Spanish
Why we believe in the importance of learning a language
At Lakeside Primary Academy we believe that learning a foreign language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for our pupils. It helps them develop communication skills including key skills of speaking and listening and extends their knowledge of how language works. Learning another language gives children a new perspective of the world, encouraging them to understand their own cultures and respecting those of others.
Intent of Spanish Curriculum
We are excited to begin learning a new language at Lakeside. We want to support our pupils in becoming creative, logical and experimental language learners. We want to encourage them to become knowledgeable and provide a cultural open-mindedness curriculum. Being Our intent for Spanish is to:
- foster an interest in language learning by introducing children to other languages in a way that is enjoyable and accessible to everyone.
- stimulate and encourage children’s curiosity about language and culture and creativity in experimenting with it.
- support oracy and literacy, and in particular develop speaking and listening skills.
- help children develop their awareness of cultural similarities and differences.
- lay the foundation for future study by pupils.
Implementation of Spanish at Lakeside
Spanish is taught from Year 3 to Year 6 and is part of afterschool clubs during some terms of the year. Each year group will teach a minimum of 3 lessons every half term. Every lesson is planned to last 45 minutes to an hour. Lessons are planned and adapted to build on from one another across year groups.
Lessons are taught with a variety of resources from La Jollie Ronde scheme of work and other useful websites. Teachers are provided and signposted to other resources that might be useful such as song, games, videos links and books which might help to make the delivery of the lesson stimulating, engaging and varied. Lessons will include a mixture of speaking and listening, reading and writing. Lessons will encourage intercultural understanding of Spanish culture and Spanish celebrations are explored. Lessons will be delivered in a variety of different ways so that various skills are practised.
Reading and writing
The children will learn to
• remember vocabulary directly taught and reinforced through word games and similar activities;
• read stories and rhymes for enjoyment and to gain awareness of the structure of the written language;
• read, copy and write independently familiar words and simple phrases in context eg classroom items, display labels, weather chart, date;
• write sentences independently and from memory.
Intercultural understanding
The children will learn to
• describe the life of children in the countries where the language is spoken;
• identify similarities and differences in everyday life, social conventions, traditional stories and celebrations;
• recognize how symbols, products and objects can represent the culture of a country, and how aspects of the culture of different countries become incorporated in the daily life of others;
- Practising conversations reinforce key language.
- Playing games help retain knowledge.
- Writing Spanish phrases to help phonetical understanding.
- Use of role play to help pupils learn Spanish vocabulary.
- Learning how people in Spain celebrate different festivals is an important part of intercultural understanding as we recognise similarities and differences between ourselves and others.
- Learning about landmarks and different regions and places in Spain.
Useful websites
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zxsvr82
https://quizlet.com/content/spanish-language-learning
https://www.digitaldialects.com/Spanish.htm#google_vignette
National Day of Spain
On the 11th of October the school celebrated the National day of Spain. The official day is the 12th of October, when Cristopher Columbus first set foot in the Americas. Throughout this day, pupils were encouraged to speak the Spanish language, discuss the culture and get involved in fun, creative and interactive activities. Pupils enjoyed making the Spanish flag, dancing Flamenco and trying traditional Spanish dishes such as pipas and tortilla. Pupils also focused on two artist, Joan Miró and Antoni Gaudi. They re-created masterpieces from their work.