How and when will I study Spanish?
Following the opportunity to study both French and Spanish in Year 7, our students now spend their entire language allocation of 5 hours per fortnight on one of these languages. Students are allocated a language based on a combination of factors including student preference, progression in Year 7, the language studied in the primary phase which usually varies, and future intentions regarding language study.
The course is taught through electronic media and is based on engaging and authentic material, including great video clips and real Spanish text. It is supplemented by Scaffolding for Productive Language, which is bespoke, editable content enlivened by great images, and our colourful and imaginative content is uploaded to Google Classroom daily, so that students can review it at home. If you don't have it already, we strongly encourage downloading Google Classroom on mobile phones or other devices you may have. The Gatwick School also subscribes to Linguascope for great interactive activities. Click on the fish icon above. Login details for students are available from MFL staff.
¡Vamos a casa! - Let’s go home!
Talking about your home and its location
Describing your house
Describing the rooms in your house
Describing your bedroom
Talking about your daily routine
Talking about what you do after school
This theme is studied from September to December.
What else should I know?
Previous knowledge of Spanish is beneficial but you can still catch up at this stage.
The use of an online dictionary such as wordreference.com is permitted and dictionary skills are taught to students. Verb tables for French can be found on verbix.com.
The use of Google Translate and other translation packages and AI is not allowed in lessons. You are here to actually learn the language, not to let software do the work for you.
You will do your work in an eeBook (electronic evidence book) rather than a traditional exercise book. This is permanently shared with your teacher who will review it and make comments electronically as applicable. You will have one eeBook for classwork and another one for grammar notes. You will need to be prepared to write reflections on your progress when asked to by your teacher.
¡Vamos al pueblo - Let’s go into town!
Where you are going
Giving and understanding directions
Describing the location of places in town
Talking about distance
Talking about what your town is like
Talking about the weather
This theme is studied from January to April.
Vamos a divertirnos! - Let’s go and enjoy ourselves!
Film genres and film classifications
Film synopses
Film preferences
Going to a theme park
Having a sleepover
Talking about sports
What you like doing in your free time
What you do during the week /weekend
Arranging to go out
Saying how you help at home
Saying how you get to school
This theme is studied from May to July.
Homework
You will definitely need to do some homework each week in order to ensure your success at language learning. This will be one or more of the following.
Learn a new Personal Response Question
Consolidate new vocabulary from a specified vocabulary list or use The Gatwick School Linguascope account.
Review a grammar note
Review lesson slide(s) uploaded on Google Classroom
Complete any activity you were unable to finish in class or for which you were absent
Read, listen or watch any French material specified by your teacher
Note: there is never any week that you do not have homework in Spanish. You should be doing at least one of the above regardless.
How will I be assessed?
You will always get plenty of feedback from your teacher as you go along, but there are also formal eAssessments each term, which cover all four language skills each time.
eListening
This means a short electronic test on a locked, school-managed Chromebook in which the teacher plays some short Spanish audio recordings twice each, and you answer from a range of usually five multiple choice answers. There is also a transcription section in which the teacher reads out a sentence in Spanish and you type out what you hear. Spelling and accents do not have to be totally accurate when testing this skill.
eSpeaking
Each week you will complete a Personal Response Question or PRQ, in which you will devise an answer using a range of quality, scaffolded material. You will need to learn just 4 questions of which you will be asked 3 in a random order. You will do your eSpeaking via video link to the classroom to give you some privacy and your teacher will talk to you using headphones. You must also ask the teacher a question related to the topic, which you can prepare in advance.
eReading
This is another type of short eAssessment conducted on a locked Chromebook, in which you have to answer from a range of multiple choice answers related to a very short text. There is also a translation sentence, in which you need to translate a sentence from Spanish into English.
eWriting
For many, this is the most challenging of the four language skills. However it is also based on the same PRQs and you are asked to type out our four PRQ responses to see how well you can write in Spanish. In this eAssessment, correct spelling and placement of accents do carry weight. There is also a translation sentence in which you have to translate a sentence from English into Spanish.
Beside the four languages skills eAssessments, you should expect eVocab tests a few times per term. These are very quick to do but will give you and your teacher a good indication of how well you are taking in new vocabulary.