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Y4 - Spellings in French??

1 reply

gabsid · 21/01/2014 12:27

I haven't been here for a while, but just need to have a rant... sorry!

Last night DS (Y4) came home with his list of spellings - in French! Now I know MFL provision in primary schools is bad, but they seem to make it purposefully worse.

It is evident that MFL is not a priority in my DS's school, however during the last summer (just for 2 weeks or so) term DS enjoyed learning some Spanish, I supported him at home and he was doing really well and could communicate a little. No MFL teaching since. Now yesterday he came home with his spellings in French (numbers to 10 and some animals), he told me that he hadn't learned the numbers, but some animals, but not those on the sheet. They always have to write spelling sentences with the words???

DP asked the teacher this morning and was told that they should find out what the words/phrases mean and then write a sentence in English (DS didn't listen to instructions). But still, a sentence with, e.g. the number six in ... I can't see this helping his English spelling nor any language learning.

We are a bilingual family, and I find that language learning can be so much fun, enriching and useful - but they seem to do their best to put people off it - and the evidence is all around us... rant over.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
cansu · 22/01/2014 21:38

This does sound mad. I am an MFL teacher and I would never consider setting spellings of words I hadn't taught to the children! Also at year 4 this is really not appropriate for someone just starting out, particularly as many children would struggle with the English spelling at this age. Sounds v odd.

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