Soon, we’ll all be teaching MFL in KS2. While MFL doesn’t quite teach itself, there are dozens of online resources that can make the job easier.
www.linguascope.com carries literally hundreds of teaching activities. It costs a couple of hundred a year, but there are always those e-learning credits to get rid off.
The BBC is great as always. In our school we find www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryfrench to be easy-to-use, comprehensive and free.
www.cilt.org.uk lists dozens of resources.
Of course, there’s the choice of which language to teach. Some schools have chosen to teach a different language in each year. This is fine, but the framework for languages specifies that there should be progression in a language across KS2. Because of this, most primaries have chosen a single target language.
We went for French, as it was the language most of us spoke already. Others have opted for Spanish or Italian for precisely the opposite reason. What do I mean? Well, you might want to go for a language that no-one speaks precisely so that everyone is starting fresh, and no-one has an advantage. You can easily get a native speaker in to deliver some regular conversation classes for your staff. Our INSET went particularly smoothly with a few bouteilles du vin and some cheese.
I’d be interested to know what other schools have decided to teach, and how they’re integrating it into the timetable. For once, I think this is an initiative worth embracing. It’s a chance to teach and to learn.
Bon courage!