We believe that the teaching of Spanish at Eskdale should encourage pupils to become curious about and deepen their understanding of the world while laying the foundations for further foreign language teaching beyond key stage two. The learning of Spanish at Eskdale is rooted in our core values, specifically skills and knowledge for life. It combines speaking, listening, reading and writing skills in order to express and understand ideas and nurtures new ways of learning and thinking.
Our core intent is to enable all pupils strive to:
✓ Develop an enthusiasm and foster an interest for learning languages
✓ Communicate in other languages by speaking (oracy), listening, reading and writing (literacy and knowledge of language)
✓ Respect and develop an awareness of cultural differences and similarities with Spain (intercultural understanding)
✓ Develop speaking and listening skills
Spanish is taught through different contexts and pupils and staff follow a process model to ensure children becoming increasingly adept at ‘Thinking like a linguist’ as they move through the key stage.
This incorporates the following stages of learning:
✓ Speaking and listening
✓ Reading
✓ Writing
Intercultural understanding will also be taught within each stage; children will begin to understand other cultures and develop knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitudes that enable them to appreciate and respect others from different communities.
For all our pupils to achieve, both learning more and remembering more, our method of teaching incorporates specific meta-cognitive strategies to enable all pupils to retain the learning of both skills and knowledge.
This is typically applied by:
✓ Activating prior knowledge
✓ Small step teaching delivery
✓ Independent practice
✓ Feedback