to think this government hasn't got a clue about education- why should all children be made to take MFL at GCSE?

[LuluJakey1]

What is it with the ill-thought out education ideas this government has? Why should every child take a GCSE in MFL? It is not something many children enjoy or feel has relevance to them.

Why should a school not be able to be outstanding if it does not make all students take a GCSE in MFL?

Redexpat- life is full of things you have to get on with and that are beyond our control and many of them cause people unhappiness. So we should be humane about the things we can control and not make all children suffer for the benefit of a minority.

The point is students can choose MFL. The reason we don't value it is that almost every country in the world that teaches MFL, teaches English as it's first MFL and it is a langauge spoken almost everywhere. Other languages are rarely heard in this country- on TV, in print, on the radio, in music, popular film. That is why the majority of students find them irrelevant.

I know students who struggle and fail to learn a MFL through school teaching. Many are diagnosed as dyslexic.

So I agree OP, it's not going to work for every student.

I know one child who had done compulsory Welsh all through primary and secondary and could not pass the exam.

Perhaps we should start with a plan rather than an imposition.

Train MFL primary school teachers
Every primary school to employ a trained specialist full- time
Every child to start learning French from age 4
Imposed curriculum provision - an hour a day from age 5
Every child to go on a paid MFL visit to France in primary school

Then you could start thinking about enforcing it in secondary schools- when those children reach 11 and there is something to build on.

I am tellng you now, the government will never make anything happen in primary schools or invest in the subject.

It's great to do some MFL teaching in primary if you have teachers with the ability to do it properly but it is absolutely NOT essential. Good secondary teaching is enough - tbh I wonder if part of the problem is the GCSE syllabus that is putting kids off?

In my children's secondary school - ordinary french comprehensive with a very deprived intake - about a third of Y11 students opt to take two additional hours of MFL a week (on top of the compulsory 6 hours), and most of these students have taken part in exchanges this year.

The government announced yesterday that it wants every students at KS4 to take GCSE exams in Maths English, Science, Humaities and MFL
Such a narrow sausage factory approach to education. This is not right for all kids. The kids who this isn't right for, get labelled a failure for not getting their 5 GCSEs.
I passed French and German O'levels - what a complete waste of 2 options!
Neither of my kids took a MFL to GCSE and that was the right decision for them.

Part of the problem I think is that young teenagers in the UK are given far too much choice, far too early
Too much choice too early? They get very little choice and it's only for the last 2 years of their basic education that they get any choice at all.

Maths, English, Science, Humanities & MFL implies that is 5 subjects, when in reality it is 7-8 subjects. That leaves very little room for the child's own choices.
Who was it that decided that those subjects = good education?

We don't need to visit a foreign country, we could just use Skype to allow English children to chat to European children. I would like primary school children to have a taste of German, Spanish, Italian as well as French. The point of learning an MFL is the appreciation of other cultures rather than becoming fluent in the target language. Learning an MFL is to prevent our children going up to be a bunch of UKIP supporters.

I feel that there is an issue with forcing low ablity children to do GCSE MFL. I feel that low ablity children should do European Studies and study a smattering of languages. They could learn about the culture of various countries as well as very basic phases.

I don't think that is too bad - if the child is achieving well in English

• but then again I have O level German ...never needed it and can't remember anything ... Anyway what I think is worse is in Scotland I have just found all children will have to learn a foreign language (French/German/Spanish - not Gaelic but suspect that would be the ideal according to the SNP) from what amounts to reception in the English system. I find that almost unbelievable -they will be learning to read English and a foreign language at the same time (and taught by a standard primary school teacher)! It is the children who struggle to learn to read eg SEN, dyslexic etc I really think will struggle and potentially get confused. My DP is French -but was working long hours when the DD1 was very young and didn't see her much. We debated whether to be a 'bilingual family' from the start and decided not to be as (apparently) it tends to delay learning in English and she would only be exposed for short amounts of time (my French is appalling!). Obviously my DD1 (now 14) is doing well in French now! I also know another family who are trilingual and their DD had to have extra English lessons at age 7 in her private school because she was considered too far behind. Even without her learning French at the same time DD2 had speech delay and needed SALT from age 3.5 to 6. Currently they have to learn one from age 8/9 - at my DDs primary they alternated between French and German - now as all the teachers have to feel comfortable teaching it will be French. Which means that will be the first foreign language they learn at High school - they can pick up another language later but they are unlikely to be ready to get the higher grade exam (National 5) at 15 - so only something they would do if they are really interested in languages....also there isn't room in the curriculum! And I can see problems if children move primary school - so if they were learning Spanish and ended up in a school where the language was French at 10 and trying to catch up with 7 years teaching ...
  If you want to see how badly a government can fuck up education come to Scotland ...it really is an education.

