To wish there was not a decline in the number of children studying foreign languages

[ForalltheSaints]

According to a BBC survey, a 45% drop over c20 years in the number of language GCSEs taken, with a bigger drop in French, though more taking Spanish.

Apparently because they are perceived as more difficult.

I rejoice in not being the typical Brit or American abroad expecting everyone to speak English. Should we not be more encouraging, perhaps by allowing universities if they wish to insist on one language GCSE alongside English Language and Maths as a condition of entry?

My DB took Spanish to degree level. The students studied Hispanic culture as well as just learning the language. He got his very well paid job in The City specifically because of his Spanish. The rationale being that its easier to teach the job than to teach language fluency. I really wish I'd kept my language studies up.

Well, that's a slightly different issue. Chemistry isn't just flashes and bangs and though there will be experiments in lessons, you do need to understand the Periodic Table to progress with the subject.

Not everyone is going to be able to find everything enjoyable and, let's face it, getting good at anything takes hard work and repetition which is sometimes boring - it doesn't matter if it's a sport or music or an academic subject.

Programmers don’t just write code. The day their jobs are obsolete all of the job market will be gone and none of us will be working, even those who can order tea in French..

Lol Nordicstar

How about Chemistry - all the excitement in open days of flashes and bangs only for the poor kids to suffer the reality of rote learning the periodic table?

Who has to rote learn the periodic table? You have to know the principles behind the arrangement of the table (the reasons for the periods and groups etc) but there's no virtue in knowing the order by rote. That said I can tell you the top row of the transition metals thanks to a prof at Uni (Sc Ti V Cr Mn Fe Co Ni Cu Zn) but I can't remember why we had to learn it beyond having a party trick, we always had a copy of the periodic table.

Sophisticated, multi-faceted thinking, the ability to see all sides of a problem and the art of negotiation and compromise, taught by many humanities and arts subjects, would seem to be in short supply in the world.

In my experience these are skills that are more often employed during a STEM career, the most wooly thinkers I know have a lack of STEM education not the other way round. Science is all about questioning the evidence and thinking round a problem and at work we grill junior staff all the time (nicely!) to justify their reasoning. I find if I do the same thing to non-scientists they really struggle with it! Most people struggle to discuss complex ideas (pontificate yes, but actually discuss and modify their viewpoints? Hmmm).

That's not to say that I think it isn't useful to study lots of different subjects at school (my essay writing skills were developed doing Higher History) and I think the massive weakness in English education is that many people divide into science or humanities too early.

As far as the push for STEM, a major role of education has always been to prepare children for the world of work and STEM industries provide good jobs.

CountFosco - I was a humanities undergraduate who did an MBA and ended up working with a lot of engineers. The problem you identify is not that humanities graduates can not justify their reasoning where STEM graduates can, but rather that both humanities and STEM graduates have their own biases. IME humanities graduates can often see things that pass STEM graduates by entirely. The real issue is getting humanities and STEM graduates to value the POV of another form of training.

My son tells me one part of his philosophy A level that he has found extremely useful is the exploration of logical fallacies. Understanding where people are going wrong in their arguments can be very helpful in deciding the validity of a viewpoint.

But I spot confirmation bias both in my point of view and in Count Fosco's. For every 'woolly thinker' I raise you a 'black and white thinker'. As a pp says, different people with different skills can bring different interpretations to a problem.

I agree, but the education system seems to turn people off rather than ignite their interests.

Sadly, in spite of the vast majority of teachers doing their damndest to make lessons engaging, fun and interesting (within the limits of the curriculum), most teenagers still seem to regard most school subjects as boring and pointless and would rather be on social media or mucking about with their mates. Of course teenagers were always thus, but it's seemingly become harder and harder for parents and teachers to persuade them to at least pretend they care about learning anything. Of course not all teenagers are like that, but an awful lot of them are.

What's the solution? Totally abandon the current curriculum in favour of an updated, more modern set of subjects? Maybe. I don't know. I'm just really glad not to be teaching in state secondary schools any more.

Of course lessons are boring. No lesson can compete with Fortnite in the mind of a teenage boy. I teach in a very deprived area, where most parents are uninterested in education. I literally drag the kids through the lessons with a mixture of humour, respect, strictness, impressive subject knowledge, energy and affection. Most kids show willing even though they don’t really care, but consider languages to be for more clever people than them. My colleagues and I use the MFL to communicate and the kids are awestruck, which helps with motivation. We achieve amazing GCSE uptake and results, but acknowledge that we are unique, in that we are highly skilled, passionate and experienced as a dept. This is very rare in state schools today. Last year my GCSE class gained 44% A* or A in a school in one of the most deprived areas in Europe. Success is possible but requires exceptional teachers, who probably get little reward for their efforts.

I've known plenty of highly skilled, passionate teachers. Humour, respect, strictness, impressive subject knowledge and energy aren't that rare in teachers. Your results are certainly rare. Are they like that every year?

At careers days I don't ever remember seeing any job stalls that were promoting the need for the MFL that were offered at my secondary school.

I was certainly never ever inspired in lessons and didn't realise how many career options were opened up by speaking a second language.

