Modern Foreign Languages

Bonjour. Buenos días. Buongiorno. 你好. こんにちは. Привет.

Learning another language will enable you to stand out from the crowd when applying for competitive university courses or job opportunities. By learning a foreign language, you will improve your communication, memory, multi-tasking and problem-solving skills. You will also enhance your knowledge of foreign cultures. These are very marketable skills for your future life and career, especially in combination with other subjects such as Maths and Science.

At The Oratory, pupils are required to study at least one language, whether Modern or Classical, and may do two or even three. The Modern Languages available are French, Spanish, and Italian as our main options. Other languages are also available upon request including Chinese, German, Japanese and Russian.

Mr Mike Naish – Head of Modern Foreign Languages

GCSE

Pupils at The Oratory must choose a language GCSE at the end of the 3rd Form. Success at GCSE in Modern Languages comes with proper preparation; a detailed knowledge of the syllabus content and exam technique; using a wide variety of relevant topic-specific vocabulary and manipulating a range of different tenses. We follow the two-year AQA GCSE course. The course is divided equally in terms of marks between listening, speaking, reading and writing assessments.

A Level

Modern Languages at A Level is a rigorous and highly respected academic subject. As a facilitating subject, it will equip pupils with a range of very useful skills including debating, presentation, listening, research, translation and essay writing skills. Pupils are required to study a range of cultural topics including a literary and film option. They must also conduct research on a cultural topic of their own choice as part of the speaking exam. We follow the AQA A Level course for French and Spanish.

Revision sessions for Modern Languages will take place over two days of the Easter holidays to help improve the exam performance of our GCSE and A Level cohort.  

We will concentrate on using a range of activities including revision techniques; building Knowledge Organisers; analysing past papers; exam technique; focus on key skills for listening, speaking, reading and writing; and recreating assessment tasks in exam conditions. All these elements should help to prepare our pupils more effectively for the challenges of the final exams.

The final speaking assessments will take place just after Easter, so participation at these sessions would be invaluable for all pupils who wish to excel in these exams.

The sessions will take place in T12, in Modern Languages. The schedule is the following:

Monday 30^th March
French GCSE 9.00am – 12.00pm
French A Level 1.00pm – 3.00pm

Tuesday 31^st March
Spanish GCSE 9.00am – 12.00pm
Spanish A Level 1.00pm – 2.30pm
Italian GCSE 2.30pm – 4.00pm
 

Message from Nr Naish, Head of MFL
All Modern Foreign Language pupils taking exams this year are welcome to these sessions. I would highly recommend that if you can attend, then you should do so. The efforts that we make now, before the final exams, will make a lasting impact on the exam performances of our pupils and, consequently, on their life chances. 

I would also advise pupils to use online resources, such as www.memrise.com, which is a free online vocabulary learning tool. It has all the vocabulary needed for both the GCSE and A Level exams for both French and Spanish, and I would highly recommend using it, especially before sitting the Listening and Reading papers, which require consistent knowledge of the set vocabulary. The lists can be found at the following links:

(AQA) French GCSE:
https://www.memrise.com/course/1199399/aqa-9-1-gcse-french-theme-based-vocabulary/
https://www.memrise.com/course/1199148/aqa-9-1-gcse-french-general-vocabulary/
https://www.memrise.com/course/1137583/aqa-new-gcse-french-from-2016/
https://www.memrise.com/course/1199399/aqa-9-1-gcse-french-theme-based-vocabulary/
https://quizlet.com/class/13693514/

(AQA) Italian GCSE:
https://www.memrise.com/course/2090054/italian-aqa-gcse-9-1/26/ 
https://www.memrise.com/course/487273/aqa-gcse-italian/

(AQA) Spanish GCSE:
https://www.memrise.com/course/1256350/aqa-gcse-spanish-9-1/

(Edexcel) French A Level:
https://www.memrise.com/course/1249498/french-edexcel-a-level/

(AQA) Spanish A Level:
https://www.memrise.com/course/1306214/aqa-spanish-a-level-year-1-new-course-from-2016/
https://www.memrise.com/course/1754922/aqa-a-level-year-2-spanish/


Kind regards,
Mr Naish

Regular lunchtime Language Clinics – to assist pupils who may need extra help in improving their language skills.

Monday
Italian GCSE co-curricular enrichment in T12 (Mr Naish)

Tuesday
GCSE French speaking clinic – Tuesday lunchtime from 1:20 in T14 (Mrs Tuite-Dalton)

Italian GCSE co-curricular enrichment in T12  (Mr Naish)

Wednesday
Japanese club in T12 from 1:20 (Mr Naish)

Drop-in sessions on Wednesday nights for French and Spanish GCSE in St John (Mr Naish)

Thursday
Drop-in sessions on Thursday nights for French and Spanish in Norris (Mr O’Connor)

GCSE French and Spanish intervention – Thursday lunchtimes from 1:20 in T12 (Mr Naish)

Friday
GCSE French and Spanish intervention – Friday lunchtimes from 1:20 in T12 (Mr Naish)