Should she drop French GCSE?

www.nytimes.com/1997/07/15/science/when-an-adult-adds-a-language-it-s-one-brain-two-systems.html

[quote Thisismynewname123]@AuntyPasta yes, her hearing has been checked and is being looked into. She can hear, but it's weak, and it's the listening that she's struggling most. Otherwise I wouldn't even mention her hearing because it doesn't affect her ability in any other subject.

I will find duolingo. Thanks for the suggestion.

@ClaudiaWankleman you're right, I wouldn't. It's because French teaching was so poor in years 7&8 that it feels like they're starting from not a great base. But I get your point[/quote]
I would encourage her to continue! I'm not quite sure what the ebacc is exactly, but i took gcse languages (french & spanish), and im hard of hearing & wear hearing aids. Granted, i much prefer the humanities /languages subjects & was terrible at science related subjects, so the opposite of yours, but my school were very helpful when it came to my language learning help, and with my hearing loss.
I had a speaker for the listening section of my exams. So instead of it being played from a cd, which i really struggled to hear, i had a person sitting in front of me reading from the 'script' instead. This meant i could lipread, but was the exact same exam text as all the other pupils!) perhaps something like this could help if she is struggling?
(Apologies if im repeating something from another poster, i've not read all responses yet)

German was the language recommended for people who don't "like" languages as GCSE German is very structured and logical use of grammar rules with fewer exceptions than French. Limited experience of Spanish but it is still less "neat" than GCSE level German.

I am well aware German gets tougher at A-Level and beyond. Kind of irrelevant though..

My daughter passed her 11 plus but during an educational psychologist assessment we were told her brain was just not wired well for languages

Unless your daughter struggles to communicate in her native language then this is empirically false.

drop it. She should do what makes her happy and focus on subjects that do so.

My daughter passed her 11 plus but during an educational psychologist assessment we were told her brain was just not wired well for languages and to avoid French and take Spanish as it’s easier. Any chance she can switch to Spanish? My son’s grammar only starts teaching Spanish in year 8. They started French in year 7 as they consider it harder.

A 6 in MFL esp if not madly keen is a great grade and don't let any of the MN "my child gets a suite of 8s and 9s" tell you different! Ds2 v happy with 6 in Spanish ( he's a scientist too)

I'm guessing that what medical schools might not be keen on is applications from pupils who have taken their GCSEs across two years, rather than looking at when they started the GCSE course. Most schools that do a three year GCSE course still have them take most exams at the end of year 11, and as others have said, what they study in year 9 for some subjects may be little different to a school with a two year GCSE model.

Some kids follow up mediocre GCSEs with a year doing more in a private sixth form, and I would imagine that the med schools are not as impressed by their results as someone who has got everything in one sitting.

I couldn't find anything on the Cambridge website aboit gcses having to be done over 2 years

Both my sons started with Duolingo in year 7, by year 9 they combined it with Memrise. The MFL teacher had a specific GCSE "pack" from year 10 on Memrise which helped immensely.

I would definitely get her on the Duolingo and go right back to basics.

Re med schools wanting GCSEs over 2 years, sorry but how the hell do you control that when applying for a school? A lot of children don't know what they want to do at 16 never mind 10 when choosing a secondary school for them. I also don't think med schools have the time nor inclination to be checking to see if a school did GCSEs over 2 or 3 years.

How do med schools know how long the GCSE course is? Surely, y9 is spent solidifying basics before starting the actual GCSE work in y10?

Look at their entry requirements than. It’s quite clear.

I can't see how any medical schools would know that the material has been learned over 3 years rather than 2. If the exams were taken at different times in the three years (eg. some at the end of year 10), then the dates might make that obvious, but not just that the learning was done over 3 years. Most subjects include work or skills from previous years - maths is a 12 year course really!!

Most universities don’t look at GCSEs. Medicine is different in some cases. Not that I expect lack of an MFL to make a difference but the 3 years taken to do them might.

Dd2 really struggled with French and got a 6 in the GCSE and 8s and 9s for everything else. She's on track for 3 x As at A level and has good uni offers from Russell Group unis so clearly scraping a 6 at gcse is fine!

I have a DD who loved languages and did MFL degree. Never uses her a MFLs at work - but so what? She got a brilliant job and she didn’t want a job using the languages. MFL is an academic degree - you don’t spend 4 years chatting in your MFLs. It’s an exploration of cultures and arts and of course it’s valuable!

She should continue in my view. Learning to not be the best is valuable in itself. Learning how to improve is also worthwhile.

Do be aware that there are medical schools out there that expect GCSE learning to be done in 2 years, not 3. They can be choosy.

If they've started GCSE in yr 9 then it will be too late to switch to something else as she'll have missed 3 months of that already, hence school being reluctant to allow swaps.

Stick at it, support her and encourage her to work at things and be more resilient and do try not to allow your own experience prejudices make or influence her own experience or enjoyment.

FWIW MFL teachers often have to deal with parents whose views on the subject are at odds with their own children's abilities or enjoyment.

It's really possible for your DD to pick this up. She's bright, so with a combo of DuoLingo and hard work, she'll get there. Learning the verbs and vocab really is just a matter of hard graft, it's the only way to build the foundations of a language.

