Languages topics explained for parents
Languages are part of the National Curriculum in England from Year 3 to Year 9, and each school chooses which language it teaches. In Years 3 to 6 children listen, speak, read and write familiar words and phrases, in French or Spanish for example; in Years 7 to 9 they use past, present and future tenses and a wider vocabulary.
Key Stage 2 languages
- Building new sentences
- Asking and answering questions
- Building vocabulary
- Comparing a language with English
- Describing people
- Describing places, things and actions
- Masculine, feminine and neuter nouns
- Greetings and simple conversations
- High-frequency verbs
- Listening and responding
- Opinions and asking for help
- Patterns and building sentences
- Presenting ideas orally
- Pronunciation and intonation
- Reading for understanding
- Songs, rhymes and stories
- Speaking in sentences
- Spelling, sound and meaning
- Stories, songs, poems and rhymes
- Using a bilingual dictionary
- Writing phrases from memory
Key Stage 3 languages
- Accurate grammar and spelling
- Speaking and pronunciation
- Developing ideas and opinions
- Formal and informal address
- Talking about the future
- Conversations and the unexpected
- Giving and justifying opinions
- Key grammatical structures
- Listening for information
- Stories, songs, poems and letters
- Talking about the past
- The present tense
- Reading original texts
- Dictation and transcription
- Translating into English
- Translating into the language
- Voices and moods
- Wider vocabulary
- Writing prose and creatively