At St. Bernadette’s we use Language Angels as our scheme. We teach French from Oak Class onwards. Early Language units begin in Oak.

Intermediate and Progressive units follow as the children move through years up to Year 6. These units cannot be taught without a good selection of Early Language units. The lessons work mostly on vocabulary, on single nouns (with article/determiner), building up memory skills and formulating very short simple sentences by the end of a unit, from memory. Lessons are more structured with a clear and equal focus on all four skills. Intermediate - these units build on Early Learning and work at phrase level. More grammar is incorporated into the lessons and starts to be more explicit in the terminology and explanations. Longer reading and listening exercises and more is expected in their oral responses and written work. Pupils will know more and learn more. Progressive units are the most challenging. The lessons contain more content and the pace is faster as there is more language presented to the children. This teaching type encourages the children to produce written paragraphs and speak more fluently and accurately from memory. Recalling and recycling the language learnt in the previous teaching types.

We also use a variety of Cross Curricular units that are very popular and are mostly Intermediate/Progressive level. They are intended to be more creative and tie into topics the children are already covering in class. Each unit is aimed to last half a term and has six fully resourced lessons. Week six will always be a revision lesson and an opportunity for assessment. Each unit in Early Language, Intermediates and Progressive will be laid out in exactly the same manner and contain the same documents.

There are a range of grammar lessons. All the grammar is already integrated and weaved into all our lessons and planning. The grammar is explained in a very age-appropriate fashion. The lessons are filled with activities for the children to complete but based solely on the grammar point and not linked to a particular unit. There are also a wide selection of single ‘one-off’ lessons to cover the core vocabulary that is the non-negotiable language we recommend be covered by the end of primary phase (colours, numbers days of the week, months of the year etc). All of this language is automatically covered, recycled and revisited multiple times in many of our units.

Extra Learning

Children have the opportunity to attempt activities and games at home to extend their learning.

We have a French club after School where children enjoy activities and games to enhance their French skills in School. Examples of activities are trying French food and being at a café, Asking for ice cream at the ice cream parlour and getting real ice cream to try, games to extend animals knowledge and designing French posters and menus.

Unit Overview