German

German was chosen as a Modern Foreign Language at Monks Coppenhall Academy because one of the main employers within our local area of Crewe is Bentley. Bentley is a British company with a German parent company and employees are required to have some knowledge of the German language. Germany is the United Kingdom’s largest non-English speaking trading partner. Hence through learning German our children will be able to gain employment in the Global Economy.

The 2014 National Curriculum states that: “Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures.”

German is taught formally in at Key Stage Two.  Modern Foreign Languages at Key Stage One is not statutory however children are introduced to language learning. This may include learning through songs, stories and related cross curricular work.

At Key Stage Two, we aim to develop an approach to Modern Foreign Languages to ensure continuity and progression of our children. Staff at Key Stage Two will strive to ensure that by the end of the Key Stage all children will:

  • Understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
  • Speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation
  • Write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using a variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt.
  • Discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

Through the Primary Languages Network Click2Teach scheme of work children have the opportunity to learn a variety of vocabulary whilst building on their knowledge of words and familiar phrases. The children are gradually introduced to grammar concepts so they can speak, read and write increasingly complex sentences.They learn new sounds in the target language in a systematic way and have the opportunity to practice them using sound clips from native speakers to ensure accurate pronunciation. Each lesson, the children practice speaking and listening through a range of activities including songs, games, videos and whiteboard applications. Children have access to knowledge organisers as a record of new grammar and vocabulary in their books, which they go on to use in engaging writing tasks, set by the teacher. Each year group has the opportunity to read authentic literature in German. A central element of the course is to enable the children to develop cultural awareness of aspects of life in German speaking countries as well as creating a love for language learning. This will be supported by our developing links to schools in Germany and to the local high school.

If you’d like to learn some German with your child at home you could watch the Goethe institute’s Felix and Franzi videos. https://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/en/spr/unt/kum/dfk/dff.html

There is also an app called Planet Languages. Your child has a login for this app in their reading diary. https://planet.primarylanguages.network/#/login