Modern Foreign Languages
Learning a foreign language immerses students into entirely new cultures, world perspectives and lives.
It invites them to experience a world beyond their own to help them fully appreciate the language and expand their horizons.
Our vision is to develop independent and creative language learners who go on to maintain a lifelong interest in languages. The MFL team wants all our students to enjoy learning, make progress and achieve. We recognise that modern language skills are a prerequisite in today’s professional job market and we promote advanced study of languages. As well as achieving highly academically, we think it is important to promote language confidence and skills for real-world purposes. Our aim is that students develop openness towards other cultures and understanding through their learning of the unique richness to each language. In a global community, understanding the principles of different languages and how to apply them to learning new ones is a vital skill.
About the Department
The methodology upon which the MFL department bases its teaching and learning is based on the EPI (Extensive Processing Instruction) approach to second language acquisition. Language is taught through flooding comprehensible input, organising content by communications functions and related construction with a big focus on reading and listening as modelling. Furthermore, we teach through the receptive skills in “chunks” which are presented in a sentence builder style format. This reduces the cognitive load and allows pupils to be able to communicate meaningfully quicker.
Progression from Studying MFL
From studying a language at GCSE, you can go on to study that language at A-Level. You will also have the basic skills of language learning so might be able to start learning a whole new language too.
This can lead to studying all sorts of subjects at University or onto exciting language based careers. For example:
- Interpreter;
- Translator;
- Teacher.
Take a look at some more information about foreign language based degrees here.
A Modern Foreign Languages A-level can lead you to studying a wide variety of subjects at University. Modern Foreign Languages can be studied on its own or it can be combined with other subjects such as:
- Law;
- International Business or international politics;
- Another language such as: Arabic, Russian or Mandarin;
- Archaeology;
- Journalism.
Have a look at the UCAS website to see how many different combinations you can do.
Curriculum KS4
We follow AQA GCSE Spanish (8698).Official documentation can be found on the AQA website: