Assignment 1

During Assignment 1 students will be introduced to the four essential language learning skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. There will be a particular focus on speaking in French. Students will learn the fundamental phonetic sounds, and begin to recognise and pronounce the common letter strings in French with increasing confidence.

They will do this through the topic of Identity and Culture, reflecting and commenting in French on the question “who am I?” exploring their personal likes and dislikes, as well as those of others. They will explore character and physical traits, describing themselves, family, friends, and people they admire. They will learn some past tense phrases as they discuss and celebrate things that they have done and achieved.

Students will be assessed by GCSE style tasks in speaking and writing for this assignment, which will test their ability to describe a photograph. Students will have weekly vocabulary tests throughout the year to consolidate their language learning.

Assignment 2

In Assignment 2 students will learn to discuss multiple aspects of their experience of school as well as how to tell the time in French and will use time when explaining their daily routines and habits. Students will explore the French and English school systems, discussing rules and pressures, and will learn comparative language and a range of connectives to express extended opinions. Students will continue to develop their understanding of the past tense, and will also learn to use set phrases in the imperfect and the conditional tenses in French.

Throughout this Assignment students will practise the skill of translation. This will involve translating sentences and short passages from French into English, and from English into French. Assessment will be in the form of a series of GCSE style reading and writing tasks, which will involve comprehension, composition, and translation.

Assignment 3

The main focus for Assignment 3 will be to consolidate the grammar and skills students will have acquired throughout the year. Students will develop their working knowledge of a range of Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs, Opinions, Connectives, Adverbs, Tenses and Show off language, (NAVOCATS). They will explore the realm of social media and entertainment, commenting specifically on the experiences of young people.

The main assessment will involve a GCSE style speaking role play task, and a GCSE style listening test. For the speaking role play, students will take part in a transactional interchange in French, asking and answering a range of questions in a given context. Regular spelling tests of key terms will continue right through to the end of Year 7 providing a concrete foundation for their future language learning.