Modern Foreign Languages

Head of Department/Faculty

Axel Remoiville
MFL Faculty Lead
aremoiville@commonweal.co.uk

Overview

At Commonweal we’re passionate about the benefits that learning a language can bring. We strongly believe in languages as a skill for life and something students should enjoy and find rewarding.

Our curriculum has been designed to support and help students of all abilities to access languages and fulfil their potential in an engaging and fun way.

Our intention is to create confident linguists that can communicate effectively in the real world but also have an excellent foundation of grammatical knowledge allowing them to study languages at further education.

We aim to create well-rounded citizens that can be creative, inquisitive and confident by making sure our curriculum contains engaging and interesting cultural content and opportunities. We aim to help our students to see themselves as engaged global citizens of the world.

Top Tips to do well in MFL

Learn your vocab

The more words and grammatical structures you know, the more confident you will feel in your MFL lessons.
Take advantage of trips

We run lots of trips for all year groups, where possible, try to involve yourself in MFL events and trips. Your learning comes to life!
Watch films and listen to music

The more you involve French, Spanish or Italian in your own life, the more you will learn. Your favourite film in the target language (subtitles, the audio or both) will teach you loads or listen to music in that language, eventually, you will understand the lyrics.
Go above and beyond

Learning a language is a skill that has to be improved and improved, it is not easy to learn to communicate from scratch! What can you do to improve your language skills? How can you go above and beyond to help yourself?
Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

Once you have learnt something, use it again and again. Our most successful students learn a concept (a word/a grammar point) and then apply it something else

The Curriculum

French and Spanish are delivered from Year 7 to Year 9 over 5 one-hour lessons a fortnight. To study a language at GCSE, students must choose it as one of their four options. At GCSE, French and Spanish are delivered over 5 one-hour lessons a fortnight. To study a language at A level, students must choose it as one of their A Level options. At A Level, French and Spanish are delivered over 9 one-hour lessons a fortnight.

To know more about our curriculum and what is taught at every key stage, see our detailed Curriculum Maps bellow.

Enrichment and trip possibilities

European Day of Languages. Celebrating all things ‘Languages’ in September.
GCHQ talk
Year 7 French Residential and immersion trip to Normandy with French-speaking ‘instructors’.
Year 8 French day trip to St. Omer. All of Year 8 welcome, regardless of what language you study. We leave at 4am and return at 11pm.
KS4 cross-curricular trip to France with History – WW1 battlefields trips
KS4/5 immersion trip to Spain
KS5 cross-curricular trip to Paris with English.
Links and visits with different Universities (Oxford University, Bristol University…)
Other events and competitions throughout the year