Modern Foreign Languages

Our Vision:

Our aim at WES is to provide pupils with an insight into other cultures via the medium of French and German. We aim to foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. By the end of year 11 we want pupils to be able to express their ideas and thoughts in French and German and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. We will provide opportunities for pupils to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and to be exposed to literature in the original language. We also hope that learning a foreign language will provide the foundation and motivation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries through schemes such as UK-German Connection and other international exchange programmes.

Our key objectives are 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 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.

As a department, we believe that studying another language is important to a student’s programme of study for a number of reasons:

It improves the understanding of our own language
We build on and extend existing communication skills
We better understand our place in an increasingly global world
We have greater empathy for and less fear of ‘difference’
We become more employable
It can be both challenging and fun!

The time allocated to each of the elements of the specification reflects the weighting of that element, as shown in the table below – all skills have an equal weighting and are worth 25% each in the final assessment, so equal amounts of time should be spent on each skill when covering 3 themes in the AQA specification.

Years 10 (French) and 11:

The three themes are: Identity and culture; Local, national, international and global areas of interest, Current and future study and employment. All themes and topics must be studied in the context of both the students’ home country and that of countries and communities where German is spoken.

Skill	Weighting	Assessment objectives
Listening	25%	AO1
Speaking	25%	AO2
Reading	25%	AO3
Writing	25%	AO4

Years 7-9:

The three themes are: People and lifestyle; Popular culture; Communication and the world around us. Whilst the weighting per skill (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing) remain the same at both Key Stages, Assessment Objectives are thus for the revised GCSE:

AO1: understand and respond to spoken language in speaking and in writing
AO2: understand and respond to written language in speaking and in writing
AO3: demonstrate understanding and accurate application of the grammar and vocabulary prescribed in the specification.