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?

Tethers, and the Tories are bringing them back, along with a compulsory humanity.

I dont think I explained myself very well there. My English is shoddy

Learning a language is also about opening minds to the fact that there is a whole world out there. Teaching it in primary is a fantastic idea...if there were enough specialist teachers who could do it. I believe that every child should have the chance to do it, but it may not ultimately be for them in the long run. The system at the moment is pretty much rubbish, a giant memory test, but it is changing yet again and MFL is about to become a lot more demanding - like it was in o level times. Grammar will need to be taught at an earlier age for a start. I teach languages to reception and every age up to 6th form. The earlier a child starts, the easier it is for them to acquire good pronunciation and a good accent. We are showing kids that there is more to discover, that we don't need to be insular. You cannot expect to really properly connect to speakers of other languages by just using English. You miss out on so much if you don't even attempt a few words in their language.

Well, I can only speak for our local schools but:

Too much learning by rote, it's pretty much just a memory test. No real exposure to actual spoken/written language outside of the textbooks - eg watching french films, reading german papers. Very little attempt to engage students. Describing the physical attributes of your mother, father and siblings is dull as dishwater. There's no creativity in the way it's taught - no getting the kids to think about what they want to say and look up how to say it.

No conversational practice - surely in the days of modern technology it wouldn't be too hard to arrange Skype or emails to speakers of the other language?

Also, and as much as I hate to say it, german is not the most useful language in the world...nor is french, for that matter.

I'm sure some schools do do this sort of thing, but until it becomes standard, they shouldn't make it compulsory.

On my primary PGCE 10 years ago I did a specialism in teaching German, which I speak fluently, including a teaching practice in a German school. I've not taught one German lesson since qualifying because there's not a lot of point in me teaching my class German when no one else in the school can teach it. I've had to teach French, which I know very little of, beyond ordering in restaurants. What's the point of that? Once my year 6 class were so fed up with French after 3 years of it they asked me to teach them German instead, but the Head wouldn't let me.

I'm so glad I'm in KS1 now where English is the only language on the curriculum.

I know Ellen, hence my earlier post- I was correcting the OP who said that compulsory MFL GCSE ended in the late 90s.

Oops, sorry, I should RTFT!

Ah OK.
I am an MFL teacher and I do all those things - Skype, film, newspaper, radio, letter exchanges, creating things - video, minecraft, picturebooks, games, etc.

I know for a fact that there is a huge network of MFL teachers in the UK who are teaching in a similar way - using digital resources in order to inspire and give authenticity and context to learning. This might not be the case the country over, but it is a big thing, and becoming far more mainstream.

Don't worry Ellen

My post wasn't that memorable

I started with Spanish in primary school, but it wasn't available at secondary. Instead we did French German and Latin. I managed to get out of taking any language GCSE's as I was fairly average at languages and after a year or two of four languages, never concentrated on doing one really well. Language teaching here in England is a sham.

I'm reasonably fluent now in a different second language (spoken and written- different alphabet) from time spent living abroad in my 20s.

It's all very well saying the Brits/the English are crap at second languages, but I know one other language which I can only reasonably use in two countries and a few enclaves in the odd other country. iWhen I go to Belgium/India/Thailand/Poland/Portugal/Sweden I'm just another English person who "only speaks English"

Elsa that's good news then, if things are improving. As I said, I do think learning a foreign language is a positive thing for many children and am pleased to hear that the schools round us are hopefully in a minority.

They do have MFL trained primary teachers, my friend is one. She did a French degree followed by PGCE. Her language is French, she's practically mother tongue standard... her school want her to teach Mandarin

I wonder why MFL teaching is so poor?

Part of the problem when we tried to do MFL at GCSE was that suddenly we needed to know about gerunds, genitive and dative, past participle, etc but we'd never been taught these in English!

How the hell can we learn them in another language?

In my DC school about 25% of pupils are bilingual and given these DC already have such an advantage I am not sure it is right to force the others to play catch up in a sterile classroom setting.
Agree language learning works when you need to be able to communicate. Also I worked in a multinational environment and working with other nationalities is about far more than rudimentary mfl.

Outside teaching I am not sure how marketable mfl qualification as opposed to fluency is.
Find it depressing that the Arts are being ever more sidelined by present and proposed educational dictats. Creativity is what makes for high value added imo.

personally, I think that only English and Maths should be compulsory - everything else should be optional.

I think that's very fair alec. I can't understand why there isn't the same fuss about being made to do science. How many people really use science after GCSE?

Yamahaha, yes I agree that the grammar aspect is a pain when you don't get it until GCSE. For us, learning it for French meant that we could apply it to English too. I suppose because we were very young when we started we just soaked up the grammar bits in the way kids do for lots of things. Weekly tests and lots of practise, just like we had for maths.

I've been told by many many people that the only way to become truly fluent in a language is to live there for a year or have bilingual parents. Eventually you will start thinking in that language and not thinking in English and translating.
The big question is why does anyone need to learn a FL?
To get another GCSE? Increase our General knowledge? Realise there is more to the world?

