Modern Foreign Languages at Bedford Drive Primary School

Here at Bedford Drive Primary School we believe that the learning of a foreign language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for pupils.

French is taught to KS2 by Ms Gallivan, as part of PPA cover. The planning is designed to balance elements of speaking, listening, reading and writing in each topic. The older pupils also learn more about the grammar of the language.

Topics covered over the year include: Greetings, family, Numbers, Colours, Likes and Dislikes, Sports and Leisure and Weather/Seasons.

Lessons are structured to approach learning in a variety of ways: use of role play, songs and games, matching, reading and writing activities. 

Learning a language should be fun and is an active way of learning about different cultures and their traditions, as well as comparing their way of living with our own. This should foster our pupil’s curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world.

The national curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources

• speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation

• can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt

• discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied

We would like to share our work and learning from Summer Term 2023

Year 3

Year 3 have had great fun learning about colours and body parts in French. Here they are singing Head, shoulders, knees and toes in French!!

Year 4

Year 4 have been busy talking about sporting preferences. We have been using bi lingual dictionaries to find French words and we have been expressing our opinion about certain sports.

J’aime - I like

Je n’aime pas - I don’t like

J’adore - I love

Je deteste - I hate

Year 5

Year 5 have been discussing the ‘Systeme Solaire!’  We have been using adjectives to describe the planets and we noticed that French sentence structure is different to that of English.  French sentences have the adjective after the noun and English sentences have the adjective before the noun.

Mars set une planete rouge

Mars is a red planet.

Year 6

Year 6 have enjoyed learning to work out big numbers and dates in French and how to order food in a French café. We had great fun with our roleplay activities!

We would like to share our work and learning from Spring Term 2023

Year 3

Year 3 have been busy retelling the story of The Enormous Turnip!

Le Navet Enorme!

We have had great fun acting out the story and translating a French text. We noticed some similarities and differences in the French and English language.

Year 4 MFL

Year 4 have been busy retelling the story of Grandmere Denise and we have been acting out a variety of roles. The children adapted the story and wrote some detailed sentences of their own.

Year 5 MFL

Year 5 have been busy describing a variety of animals in French and they have noticed how English sentence structures are different to French.

Year 6 MFL

In Year 6 we have been busy thinking about our locality. We have been describing our locality and translating texts about our locality.

We would like to share our work and learning from Autumn Term 2022

Year 3

Year 3 have been busy learning how to introduce both themselves and their family. We have had great fun role playing and acting out how we are feeling in French.

Bon jour!             Ca va?    Au revoir!    Voici  ma mere!

Year 4

Year 4 have been discussing how they travel to school, where in the world French is spoken and the weather. We have had fun acting out different weather scenarios along with learning the months of the year in French.

Comment vas tu a lecole?                       Quelle temps fait il?

 Je vais a l’ecole en velo,              Il fait beau!

Je vais a l’ecole en bus                  Il pleut!

Year 5

Year 5 have been busy discussing features in their locality and their food preferences. We have been extending our written sentences in French using  and/et and but/mais

la poste                     le parc          l’ecole       le magasin

J’adore le chocolat et les tomates mais je deteste les carrottes!

I love chocolate and tomatoes but I hate carrots!

Year 6

In Year 6 we have been learning to tell the time in French and talk about school life. We have compared French and English schools and discussed similarities and differences.

Qjuelle heure est il?

Il est midi               Il est trois heures

La salle de classe                les toilettes                  

 le terraine de sport                       La grande salle

Here is a selection of our work over the school year 2021/22:

Summer Term

Year 3

Year 3 have been learning to recognise and talk about body parts in French and to take part in a song about the body in French. Can you guess what the song is in English? Tete, epaules, genoux, pieds!

Year 4

Have been learning to talk about what they like, dislike, and discuss their preferences using

J’aime                               I like

J’adore                             I love

Je n’aime pas                    I don’t like

Je deteste                       I hate

Year 5

Have been busy reading a French story ‘Les Quatre Amis’     The Four Friends.’

They worked hard to translate and make sense of the French text and they have produced their own bilingual book and shared their book with a class audience in F2.

Les Quatre Amis

Year 6

Have been busy looking at French menus and learning about the language needed to order food in French. The children have been busy role playing and appreciating some similarities and differences between cultures and culinary traditions.

Spring 1

Year 3

Year 3 have been busy counting in French and translating stories. 

Le Navet Enorme!!  /The Enormous Turnip!

We are beginning to understand that when speaking and writing in French there are masculine and feminine nouns le/la = the.

Year 4

Year 4 have been discussing their likes and dislikes and what they like to do on different days of the week. We have been discussing cognates- words that look similar and have a similar meaning in French and English.

Year 5

Year 5 have been fact finding about the planets in French and have presented their findings to a class audience. During our study we noticed that the adjectives in a French sentence follow the noun but in an English sentence, the adjective proceeds the noun.

For example…Mars est une planete rouge. = ‘Mars is a planet red’ but in English, we would say ‘Mars is a red planet.’

Year 6

Year 6 have been finding out about features in their locality and identifying similarities and differences between the French and English language. We have been reading, translating and writing some complex sentences, included adjectives, and conjunctions such as

• And/et

• mais/but

• il n’y a pas/ there isn’t.

We have been using some basic sentences structures and adding our own details to make the sentences our own.

Autumn Term

Year 3 - We have had fun learning to introduce ourselves and family members through rhyme and the use of props

Year4 - Have enjoyed talking and writing about activities, they enjoy and about the weather.

Year 5 - Have been busy researching and comparing French and English culture and presented their findings to a class audience.

Year 6 - Have been reading and writing more complex sentences, they are beginning to use and, but and include negative sentences.

Please click here to see the Overview of Modern Foreign Languages

There are a number of ways that you can support with your child’s learning at home with French please click here to look at the suggestions that Ms Gallivan has made for you.

• Research where in the world French is spoken

• Can you name and describe the French flag

• Can you find France on a world map and name the capital city of France

• Different regions of France are famous for different things, can you find out more?

• Can you name some famous landmarks that can be found in France?

• Can you research some famous French people from past and present- artists, designers, sportsmen

• Play bingo using French numbers.

• Discuss the day of the week and month of the year in French

• Greet each other in French 

• But most of all have fun!! Don’t be afraid to get it wrong because that’s how we learn best!