My DD2 had the same issues as yours with very, very poor French teaching in Yr 9 and in most of Yr10. She dealt with it by doing DuoLingo and working through her book determinedly and quietly at the back of the class while supply teachers and cover staff came and went. It was really poor, the school acknowledged there was a crisis.

Going into Yr11 she got a really excellent teacher and all her hard work just came together - she walked out with an 8. It can be done.

You talk about her dropping a subject - what would she do instead? It's not ideal to start a GCSE subject after you have missed a term of work.

MFL is my subject so I would encourage it - if the only issue is that she finds it difficult, remember it is a subject started from scratch in yr 7, unlike many, and so it is a steep learning curve. If she is able she will start to grasp it - and that's a great feeling.

I don't personally think whether you use the GCSE subject in your adult life is necessarily a marker as to whether you should study it or not. Language learning in any case is great for your understanding of your own language.

That's a great post from @Thimbleberries, spot on.

She could drop it as it’s not really needed for her future studies or career field she is aiming for. I see no point in her having to stress over a weakness when she could direct that energy towards her strong subjects and so get higher scores in them.

My nephew in the U.K. who is now year 13 dropped Spanish during his GCSEs. He picked up the further maths and Design Technology GCSEs instead of doing a language. So in total he did
English Lang, English Lit, RE, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Maths, Geography, Computer Science, Design Technology and Further Maths.

I remember my sister saying it was a bit of a fight with the school because there is an Ofsted grade based on how many students get the EBacc. But it’s not a qualification and has zero impact on getting into sixth form or university. It’s just an Ofsted grade marker to rate the college like attendance is.

He also wants to go into sciences and is doing Physics, Computer Science, Maths and Further Maths at A level.

I loved MFL at school and I'm relatively good at learning them (taught myself Italian, and very basic Russian, did A level French and GCSE German and French) but honestly have found them almost useless in real life! I mean, it's nice on holiday, and occasionally someone has asked me to translate French documents at work, but it really hasn't been necessary.

Why slog away at something when you could switch to another subject and flourish?

I don't understand this obsession with languages. They are not necessary. We aren't talking about maths or English here.

If we were talking about violin lessons, everyone would pile on and say "let the poor child quit and focus on things they enjoy and are good at."

If she really hates it and there is a subject she would rather do, let her switch!

Does she understand the real basics of grammar, so that she knows what she is learning?

I've worked with children who've been struggling in French because they are having to memorise verb conjugations etc, but no-one has ever really explained to them what it is all about. They got taught phrases, and then later were expected to replace parts of the phrases with other words, but it wasn't clear to some children even where the separate words were, how that translated to written words (so many silent endings, elisions, etc), what needed to be replaced, or why. Some of the French teachers were insistent on not ever translating things to English, but just giving more and more examples, which didn't really clear up the confusion.

So a bit of basic grammar - showing how we don't change the endings very much in English, but do for 3 person sing., or some irregular verbs, and explaining what and why they are having to learn with the different endings.

Or making sure that they understand why they have to learn the gender of the words - it's not just to use the right article in front, but also affects how they might change an adjective to match, or sometimes what form of the noun.

It's important to understand what tenses are and how they differ from each other and why you need different endings - in English we often use auxiliary verbs to show tense, but not always in other languages, where there are more changes to the verb stem (or both). Terms like 'infinitive' are often used in French classes but children may not understand that we have those in English too - it's less obvious, because the verb stem in English is frequently the same as it is in all the other forms, so children don't realise that, e.g., 'to sleep' is actually a phrase that goes together, replaced by a single word in other languages.

Understanding the structure of the language you're studying is useful to - that verbs might come in several categories that each have different sets of endings to do the same thing. I think an overview of that can be useful, so that it doesn't appear that you are just memorising endless random lists of things.

A lot of that sounds really obvious to adults, but there are a surprising number of misunderstandings amongst children about some real basics like that. And some of it needs to be repeated frequently, as they start learning new tenses or structures.

Apps can be good for studying the actual vocabulary - it can also be useful to know word derivations, and finding connections to English or Latin or other languages to help with memory.

Basic French phonics would be another good start. There are so many silent letters, and vowel combinations, but it is quite predictable for reading at least. Harder for listening, as there are a lot of ways to spell a given sound, but if she is aware of many of the more common combinations for reading/spelling, then she might be more aware of them when she is listening. e.g learning what 'au' says, or 'i' . Breaking up some of the vocabulary she is learning into sounds and syllables and looking for the patterns can be valuable right at the start, and might help get over the initial hump.

DD is in her final year of GCSEs and in the past 12 months her grades have improved massively - she had a shaky start with a couple of her subjects, French included. She's currently predicted a 6+ which she's happy with as it's a good pass and she's not planning on taking it at A level.

We had been warned that French is a huge course and needed a lot of engagement outside of lessons - Duolingo is something that DD uses. She's also immersed herself by having a lot of French language things around - she listens to French rock music, has DS games in French, and so on. She speaks French a lot at home (we don't) and so she has to translate for us.

All sounds like we've pressure-cooked her, but it's all been her doing. She does enjoy French though and has been lucky to have good teachers. The change from KS3 to KS4 is challenging, not least because the focus becomes solely on their futures - it's a big thing to take on in Y9.

I'd say give it another half-term, talk to her French teacher, see if there's anything else you can do to support at home and then review.

Good luck.