Modern Foreign Languages
Head of Department – Mrs V K Allen
Languages will open doors to you in the future! When learning languages not only are you learning to speak and understand a new language, but you also learn communication skills, teamwork, flexibility, being outside your comfort zone, perseverance, memory skills; all of these are life-long skills which are much in demand by future employers.
See the MFL wheel below for the many skills learning a language provides and how it dovetails into the wider curriculum at 91看片. As you can see in the diagram, the whole-school curriculum is closely interwoven across the schema with subjects mutually enhancing and supporting each other.
The MFL department is a buzzing department with outstanding teachers, all of whom speak at least two modern foreign languages and have all lived and worked overseas. They are fully dedicated to inspire and enthuse students with their passion for language learning and wider international understanding.
Curriculum
At Torquay Boys’ Grammar School students have the opportunity to study:
KS3
In year 7, students start Spanish and in year 8, they continue with Spanish and start their second language: German or Mandarin Chinese. They continue with both languages until at least the end of year 9.
KS4
In years 10 and 11, students continue with one or two languages. The study of one language is compulsory for GCSE.
KS5
At KS5, there are many opportunities to continue with languages through the International Baccalaureate. All students taking the IB course study at least one language as part of their IB Diploma and the two-year IB course enables us to offer a range of courses in the various languages.
Why languages at IB?
The IB Diploma promotes the study of languages among the young people of today because we live in a world where language skills are of great importance.
When looking for a job, it is important to be able to offer prospective employers as many skills as possible and language learning not only teaches students how to converse in another language but also gives them many other skills which are greatly valued by employers:
- communication skills
- team work
- being flexible
- understanding of other cultures
- negotiation skills
- cognitive skills
Extra curricular activities
The Modern Languages Department also gives students the opportunity to experience other cultures and languages during the聽International Week of Languages: Polish, Japanese, Greek, Italian, Swedish, Arabic, Welsh, Swahili, Japanese, Portuguese, Basque and Catalan.
The Department offers a range of聽clubs and events聽in which students can put into practice their language skills:
- Weekly clubs in each language 鈥� Equipo espa帽ol (Spanish); Deutsche AG (German); Film Club (French); Nihongo Ninja (Japanese); Hanyu Helper (Chinese)
- International Week of Languages including the lunchtime International Market showcasing many tasty treats from across the globe
- Year 8 鈥� Chinese New Year celebrations (Mandarin) and Karnival (German)
- Visting speakers and guests (eg Transition, band from Bristol who write and perform in Chinese)
- Anthea Bell Translation competition each year in the Spring term, run by Oxford University
- Year 10 & 12 trip to mainland China (Beijing, Xi鈥檃n, Shanghai)
We work with Centrax Gas Turbines, an international company. Languages are an extremely important part of their business as they have branches in many countries around the world and it is important for their engineers to be able to communicate in other languages. Centrax sponsors our聽Linguist of the Year聽Cup, awarded every year to the best GCSE dual linguist.
We advocate continuing with your language learning to enhance your powers of deductive reasoning, channel effective communication and improve confidence. Regardless of your career path ahead, studying languages sets you apart from the crowd as someone who is committed to making progress, focused on details and open to new ideas.
