Our comprehensive Key Stage 3 MFL courses guarantee our students solid preparation to face the challenge of the GCSE course.
Head of Department: Mr A Green
Teacher of Spanish: Mrs F Matthews
Every student will study all three languages in Year 7, and at the end of Year 7, will choose their First Language to study up to GCSE in Year 11. They will continue with an allocated Second Language in Year 8 and Year 9, and may study this one too to GCSE. Students can then continue with French, German or Spanish into A-Level.
We offer a holistic approach to enhance the development of the four core skills (writing, reading, listening and speaking). Pupils will be offered wide-ranging opportunities to experience culture, such as residential Trips to Spain in Year 9/10 (Barcelona) and Year 12/13 (Andalucía).
Key Stage 3
Students will use a textbook as support material, either “Viva 1” or “Mira 1”.
Pupils will study Spanish for two terms in Year 7, and while they will make quick progress, the focus is on engagement and communication. The full list of topics covered is listed below:-
||Grammar and Content
|Introducing yourself, personal details, age, birthday, etc.
Project on Día de los Muertos.
Project on Christmas in Spain.
School and school subjects, describing school, travel to school.
Family, siblings, pets, colours, physical descriptions.
Project on Easter in Spain.
End of year examination: reading/writing skills tested on all topics covered during the year.
Free time, sports, going out, staying in, making arrangements to go out.
|Classroom objects, classroom language, alphabet, sounds of letters, numbers 1-31.
Oral skills, transfer to writing, written accuracy.
Likes and dislikes.
Present tense of verbs, gender of nouns, adjectives, agreement of adjectives.
Oral and listening skills score based on performance during the year.
Immediate future tense (future plans), revise likes and dislikes.
Students continue their course with “Viva 2”. Students have 5 periods a week (4 periods a week from September 2020)
||Grammar and Content
Assessment unit 1: all skills
|Enhancing quality of language: Comparative, superlative, adverbs.
||Food-shopping, healthy eating, ordering food.
Assessment 2: all skills. Future tense included
|Immediate future, revision/consolidation if required for second language classes, pronouns, revision adjective agreements, improving quality of language
||Holidays present, past and future. Tourism at home and abroad.
End of year exam: Includes all skills, past, present and future tenses.
|Present tense, future tense. Work on oral skills using tenses. Past tenses (preterite and introduce imperfect). Intensive work on writing skills.
||House and Home, type of house, rooms, bedroom, daily routine am and pm.
Clothes – preferences, uniform, buying clothes
|Reflexive verbs, revise prepositions.
First Language students will continue to use “Viva” 3 on 3 periods per week. (4 periods a week from September 2021).
Second Language students (Quick-Start Course) will use “Viva 1” and “Viva 2” on 3 periods per week.
GCSE Spanish is studied using the New Edexcel Spanish GCSE specification. This new specification culminates in four papers taken at the end of Year 11: Speaking, Writing, Reading and Listening. The four skills have got equal weight in the final grade. Year 10 are using Viva GCSE as a textbook and covering the Y10 main topics described below but in a different order and with some adjustments.
The text book issued to students is called "Viva for GCSE" and boys may also wish to purchase "Mira Workbook (higher)" for help with class and homework tasks.
- Saying what you do in summer, Using the present tense, Listening to identify the person of the verb
- Talking about holiday preferences, Using verbs of opinion to refer to different people, Understanding percentages
- Saying what you did on holiday, Using the preterite tense, Using different structures to give opinions
- Describing where you stayed, Using the imperfect tense, Working out the meaning of new words
- Booking accommodation and dealing with problems, Using verbs with usted, Using questions to form answers
- Giving an account of a holiday in the past, Using three tenses together, Identifying positive and negative opinions
- Giving opinions about school subjects, Describing school facilities, Describing school uniform and the school day, Using adjectives
- Talking about subjects and teachers, Using comparatives and superlatives, Justifying opinions using a range of language
- Describing your school, Using negatives, Comparing then and now
- Talking about school rules and problems, Using phrases followed by the infinitive, Tackling harder listening exercises
- Talking about plans for a school exchange, Using the near future tense, Asking and answering questions
- Talking about activities and achievements, Using object pronouns, Saying how long you have been doing something
- Talking about what you usually do, Using soler + infinitive, Identifying correct statements about text
- Talking about sports, Using the imperfect tense to say what you used to do, Listening for different tenses
- Talking about what’s trending, Using the perfect tense, Using words which have more than one meaning
- Discussing different types of entertainment, Using algunos / ciertos / otros / muchos / demasiados / todos, Adapting a model dialogue to fit different situations
- Talking about who inspires you, Using a range of past tenses, Talking about dates
- Describing the features of a region, Using se puede and se pueden, Asking and responding to questions
- Planning what to do, Using the future tense, Understanding the geography of Spain
- Shopping for clothes and presents, Using demonstrative adjectives, Explaining preferences
- Talking about problems in a town, Using tan and tanto, Using antonyms
- Describing a visit in the past, Using different tenses together, Recognising and using idioms
- Describing mealtimes, Talking about daily routine, Talking about illnesses and injuries, Asking for help at the pharmacy
- Talking about typical foods, Using the passive, Spotting words which indicate an increase / decrease
- Comparing different festivals, Avoiding the passive, Paying attention to question words
- Describing a special day, Using reflexive verbs in the preterite, Inferring meaning in a literary text
- Ordering in a restaurant, Using absolute superlatives, Spotting irregular verb patterns in the preterite
- Talking about a music festival, Using expressions followed by the infinitive, Adding interest when narrating a story
Talking about how you earn money, Using soler in the imperfect tense, Using verbs in different forms
- Talking about work experience, Using the preterite and imperfect together, Using alternatives to ‘and’
- Talking about the importance of learning languages, Using the present and the present continuous, Using saber and conocer
- Applying for a summer job, Using indirect object pronouns, Writing a formal letter
- Discussing gap years, Revising the conditional, Using the 24-hour clock
- Discussing plans for the future, Using different ways to express future plans, Using ‘if’ clauses
- Considering global issues, Using the superlative, Listening for high numbers
- Talking about local actions, Using the subjunctive in commands, Presenting a written argument
- Discussing healthy lifestyles, Understanding different tenses, Giving extended reasons
- Talking about international sporting events, Using the pluperfect tense, Explaining your point of view
- Talking about natural disasters, Using the imperfect continuous, Using grammar knowledge in translation
Year 11 Spring Term should be dedicated to the following:
- Completion of Speaking Booklets
- Catching up with any topics not yet completed
- Grammar work, using the Grammar and Translation books
- Translation work, using the Grammar and Translation books
- Past Papers
- Going through any work that pupils would like to catch up on
- Reading and Listening Skills