paper. 

Outline of Course Content:

 

GCSE specifications will require students to understand and use language across a range of topics, appropriate to their age, interests and maturity levels. 

The topics covered include: 

  • identity and culture 
  • local, national, international and global areas of interest 
  • current and future study and employment 

A new addition to the new specification is that authentic literary texts such as poems, letters, short stories, essays, novels or plays from contemporary and historical sources will be used in teaching. This will enhance students' intercultural understanding, promote language learning and develop a range of skills.

 

Careers using Spanish

Good at making yourself understood?

For a variety of jobs you have to be able to communicate in one or more foreign languages. The obvious examples are to work as a translator or interpreter, but there are many more. Some jobs need you to be completely fluent while for others, it's enough to be able to hold a basic conversation. Entry requirements vary from GCSEs to postgraduate qualifications 

  • Translating and interpreting: you must be fluent in at least one foreign language. As a translator, you deal with the written word. As an interpreter, you provide spoken translations and might, for example, interpret at international conferences.  
  • Travel and tourism: you could work as a holiday representative (rep) or a courier/tour escort for a tour operator. 
  • Teaching: if you've enjoyed learning languages, you may enjoy teaching them to others. Ask your teacher what it's like 
  • Sales and export: sales staff – and scientific and technical people – who take products and services abroad need to be able to build good relationships with the people they hope to do business with; this is much easier and likely to be more successful if you can speak to potential customers in their own language. 
  • Legal and financial: companies and organisations that conduct business overseas often require the services of lawyers, accountants and insurance professionals who specialise in international laws and regulations. 
  • Journalism: a reporter of foreign affairs is more likely to find out what is happening if he or she understands the language. There's not always an interpreter on hand when you need one! 
  • Civil Service: Work within the Diplomatic service and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office often requires high level knowledge of a language. 

Some people wish to undertake a ‘gap year’ either before or after attending University. This often involves travelling overseas. To finance such a trip people during their travels often find temporary jobs whilst away, such jobs are frequently service and catering work however knowledge of a language can be very helpful in these circumstances

 

Progression

Many 6th forms offer language A levels, the most commonly offered at French, German and Spanish although others may be available. Ancient languages such as Latin may also be offered.
 
A very wide range of languages is offered by Universities. This includes the modern European languages but also languages traditionally associated with the Middle Eastern region and Asia. Mandarin Chinese is an increasingly popular University language choice.
 
Universities allow languages to be combined with a huge range of other subjects which can lead to some very interesting timetables and, of course, studying a language at University has traditionally included the opportunity for the student to spend a year abroad as part of the course.