At Springfield Primary, learning a language enables students to communicate with others in French. They learn and practise how to organise their ideas, to select the appropriate words and tone, to look and listen to the response and to express their ideas and feelings.
The communicative approach to teaching Languages ensures that meaningful communication such as asking for, getting and giving directions is the focus of classroom learning. The teacher also uses French as much as possible, to give students the maximum opportunity to hear French used in everyday situations.
Learning a language encourages and enables students to look more objectively at English as a system of language. As they begin to learn and see the patterns and rules that operate in English, in French class students learn grammar concepts and terms such as tenses, subject, verb, nouns, and adjectives so that they can understand the system of language, whether it is French or English.
Students use language as a tool to learn about the world and learning a second language is like upgrading and extending their collection of tools. Students are given opportunities to experience other areas of the curriculum such as Reading, Mathematics, Health, Science, HASS and Technology with a new set of language terms and so improve or consolidate their understandings of the world around them.