Languages
The Modern Language Department currently offers students the opportunity to develop their language skills in French and Spanish. Currently, students at KS3 have the opportunity to learn both languages. From September, Year 9 students may opt to further their language learning at GCSE level.
Throughout the language learning process, there is an emphasis on communicating in the foreign language, as well as listening and reading comprehension. Activities range widely from use of interactive sources, both in the classroom and in the computer suite, to working with realia, learning from foreign media and project work.
The new GCSE course:
- allows students to develop language skills in a variety of contexts
- is a flexible, unitised structure which allows students to maximise achievement
- offers a choice of contexts and purposes for writing and speaking units
- listening and reading assessments carry forward structure of existing specification, offering continuity
- embraces opportunities offered by new subject criteria to lessen the stress of assessment in speaking
- builds on the KS3 study and prepares students for further study, eg. AS to A2, etc.
For all purposes, students will be expected, as they progress linguistically, to:
- cope with a greater degree of unpredictability
- deal with a widening range of potential problems
- understand and use more accurately a widening rage of vocabulary and structures
- understand issues and opinions
- discuss issues and give opinions
- give full descriptions and accounts
Topics used for the new French GCSE
Lifestyle
Health (healthy and unhealthy lifestyles and their consequences)
Relationships and choices (relationships with family and friends, future plans regarding marriage/partnership), social issues and equality
Leisure
Free time and the media (free time activities, shopping, money, fashion and trends, advantages and disadvantages of new technology)
Holidays (plans, preferences and experiences, what to see and getting around)
Home and environment
Home and local area (special occasions celebrated in the home, home, town, neighbourhood and region, where it is and what it is like)
Environment: current problems facing the planet, being environmentally friendly within the home and local area
Work and education
School and college and future plans (what school/college is like), pressures and problems)
Current and future jobs (looking for and getting a job, advantages and disadvantages of different jobs)