For business - then French/Spanish/German are probably becoming less relevant.
Or just to communicate? To get by?
I said DP is French, but my French is really bad. I've done a basic short French course (as I said my O level was German) and trained as a chef when it was based on French cooking (eg I know the French for meats, fruits and vegetables!) I get my tenses wrong, my grammar is terrible and I can't remember what is a le or la . My accent is cringe worthy.
However when his mother stays who literally can't speak a word in English I can communicate with her through the odd bits/words I know. Have quite detailed conversations with her. The same is true for his brothers. We can (mainly) understand each other.
I've worked with lots of people who don't speak English (French, Spanish, Italian) -and we communicated (I learned a few (rude) Spanish words!)
I was also a patient in A&E when a French visiting family came in - one of them could speak (basic) English -the staff were trying to find a translator. Eventually one was found -I heard the phone call - they lived in a town about 40 mins away -would be there in an hour. I saw the staff practising their school French trying to explain to the patient/family. They told them the small town where the translator was (blank looks!) and were looking up the French for translator on google...I was sat next to the grandmother. She was upset and asked me if I knew what was happening - I just told her literally (in French) I think a person speaks good French - here - one hour - smiles all round. (I actually realised afterwards if the staff had thought about what they were saying the 'English speaker' could have understood! I then had a stilted conversation about DP and his family with the grandmother.

DP has been in the UK/English speaking environments for 25+ years -his English is fluent - he thinks in English. But when he speaks in French he translates at first then switches to French thinking.
When I first met him (20yrs ago) it was ok. He had an interest and an aptitude, had been taught in school from a young age, lived in the UK for 5 yrs but still not up to eg dealing with a solicitor. Still now the odd word throws him, he still has an accent - he has a 'zip' rather than sip of something. Rarely he will use the wrong word for something or not understand a word.
So I don't think teaching at primary/secondary (unless it was every lesson!) or the odd exchange visit is going to make someone truly fluent in another language.
Which takes you back to why do we teach MFL?

To give children the tools to be able to engage in basic communication in another language. To introduce them to different cultures and, most importantly, different ways of viewing the world. To hope that it might encourage them to travel and engage in a partnership. Because learning how another language works can improve your expression in your own language. For me the most important one is appreciating that people in different cultures see things differently and do things differently.

I find it depressing that the UK is ranked as the second worst rich nation for teaching forgin lanaguges (with only america lower than us) and is the odd one out in the whole of Europe as being the only nation until recently that does not make studying another lanaguge composry in primary school.

Soon it will put all our children at a servre disadvatage as the world becomes more intergated/ globised why employ the Brit/ American that can only speak english when there are a huge amount of others canidates that are also fluent in the other major lanaguges of the world (French, spanish, madirian etc).

And dont say that children cannot learn more than one lanaguge places like luximburg force all children to study a minium of 4 lanaguges throughout school

The rules announced this week insisting on the ebacc to be completed to reach top
OFSTED grades overlooks the simple issue that all children are different. Some are never going to learn a second language or get a c grade in maths and English. They will now not be able to train to be a mechanic from 14 either.
Schools need the freedom to Taylor education to pupils not government targets.

sallyBut does that mean you need GCSE level MFL? Could it be mixed in with Geography?
I agree with someone else - I learned more about grammar and tenses from learning German than I did in English. Actually (and I'd forgotten I'd done this too ) I actually learned more about that in Latin (I got an E at O level)
I think Latin is probably more useful as the 'romantic' languages are all based on it - so if I am listening to someone I can guess what some words mean (like casa in Spanish/Italian/Portuguese) because of Latin -in fact if I don't know a word in French I will try the Latin (if I know it!) ...
(Bad teaching - it was the Cambridge Latin Course - I think it was rubbish or at least the exam was - having to learn large bits of the Penguin translations and just recognise the first few words of a paragraph...what a waste of time! -probably why I got an E!)
worrid I looked into advantages of raising a child bilingually a lot about 14 years ago and everything pointed to them being more likely to have delayed speech and finding English/learning to read more difficult. Seeing as we are failing lots of children in English anyway surely adding another language in would just make it worse. Think about teaching phonics - the difference between the English and French pronunciation of 'e' or 'ch'. I don't think we should be teaching children a FL from reception- before the basics in English are established. Especially not ones who struggle with just learning to read ...like dyslexic children.
And I agree pieceofpurple this one size fits all style of education is not doing children any favours. And the emphasis on league tables etc. What shocked me recently was talking to a teacher. I rebelled and stopped going to school from age 14 or so - I mainly just turned up for the exams and luckily I passed a few....the teacher said I wouldn't be allowed to that now - sit the exams - if I failed all of them it would drag the school ratings down so it would be better for the school if I just didn't do them ... to me that is wrong on so many levels. (Not that I deserved any different really - more the attitude you can't just enter a child for an exam on the off chance they do better than expected)

I want to emphasise that my main gripe is that I think languages are just as important as sciences, and yet they get far less defence. So I agree that you take Maths and English and then choose according to your strengths. I did French, Latin, German and Ancient Greek and not one single science and I never felt the lack of them. What I loved as a little girl was role playing in different languages - playing the part of Marie-Claire and being allowed a little watered wine (pretend) with dinner, or having my gouter after school etc etc. Later on all the languages helped each other, including my English. But it was things like my French teacher sighing about how dramatic the French are - the milk doesn't boil over, it 'runs away'. You're not soaked to the skin in a France, you're soaked to the bone. The accumulation of little details like that make you enter into a different mindset, and I think that's really valuable. When we went on our Year Abroad at Uni, you could see people able to develop different parts of their personalities through growing in a different culture. It's wonderful, and I wish we did far more to open up these possibilities to more young people. It's true though that my language teachers were mostly fabulous and the science ones were appalling.