In Year 7 and Year 8 the A band students learn French and German. B band students study French, and all students have the opportunity to attend Languages Club to have a taster of many other languages.

We follow the MFL Framework Strategy, which is closely linked to the National Literacy Strategy, this means that our students learn how a language is structured, rather than learning a list of sentences and vocabulary by heart.

Year 7

As with French we use a range of resources to support the learning of students, including interactive whiteboard resources, websites, games and textbooks

Students cover three modules in Year 7 which all centre around them creating their own TV character and show:

1. Ich und meine Familie: In this unit students cover the basics of name, classroom language, the alphabet, numbers, months of the year, birthdays, colours, where I live, nationalities, European countries, brothers and sisters, pets, physical descriptions, character descriptions. They then use this to help them present their favourite TV character to the class and explain why they like them so much.
2. Meine Routine: This unit builds on the first and adds structures and vocabulary connected to the topics of daily routine, school subjects and telling the time. In this unit students create their own TV character and design a daily routine suitable for them. Some students even start to create other characters for their main person to interact with. Some classes have created their own “Top Trumps” game based on the soap families they have each created.

In meiner Freizeit: Holidays, Transport, Accomodation, Weather and Food and drink are all topics covered in this unit of work. Students are also introduced to the future tense which is key for achieving level 5 and above. In this unit they design a plot twist for their TV show where the characters are planning to go away on holiday.  They present it to the class as though they are presenting it to TV executives who then decide which show should be re-commissioned for next year.

Students will learn about:

• Gender
• Cases – the accusative and the dative case
• Adjective agreement
• Possessive pronouns
• Singular and plural nouns
• The verb haben (to have)
• The verb sein (to be)
• Regular verbs in the present tense
• Negative sentences
• The verb gehen (to go)
• Some common irregular verbs
• Some high frequency prepositions

By the end of Year 7 (the summer examination and their full written reports), students will be able to achieve a Level 4a, although some may be producing written work at level 5 if they grasp the future tense quickly.

Year 8

1. wo ich wohne: talking about where you live, describing your house and bedroom
2. are you fit?: what you should and shouldn’t eat, exercise, lifestyle choices, what you were like when you were younger, how you will change your lifestyle in the future
3. Daily routine: what you do before school,  school rules, future plans

 There will be constant revision of the language covered in Year 7. In addition, students will learn about:

• Word order
• Reviewing the present tense
• Register of language
• Imperfect past tense
• Prepositions that are always followed by a certain case
• Adjective endings in the accusative case
• Imperative
• Modal verbs
• Comparatives
• Possessive pronouns
• Separable verbs in the perfect tense
• Talking about what I want to do (future)

By the end of Year 8 (the summer examination and their full written reports), students should be able to achieve their target level.

This year we will also be covering a unit of work specifically design to celebrate the Olympics being held here.