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French in the New Zealand Curriculum

Introduction

French is included in Language and Languages, which is one of the essential learning areas of The New Zealand Curriculum Framework.

All students benefit from learning another language from the earliest practicable age. Such learning broadens students' general language abilities and brings their own language into sharper focus. It enriches them intellectually, socially, and culturally, offers an understanding of the ways in which other people think and behave, and furthers international relations and trade. Students will be able to choose from a range of Pacific, Asian, and European languages, all of which are important to New Zealand's regional and international interests.

The New Zealand Curriculum Framework, page 10

Learning French plays a valuable part in the education of young New Zealanders. The publication of these French curriculum guidelines signals to French-speaking people around the world that New Zealand is seriously interested in maintaining and strengthening its social, economic, and political ties with French-speaking countries.

Programme planning
French in the New Zealand Curriculum provides teachers with a basis for planning programmes for students learning French in New Zealand primary and secondary schools. Such programmes will make French language and culture accessible to learners and will raise awareness of the importance of the French language. These curriculum guidelines are also intended to stimulate the development of teaching resources and to encourage dynamic and innovative teaching approaches that are responsive to the individual needs of learners.

The document is designed to be flexible enough to support many different kinds of learning programmes. This flexibility is essential because the needs and interests of individual learners differ and because French is taught in a variety of contexts (including primary, intermediate, middle, and secondary schools) and in different ways (for example, face-to-face in classrooms and through distance education).

Structure
For every two of the eight curriculum levels, the guidelines include a proficiency statement. At each level, there is a list of achievement objectives (with examples) along with the following strands:

• sociocultural aspects
• topics
• text types
• receptive skills – listening and reading
• productive skills – speaking and writing.

There are also lists of structures and vocabulary typically associated with these objectives. Finally, there is a list of suggested learning and assessment activities.

Although some teachers may wish to introduce achievement objectives in the order in which they are listed within a level, others may prefer to reorder and/or combine the achievement objectives in ways they consider more suitable for particular groups of learners.

For further information about using the curriculum for programme planning, see the 'Programme planning' section. For more suggestions about when the achievement objectives may be introduced, see the 'Achievement objectives and examples' page in the 'Structure' section.

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Research basis
In preparing these guidelines, reference was made to a considerable body of national and international research on the teaching and learning of modern languages. In particular, reference was made to the draft Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for languages.

That framework was considered important because it provides a comprehensive, transparent, and coherent account of language competencies. In addition, it is designed to assist teachers, curriculum designers, and governments to plan language teaching in ways that allow for meaningful forms of assessment, and for meaningful comparisons across languages in terms of the formulation and achievement of objectives at different levels.

For example, the same overall objective may appear at the same level in curriculum statements designed for a range of different languages. However, the specific ways in which that overall objective is achieved at that level will vary considerably from language to language.

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