French
French is introduced in Pre-Prep, before being taught as a subject in year 3. Years 4 to 6 have one hour of French a week, divided into two half hour lessons.
The current units of work are as follows:
Year 3: je parle francais/je me presente/en famille: pupils learn greetings, simple classroom words, names of people.
Year 4: les animaux/mon anniversaire/le monde: pupils start learning more complex vocab such as months of the year, masculine and feminine nouns, and a good deal of time dedicated to discovering France and the french culture. We are currently preparing a French project which will be a presentation of different aspects of France and famous french people.
Year 5: moi et mon ecole/qu’est ce que tu veux/les sports: pupils learn about school topics, food and drink, different sports. They become more and more confident language-wise and we do more role plays. This is the best year, as pupils get to adopt a snail in the spring!
Year 6: les vetements/j’habite/un pays francophone: pupils start to work more independently. They also start working on their own projects about France.
Lessons are mostly taught using games, toys (everybody knows about Plankton, our regular visitor!), and songs. Slideshows and visual aids cater for all kinds of learners. It is a very relaxed, informal atmosphere where pupils can feel confident and experiment with the language. At this stage, French learning is a question of building up confidence.
