Modern Foreign Languages
French and Spanish are taught by a team of highly proficient teachers and we also support students’ individual needs and home language whenever we can, often entering them as early applicants in public exams.
French and Spanish are offered at The Maynard. Senior School staff teach Spanish in Reception to Year 3, French in Years 4 and 5, and a carousel of both languages in Year 6 in order for pupils to make an informed decision on their Senior School language choice.
The department makes full use of all available techniques and strategies to give the students confidence in using their language knowledge in the classroom situation. The use of the latest software and audio-visual technology all serve to enhance motivation and confidence. Wherever possible, the onus is on real communication; girls produce work that is to be read by girls of their age in other countries.
Students are also encouraged to participate in various language competitions throughout the school, both internal (such as the House MFL Spelling Bee Competition) and external ones (GCHQ National Language Competition, the Oxford flash fiction competition and the Stephen Spender poetry translation competition), which they find both challenging and rewarding and nurtures their independent learning.
Time spent abroad is of great value to students, giving them the opportunity to put their knowledge to use in truly authentic situations. We regularly take large numbers of girls studying French in Key Stage 3 to St Omer on the Opal Coast, France, with trips to nearby cultural attractions. Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 students studying Spanish also have the opportunity to go to Spain (Madrid, Grenada, Barcelona depending on the years) to practise their language and enjoy the culture. Such foreign visits are key to improving the students’ linguistic proficiency and cultural awareness.
Having had the chance to learn Spanish and French on a rota in the Junior School (from Reception) – mostly taught by Senior School staff – students continue their linguistic journey with an informed decision as to which language they have mostly enjoyed and taken a liking to, in Senior School.
In Year 7, students choose to study either French or Spanish for one hour a week.
In Year 8, to provide a greater emphasis on the spontaneous use of the language and to enable the students to have more practice in their language lessons, they continue studying the same language with an increased teaching provision of two hours a week to indeed encourage continuity and more regular exposure to this language. This improves the girls’ language skill as shown by considerable pedagogic research.
This is increased to three hours a week in Year 9.
Our popular French and Spanish GCSE courses follow the AQA specification. Learning a Modern Language at GCSE will develop each student’s ability to understand and use the language effectively for practical communication in a wide variety of everyday situations. The subject also promotes skills which have a wider application such as analysis, drawing inferences and memorising. Students will develop a good understanding of grammar and gain insights into other cultures.
French and Spanish GCSE courses aim to:
- Build students’ confidence and broaden their horizons, enabling them to step beyond familiar cultural boundaries, develop new ways of seeing the world, and better understand relationships between the foreign language and the English language.
- Encourage students to develop confidence in, and a positive attitude towards, French/Spanish and to recognise the importance of languages.
- Provide a strong linguistic and cultural foundation for students who go on to study French/Spanish at a higher level post-16.
- Develop their ability and ambition to communicate independently in speech and writing with speakers of the language for authentic purposes and about subjects which are meaningful and interesting to them.
The study of a Modern Foreign Language at A-level enables students to learn to communicate confidently and imaginatively in the chosen language. As well as developing listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, students acquire a deeper understanding of the culture of the countries and the people whose language they are studying. They also develop their skills in independently researching a chosen topic and presenting their ideas and opinions in the spoken and written language.
Lessons are conducted in the target language and an important part of lesson time is the general conversation to encourage spoken fluency. Students will be encouraged to use the internet to watch television broadcasts and to read newspapers and magazines in the foreign language.
Meet Mme Smith, Head of Modern Foreign Languages
Mme Smith is the Head of Modern Foreign Languages. She has a Licence (BA) and a Maîtrise (MA) in Littératures et Civilisations Etrangères (Spécialisation Anglais) from the University of Tours, France. As part of her degree, she thoroughly enjoyed spending a year at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada as part of the Erasmus programme. A passionate linguist, she completed her PGCE at Homerton College, Cambridge then taught in Essex before moving to The Maynard.
Mme Smith learnt English at a very young age and wants to give the same enthusiasm she had towards language learning to her students, giving them a broader way of thinking through learning a foreign language and equipping them with a skill for life. Mme Smith is truly driven by sharing her native cultural and social knowledge with her students and instil a long-lasting love of speaking French and Spanish.
Outside school, she is a keen walker and skier, hedgehog lover and family-orientated person, continuing to travel around to search for more French-speaking or other first-hand experience to later share with her students; her favourite place so far is Algonquin Park in Canada, canoeing close to a herd of moose!
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