The low ability in lMFL may be better off doing sciences for example if they have that aptitude.

I agree it should be in the syllabus. But I'd just like to politely correct those who think if it is taught from nursery onwards, children will be fluent. I was, and I am far from fluent. Unfortunately, I am just not a natural linguist, and it very nearly cost me a university place.

fiveacres it definitely hampered the overall results of child I knew in Wales - so dispiriting too.

I don't think MFL should be mandatory for GCSE. My strength did not lie with languages and I felt lucky to be able to choose something else. Fast forward 30 years and i am surprising myself by now learning a new to me MFL, independently and enjoying it massively - what changed? I am thrilled with the possibilities of communicating with someone in another language - why wasn't I thrilled with this at school, i have no idea!
It saddens me that it took me so long to truly appreciate the magic of language learning - but now i am well and truly hooked!
As far as you can, imo, it's best to study subjects you enjoy - you get more from them. My dcs hated French at primary but they love it and work hard at it in secondary....quality of teaching is vital.

Te mere fact that so many feel it is a waste of time speaks volumes about how badly we have approached this for years.

Perhaps now is the turning point - perhaps if we force children initially then we will hopefully get to a point where it is considered normal/desirable.

Just like the rest of the world (except America).

GCSE French or German or Spanish isn't hard and I think it's perfectly reasonable to require students to at least have the basics of another language.

But so often the assumption is that by just exposing children to another language they learn it, and they don't. I spent six weeks every summer in France and had my dad forcing me with bonjours every day but it wasn't happening. I never 'thought' in French.

Ugh, five years of phrase book French at school and I still couldn't hold a decent conversation - and that's after coming out with an A at GCSE.

On the other hand, I'm fairly good at german (not fluent, but enough to get by quite comfortably) despite only being taught it between the ages of five to seven, during which time I lived in Germany, albeit on a British airforce base.

As it stands, the way mfl are taught, they are only useful if the child has a passion or gift for it. Whilst I agree it's a good thing for a child to learn another language in the current set-up it shouldn't be compulsory.

The problem as an anglophone is choosing where to focus the efforts. There is no one obvious answer that an education system can focus on.

At least the US has Spanish as a big minority language and in some States it's the obvious choice. Perhaps if I lived in Kent French would be an obvious choice!

I agree ClashCity that the current set up does not work for too many students.

I think that teaching children a foreign language is great and in my opinion should be done at a much earlier age like many other European countries do, rather than learning basics that are forgotten after a few years I think it'd be excellent to teach over a longer period of time to actually give kids a chance to be genuinely fluent in another language.

Children were forced in the mid 90s to do MFL to GCSE. It was a disaster. The decision was reversed after 5 years.

I'm nearly 40 and was one of the first teens to do the full 2yr GCSE syllabus - we had to take French or German back then, and I would say languages are even more important now.

As a PP said I'd like to see them taught properly from a much younger age, and more options offered at secondary level. Certainly for the route my DD is considering atm Mandarin or Russian would be more useful than the typical languages on offer.

Compulsory MFL GCSEs ended in 2004.

Various studies have shown that learning another language makes additional connections in the brain which is very advantageous and raises intelligence. It's good for every child to learn another language as it opens up opportunities globally, and employers like it a lot even if the language isn't needed in the actual job.

I am 57 now, and we started learning French in y2. By the time we were doing O-Levels, French was a piece of piss, so one exam we could worry about less. That should be standard imo.

My dds only complaint was that the languages didn't interest her (French or Spanish. She would have done Italian or Chinese.)

She grudgingly took one to get her EBac.

French is started at pre-school here.

We are so lucky we speak the world's most popular language, but I we often embarrass ourselves abroad with our shit attempts at the local lingo.

When people say that the teaching of MFL is shit, what do they mean exactly?

I loved French and got an 'A' GCSE in it although I didn't take it at a-level. I have a good ear for languages and even now I can communicate (just about) in french despite only rare travels there. But I had no intention of having a long term career in languages so gave it up.

DD's nursery has a weekly French tutor and she did 'classes' for a few months just after she turned 4. I was hoping she'd have the same love of language but she went the other day. Hated every class and refused to even try any French when we went over recently. Now I'm worried she'll hate language forever. Forcing young children to do a language they won't use outside a classroom is not the answer.

Its a cultural problem and far more ingrained since English is so widely spoken. Forcing kids to learn languages they're not going to enjoy is only going to have a negative effect. How many of us, for example, hate maths as adults because we hated it as kids?