I found languages so much harder than maths/ english/ science and though I picked German for GCSE (you had the option of history/geography/MFL, and I disliked geography and history more than German), I ended up dropping it.

Maybe there needs to be more emphasis put on promoting the opportunities for young people with a language qualification?

I got an A in both French and German A level. There were only 3 of us in my German class - this was 20 years ago. It's still being taught in the school though.

My studies in French and German gave me so much more than the language - they fostered an lifelong fascination with and appreciation of different cultures, histories, literature. A love for travel and an ease and deeper experience facilitated by language - my French got me through in parts of West Africa, for example, while my German came in handy while backpacking in Turkey, of all places. Both languages were handy in Switzerland.

I have learned several MFL. While I began studying all my languages at school/university, really getting to grips with another language and culture meant travelling to other countries for extended periods and immersing myself in situations where I knew no one.

TBH it isn’t all that easy to be English and plurilingual - it’s quite a lonely business! There aren’t many of us.

My son tells me one part of his philosophy A level that he has found extremely useful is the exploration of logical fallacies. Understanding where people are going wrong in their arguments can be very helpful in deciding the validity of a viewpoint.

British tradition philosophy rather than French.

No competent scientist would succeed with black and white thinking, that's a description of science that is based on learning school science facts rather than dealing with the complexities and inadequacies of real life experimental data. Logic is our tool.

But I don't think a two cultures argument is really beneficial here, as I said before subject breadth is important education and the sharp narrowing down to a few subjects post 16 is a flaw in the English system. Been watching 'Back in Time for School' with the children and being struck yet again how class ridden the English education system has been with its public schools, grammar schools, faith schools, and secondary moderns, O levels vs CSE, division of the sexes, academic vs vocational subjects, polytechnics vs universities (and then Oxbridge/Russell Group/1994 within that) and how that class divide comes out in the subjects taught. What divide should we have between academic and vocational courses? Who makes the decisions on which subjects are important? How much lobbying is there to push subjects to the top of the agenda?

MariaNovella I agree it is unusual, though speaking to someone in their local language even just to order food goes down very well.

Lobbying for certain subjects may be a part of why languages have gone down the UK agenda.

Missnearly what qualification? GCSE, A level, degree? My o’level in French has been of no consequence in my working life. Even A level wouldn’t have got me any opportunities as you’re still not fluent enough to cope with speaking in a work environment. Who can just latch a MFL language A level to other A levels that are required anyway?My dc will need to do maths, further maths and sciences. No way could they cope with doing Alevel Spanish on top.

And re class, I think money has more to do with it. You can only really get fluent when immersed in a language. Pretty easy for those learning English and the wealthy. Not so much when learning one of several other languages options with no spare cash. It is hard for schools to run exchange programs and the other options are expensive. We were offered a trip over £700 for attendance to Spanish classes in the morning in Spain, followed by other activities in the afternoon. It was cancelled as not enough kids signed up for it ie parents couldn’t afford it. There is also the travelling on holiday issue. We used to go to France in June every year when it was cheaper. My mother recently told me that if the fining system applied then we wouldn’t have gone.Many families struggle to afford holidays abroad in the school holidays.

Would be nice if some could be a tad more realistic on this issue. Forcing kids to take up a Lang GCSE regardless of the above isn’t fair.

N0rdicStar - I was talking more about the inspiration required to get the kids wants to do any qualification in a language to be honest if they were unsure of what they wanted to do when they grew up. Obviously if one is already sure of their career path then one has to match subjects to that, but lots of kids don’t know, and might not have thought about a career involving languages. One of my school friends did French and German at GCSE, and it inspired her to study them more. She is now an English and language teacher abroad and loves it. I am pleased they were not compulsory when I was at school, and hope that they won’t be when my DCs are, but there’s nothing wrong with trying to inspire young people more IMO.

My friend is a languages teacher French and Spanish - she really does not enjoy her job - but feels she is not qualified to do anything else - translating does not pay well. So despite her being fluent in 2 other languages she feels a bit trapped.

Just rejoining this thread. Lots of posters have mentioned the cultural value of learning a language. One specific facet of this that has not been mentioned, however, is the importance of French (and to a lesser extent German) to the evolution of English. IMO some knowledge of French is essential for all Anglophones. It adds so much to the understanding of our own language. (not to mention all the direct, untranslated, French aphorisms, words and phrases common in English).

Out of interest, can anyone name a job where a GCSE or A level in French would be required?

GCSE or A-level French are not of a standard that makes them a useful skill in the workplace. They are a joke.

GCSE or A-level French are not of a standard that makes them a useful skill in the workplace. They are a joke.

As I said upthread, we took my son to Berlin just after he got a grade 8 at GCSE - it was no help whatsoever - he couldn't read menus, couldn't read timetables, couldn't read signs.

A Level standard is definitely perfectly capable of communicating abroad. In fact 4 of my A level students holidayed in France/ Germany/ Belgium alone as a group before they started y13 and did everything themselves.

The issue with the GCSE for holiday usefulness is that there is very little to know transactional vocabulary required.