Modern Foreign Languages and Key Skills

In addition to their specific content and knowledge, the subjects and short courses of junior cycle provide students with opportunities to develop a range of key skills. There are opportunities to support all key skills in this course, but some are particularly significant. 

Key skill	Key skill element	Student learning activity
Being literate	Developing my spoken language	Students will engage in meaningful communicative activities and tasks across all strands. They will learn to communicate effectively and confidently in the target language in familiar contexts.
Managing myself	Being able to reflect on my own learning	In all strands, students will monitor, reflect on and evaluate their progress by considering feedback from others and from self-assessment.
Staying well	Being positive about learning	In all strands, students will develop a positive attitude towards language learning as they engage with diversity and reflect on their successes.
Managing information and thinking	Using digital technology to access, manage and share content	In all strands, students will use a range of digital technologies to research and manage content as well as to communicate.
Being numerate	Seeing patterns, trends and relationships	In all strands, participation in language activities will offer students many opportunities to reinforce concepts such as number recognition, sequencing, date, time, value, measurement, and percentage. They will also notice linguistic and cultural patterns and trends as they develop their language and intercultural awareness.
Being creative	Exploring options and alternatives	In all strands, students will have opportunities to explore options and make choices as they engage in communicative activities and become increasingly more autonomous learners.
Working with others	Learning with others	In all strands, students will engage in pair and group work, as well as in peer-assessment
Communicating	Using language	In all strands, students will become familiar with the language of routine classroom interactions. The target language will be the principal medium of teaching and learning.