Minimum core content for Key Stage 2 Languages

 

ChatGPT's take on my musings about the core content!

The Curriculum and Research Review 2025 (CAR) was published last week on 5th November.  I have already written at some length about what it means for primary languages.

The first of the two recommendations for primary languages was:

a minimum core content for French, German and Spanish would provide greater clarity and consistency, especially for non-specialist teachers.  Covering commonly occurring phonics, vocabulary and grammar, this should align closely with the content and teaching approaches at secondary and thus build more securely the foundations of knowledge for success at Key Stage 4 and beyond more securely.  This should support a smoother transition into Key Stage 3. .... With a shared understanding of what constitutes 'substantial progress' in a language, secondary schools would be better equipped to build on students' prior learning.

The Government has agreed to put this into place.  I have been pondering what this "minimum core content" will comprise.  The second sentence of the above quotation is, I think, important: "Covering commonly occurring phonics, vocabulary and grammar".  I would argue that it needs to be more far-reaching than this and not just vocabulary, grammar and phonics.

Here are my thoughts so far on what I think should be in the minimum core content:

Intercultural Understanding (IU)

Children need to have an understanding of the language that they are learning and how it fits into the global picture.  We need to encourage curiosity about world languages and where they are spoken, and we need children to appreciate that other languages may be different, but they are not bad, wrong, or strange.  All languages are valid.  I think that children should be able to:

1. recognise that there are hundreds of languages spoken across the world, and that most people are not monolingual
2. name other world languages and say where they are spoken
3. explore and investigate language families and their roots
4. talk about the languages spoken in their school and their classroom
5. name the countries which speak the language that they are learning
6. know some basic facts about the countries where that language is spoken
7. explore and investigate special days and celebrations in some of those countries
8. find out about social conventions and daily life in some of those countries

Writing systems

I have written before about writing systems (for example here) and the importance of children's familiarising themselves with the writing system of the new language prior to attempting any writing in it.  I think that children should be able to:

1. write diacritics accurately
2. name the different diacritics in the language that they are learning
3. understand the difference that those diacritics makes to the individual letter or word (this of course links nicely to phonics)
4. write accurately any punctuation marks of the new language that differ from English
5. understand the rules for capitalisation in the language that they are learning

Dictionary skills

If children want to be able to personalise their speaking and writing and extend what they want to say outside of the parameters of the core content, it is important they know how to use a bilingual dictionary effectively, whether it be online, paper-based, or a more simple bilingual glossary.  This will also of course cross the curriculum to English, and the two subjects will be able to work hand in hand on alphabetical order and finding the correct definition.  The ability to use a dictionary effectively will also support new Year 7s, especially if they are learning a language that they didn't study at primary school.

Should we push for an online bilingual or even multilingual dictionary for Key Stage 2, where children can work between English and their curriculum language, but also between other "foreign" languages?  What a great resource that would be!

Language Learning Strategies

In my opinion, Key Stage 2 is the time to embed what it means to be a language learner, and what children can do to optimise their learning time and their understanding.  For example, I think that children should be able to:

1. look at the face of the person speaking and listen attentively
2. compare the new language with English or with other languages that they know
3. use context and tone of voice to deduce meaning
4. use different techniques to memorise language
5. use physical responses and gestures/actions to aid in the learning process

Phonics

It's worth noting first of all that phonics in French is much more complex than it is in Spanish or German.  I teach just Spanish currently, and have usually covered all the important phonemes by February of Year 3.  After that it is constant repetition and practice, as I introduce all new vocabulary phonics first.

There are many more phonemes for French, but having said that, the last time I taught French (2022-2024) I managed to cover the following phonemes in 2 years:

j, /ə/, u, i/y, ê/è/ei/ai, r, on, un, ô/au, é, ou, ss/ç, s/z, in/im/ain, an, ch, oi, eu, silent h, and silent final letters

We repeated many of these multiple times, and gradually introduced the phonemes as we met them in new vocabulary.  So I think it would be doable over four years, as long as the phonemes were carefully planned into the scheme of work units.  I can't think of many other phonemes that would need to be included for French.

For Spanish: a, e, i, o, u, b/v, ce/ci/z, -d, ge/gi/j, silent h, ll, ñ, qu, r, rr, gue/gui

I don't know enough German to be able to put a list here.

Thinking about the sentence in the quotation from the CAR above that says "this should align closely with the content and teaching approaches at secondary", I anticipate that activities such as dictation and reading aloud, new arrivals to languages GCSEs, will make their way into Key Stage 2 in a more formal way to aid phonics practice.

Vocabulary

It is generally agreed that by the end of Year 6, children will have reached level A1 of the Common European Framework.  The estimated vocabulary size is between 500 and 1000 words to reach this level.  Given the time restraints to which we are subject in Key Stage 2, 500 seems reasonable.  This would work out at about 125 words per year over Key Stage 2, or an average of 3 or 4 new words per week.  This seems doable.

It is likely that the vocabulary list will be informed by word frequency, as has happened in the secondary sector,  and which is also a feature of some primary schemes of work now.  The verbs will be important - you can't make a sentence without them after all - and the chosen nouns will need to be relevant to the experiences and interests of children age 7-11.  I think that this will be a good opportunity to include here the themes and topic areas which might be commonly included in lower Key Stage 3 but are too immature for them, as well as the lists of words that would be useful for new Year 7 students to have under their belt in order to hit the ground running in secondary.  Other aspects of vocabulary, such as days and months, link well to other topics in the primary curriculum such as Romans.

My suggestions for vocabulary are:

1. basic greetings and saying your name
2. titles e.g. Señora, Monsieur
3. common first names from the target-language speaking countries
4. some commonly used classroom instructions, to support target language use in secondary
5. saying how you feel (answering the question How are you?)
6. numbers to 100 (admittedly more complex for French than for Spanish and German)
7. colours
8. other basic adjectives, e.g. of size and shape
9. days of the week
10. months of the year
11. items in the pencil case (very important for younger children!)
12. animals / pets
13. members of the family
14. planets (links to Year 5 Space topic)
15. opinions (saying what you like/don't like/love/hate)

Grammar

The grammar section of the Key Stage 2 Programme of Study is brief:

The ASCL Transition Toolkit (link to Spanish overview) was put together by ASCL, the British Council and the Association for Language Learning.  When we were compiling it, we took the brief statements in the Programme of Study and unpicked them to see what would actually be involved.  I use the toolkit every year to inform the secondary schools what my Year 6s have done, and I think that it makes a good starting point for these discussions.  I also unpicked the grammar from the Programme of Study and put it in these mind maps.

It's worth noting at this point that the terminology of certain grammatical points is different in the English curriculum and the Languages curriculum, for example articles vs. determiners and possessive adjectives vs. possessive pronouns.  This reset of the curriculum might be the opportunity for some more joined-up thinking across the curricula for "native" and "foreign" languages.

My suggestions for grammar to cover these points are:

1. notion of grammatical gender
2. nouns (patterns, how they are affected by grammatical gender)
3. determiners (definite and indefinite articles + numbers)
4. plural forms
5. adjectival position
6. adjectival agreement
7. question words
8. conjunctions (and, but, however)
9. intensifiers (very, quite)
10. subject pronouns (although not used a great deal in Spanish)
11. first three persons (I, you, he/she/it) of the high-frequency irregular verbs to be, to have, to do/make, to want, to go
12. first three persons of commonly used regular verbs such as to play, to speak, to listen, to eat, to drink, to like

Do you agree with this list?  

What would you add?  

Would you take anything out?  

Let me know in the comments.