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issue 11 november 2010 welcome welcome to the eleventh edition of the mfl sunderland primary newsletter which is a special christmas edition the aim of the newsletter is to keep all primary school mfl teachers informed of the latest developments in primary language teaching nationally regionally and within the local authority previous editions of the newsletter can be found on the mfl sunderland website at www.sunderlandschools.org/mfl-sunderland/primary-newsletters.htm i would love to hear your comments and feedback about the newsletters please email them to clare.seccombe@gmail.com the white paper wednesday 24th november saw the publication of the long-awaited schools white paper the importance of teaching as far as languages are concerned it s encouraging news for mfl teachers in secondary schools where a gcse in another language will be one of the five gcses required for the english baccalaureate however there is no mention in the white paper of primary languages michael gove s letter to schools about the white paper http tinyurl.com/gove-letter states that the curriculum review covering both primary and secondary will be launched shortly we intend to publish the new curriculum in the autumn of 2012 with first teaching in september 2013 this is a long time to have to wait for a decision about primary languages the white paper states that this new curriculum should set out clearly the core knowledge and understanding that all children should be expected to acquire in the course of their schooling we will therefore ask teachers to work with us to review the national curriculum in order to reform it the curriculum should embody rigour and high standards and outline a core of knowledge in the traditional subject disciplines what needs to be clarified is the status of mfl in the curriculum is it part of the core knowledge and understanding is it one of the traditional subject disciplines this paragraph depending on how you interpret the punctuation suggests that it might be 4.27 there is much of value that children need to learn and experience which sits outside the traditional subject disciplines ­ the languages sciences humanities and mathematics which make up national curricula across the globe so we will ensure there is space in the school day and resources for school leaders to guarantee a truly rounded education for all cilt the national centre for languages and all the association of language learning have both published responses to the white paper and both express their concern at its lack of reference to primary languages primary languages are viewed as a great success so far and we certainly do not want to lose this momentum and waste all the hard work that has been done so far teaching a language to all ks2 pupils would bring us in line with the high-performing countries which form such a crucial point of reference of the white paper so until we receive more information learning a language in ks2 remains an entitlement for all ks2 pupils please continue to make full use of all the support offered to you at la level while it is still there the white paper can be found here http tinyurl.com/whitepaper-24nov

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festival of languages and cultures 2010 on 17th november st aidan s catholic school and language college welcomed children from nine local primary schools to the annual festival of languages and cultures we were delighted by some lovely performances children from highfield primary school and newbottle primary school sang some french songs while the children from sunderland high school sang for us in french and german some year 5 and 6 pupils from broadway junior school s family french group told us about their trip to disneyland paris where they had the opportunity to use the french that they had been learning lambton primary school described the life cycle of a bean in french while the children from st cuthbert s rc primary school in seaham entertained us with la famille souris complete with costumes other languages and cultures were demonstrated too year 6 pupils from st paul s ce primary school sang four short spanish songs ryhope juniors sang a congolese song and a group from st joseph s rc primary school showed us their indian dancing we were very impressed with the quality of the children s language and pronunciation everyone had obviously been practising very hard after a delicious snack of pain au chocolat and orange juice the children enjoyed learning different languages in the workshops with the st aidan s staff the languages on offer were french spanish german welsh and swahili many thanks to janet mayes and the st aidan s team for organising the festival what s good on the web for christmas an interactive french advent calendar from french animator nathalie bonneau http www.jeannedelalune.co.uk/advent_calendar_french.html have a go at emailing santa it s a good way to practise personal identification and nouns and santa will reply http www.emailsanta.com/noel.htm if you re feeling brave you could have a go at making a galette des rois which is a traditional french christmas cake this website gives you the recipe and tells you a bit about it too http allrecipes.com recipe/galette-des-rois/detail.aspx there are lots of resources and links on the stoke-on-trent primary languages pages http www.sgfl.org.uk/pmfl/resources/christmasresources#france the bbc languages website has a good guide to christmas in france http www.bbc.co.uk/languages/christmas/french/index.shtml have a look back at issue 4 of the newsletter for some more useful links and don t forget the christmas resources on mfl sunderland http www.sunderlandschools.org/mfl-sunderland/resources-christmas-fr.htm welcome flas this year the local authority welcomes three french foreign language assistants flas for primary schools karine bonnefoi angélique ladier and xavier dusautoir will between them be working in 18 different primary schools during the 8 months of their appointment they will also be working on more resources for us welcome a date for your diary following our successful cpd events in february 2009 and march 2010 i am delighted to be able to inform you on behalf of the primary languages steering group that our next event then and now will take place on the afternoon of thursday 17th march 2011 you will receive further information and details of how to book your place in january.

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sing a french song why · · · · · · · should you sing french songs with your class it makes learning the language fun it s cross-curricular it gives your class something to perform to others in the school and to their parents it can drive home a phrase a sentence or specific items of vocabulary it promotes confidence and fluency it emphasises the rhythm pronunciation and intonation of the language in a non-threatening way it addresses all five strands of the ks2 framework for languages in particular intercultural understanding there are many collections of songs for primary languages available commercially but you shouldn t have to spend a lot of money to find lots of songs to sing there is a collection of 36 songs available free on mfl sunderland some of them are traditional children s songs some are original compositions for the upskilling podcasts they all have the lyrics included and many also have a translation http www.sunderlandschools.org/mfl-sunderland/resources-soundfiles.htm#rs if you would like to look elsewhere here are a few suggestions · the thierry klein website has midi music files and words for many traditional french songs http thierry-klein.nerim.net · the website comptines et chansons pour enfants rhymes and songs for children has hundreds of rhymes and songs to choose from and many of them have karaoke-style animated videos to go with them http comptine.free.fr · petitestetes.com has some nursery rhymes with videos to show the actions http tinyurl.com/comptines-video · if you are registered with sing up you can access a number of songs in other languages http tinyurl.com/sing-up-mflsongs your free resource this issue s free resource is a pair of french mini-books which use christmas vocabulary the first uses numbers and plural forms to show the characters in the christmas story the final page beaucoup d amour et de bonheur means lots of love and happiness ask the children to use their knowledge of the christmas story in english the numbers and the picture clues to tell you the rest of the story in english i m sure they will want to colour the pictures the second mini-book uses numbers plurals and colours some suggested activities · read the text what does it say then colour in the pictures the right number of the right colour · look carefully at the colours and their agreement what do they tell you about each noun and its gender and number · pupils make their own book adapting the original admittedly they don t look much like books at the moment this website will tell you how to make newsletter produced by clare seccombe ©mfl sunderland 2010 november 2010 http www.sunderlandschools.org/mfl-sunderland

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