The Hawker School French program is aligned with the Australian Curriculum- French, in the key areas of Communicating and Understanding. French is taught through a weekly lesson to students in Kindergarten to Year 6 by a specialist teacher.
Language learning at Hawker School focuses on high levels of participation in speaking, writing, reading and listening activities. Kindergarten students engage in mini topics throughout the year to introduce them to basic vocabulary and phrases through song, dance, written and spoken activities. Students in Year 1 participate in language acquisition lessons based on the Accelerated Integrated Method (AIM) program. The AIM program focuses on language learning through the comprehension of vocabulary and grammar. This is achieved within the context of storytelling. Students in Year 2-6 are guided in language acquisition through a range of scaffolded tasks, games and online learning programs such as Sentence Builders and Duolingo.
In addition to language lessons, each year there is a cultural focus for students, looking into various Francophonie countries (French speaking countries) such as Mauritius, Canada and Morocco. Students in years 4-6 participate in research tasks to investigate and compare different aspects of a specific country. The country is chosen by the ACT school’s French Network leader in consultation with the Alliance Française de Canberra, who facilitate the Primary School’s Francophonie competition and market during Francophonie Week (annually during March).
Each year, in Term 3, all students from Kindergarten to year 6 have the opportunity in class to learn a French poem at their level, in the lead up to the Non-Francophonie French Poetry Competition. From this, 14 students across the school are chosen to represent their year level in the competition open to all Primary School French learners in the ACT.