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?

I'm not in favour of foreign languages in Primary School. There are a lot of children who are still struggling with spoken and written English at that time, the priority has to be to maximise children's potential in the first language of the country in which you reside.

Schools can only teach so much at secondary level too. One person's absolutely must have, apart from Maths and English is another's nice to have. With the best will in the world you will only be able to do one or two languages in school, the only argument I can see for any compulsory language is Latin, which would help understand both English and many other languages. I really think night school is best way to learn relevant languages, there are many other subjects which offer better life skills, eg design and technology, home economics, PE, science etc

Personally I would like to see history as a compulsory subject as understanding the past is really the only way to understand the present day, but realise no one will agree to that!

Io by yr 1 or 2 many dc can speak write and read English quite well. These kids could benefit from language learning as oppsed to getting further ahead than their peers. In fact you can practice those skills while doing the other language.

I do think the usual list of available languages is not practical with the exception of Spanish. Needs to be more choices that are relevant, like Mandarin and Arabic. German and French are nice, but as others pointed out, they tend to speak English to a good standard

My DC all went to schools where you had to choose a language at GCSE. they all hated it. I hated it because they were distracted doing something they didn't want to do ever again beyond what was compulsory and this took time away from the subjects that they wanted to study at A level. There are 5 people in my immediate family all under 30 who did a language/languages to degree level and not one of them uses this at work. I am far more concerned by the loss of music teachers, tech teachers, IT teachers, Maths teachers etc than languages. I would honestly prefer to see them not taught in schools at all. They come way down the list after English Maths, History, Geography and the sciences. Its never going to happen but it should imo.

I studied Latin & French at school. I've used French on holiday. Both are not relevant to my current job.

I would honestly prefer to see them not taught in schools at all

Whoa, that is quite amazing

Personally I would like to see history as a compulsory subject as understanding the past is really the only way to understand the present day, but realise no one will agree to that

No but a humanity GCSE should absolutely be compulsory which is another reason why I am in favour of the ebacc.

If I were in charge you'd have to have a numeracy and literacy qualification at 16. Maths GCSE would be a "further Maths" GCSE and English lit would be an option. You'd have to do at least one MFL, one science and one humanity. Beyond that, you'd have a free choice.

It would be nice to get rid of GCSEs altogether but too many schools only go up to 16 so it's not really an option, you need a school leaving qualification of some kind.

There are much more important things not taught in schools than mainly french. I’ve never used it once and don’t remember much more than 1-10 honestly. It would of been time better spent on life lessons/more history etc.

They dropped German and Latin and this year couldn't afford to run French A level. It's sad what this government are doing to schools.

What a daft comment. Schools really struggle to find MFL teachers, and of course in the future will struggle even more, given that the numbers studying them are in sharp decline. A local school has had to drop French and German because they repeatedly had not a single applicant to their job adverts. Sil, who teaches French, was asked at her school to teach Spanish, so she was learning ahead of the kids. I was as I would have a fit if I thought the dcs were being taught on the hoof like this.

One problem is that languages are hard . No quick fixes or learning in separate little units. It's like a Lego model, if you've gone wrong at the base, your whole structure is f*d. And two measly lessons a week is hopeless. You need to be drumming a language in, day in day out. Of course there are those of us [preen] who have an aptitude for languages, but many kids seriously struggle with grammar in their own language, let alone a foreign one. In fact if grammar was more forcefully taught at primary school, then grasping the rules of another language might be somewhat easier.

It's veering off topic, but it does seem that some GCSEs are far harder than other ones. I could take a decent stab at some without doing a second of revision, yet others require some sort of innate ability. However, giving a pass in French for 13% seems not the way forward.

I did French as part of my degree over 20 years ago. I have used it less than half a dozen times since then. Spanish would have been more useful for buying beer on holiday. We're just not geared up to learn languages in a way that's useful in the UK in my view.

We live in the north west. One child took her options for GCSE last year, she had to take a language as part of the baccalaureate qualification which the school offers. She chose Spanish and dropped French. It is a comprehensive.
My other child has chosen his GCSES this week he too had to choose a minimum of one MFL to qualify for his baccalaureate qualification alongside his GCSES. He opted for Russian then took a second language as one of his choices and chose French. This is a grammar they encourage two languages. Both schools are excellent and ensure the children reach high standards in MFL’s. I thought this was across the country and that it was compulsory. I’m shocked that it is not normal and most kids are allowed to drop languages. In the current world we live in where people travel so much more and work abroad more and more it’s madness we are not encouraging a love languages. I agree with previous posters it needs to start in year one.

Your dcs are lucky, Spideygirl77. Most schools do not have a variety of MFL teachers at their disposal, nor do they have pupils eager or able enough to take several language GCSEs. I work in a school where if they get any GCSEs it's an occasion for hoisting the flags.

I'm going to add that I enjoyed Latin, because it included learning about the; history, daily life, religions, as well as the language. However, I still enjoy learning history.

My dd does Spanish once a week and French every month or so. She's 5 and in reception in a bog standard school. These are her favourite lessons and I'm really pleased about that and that the school is giving them this language education so young.

Is there really much point in learning a single language if you're not actually interested? What's the point in learning GCSE French if you're never going to go to France? It's pretty useless if you end up on holiday in Greece or working in Germany isn't it?

What I think would be more useful is general language learning, i.e. a more generic/holistic approach of how other countries languages are different to English, and maybe learning the absolute basics of all common languages, such as a set of, maybe 25 or 50 of the most commonly used words for German, French, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian, Greek, Portuguese, Belgian, Dutch, etc.

Where I think we go wrong in the UK is with all the grammar and tenses etc - it's not really that interesting and doesn't engage the pupils. It's clear that other countries don't attach the same importance when teaching English, hence the amount of "pigeon" English spoken by non English native speakers, yet they get by perfectly well.

My child is currently deciding their GCSE options and is unsure about doing a language. Having seen teachers describe how incredibly hard the GCSE is now, I must say I'm very reluctant, even though they are very able.

This was pretty unthinkable for me a few years ago, I have 2 language GCSEs myself and although I haven't used them until they started their language education, I always saw the benefit.

I'm quite torn to be honest and would welcome further feedback from teachers.

...the teachers... don't speak the language... And the state sector will not permit people like me, who are fluent in Spanish, to help because I don't have a teaching qualification

The credentialism culture in schools is completely crazy.

Is there really much point in learning a single language if you're not actually interested? What's the point in learning GCSE French if you're never going to go to France? It's pretty useless if you end up on holiday in Greece or working in Germany isn't it?

The way I see it is that by learning French to even a moderate level, you are starting to learn the foundations of how languages are formed.

What I think would be more useful is general language learning, i.e. a more generic/holistic approach of how other countries languages are different to English, and maybe learning the absolute basics of all common languages, such as a set of, maybe 25 or 50 of the most commonly used words for German, French, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian, Greek, Portuguese, Belgian, Dutch, etc

Would it be really useful for a 16 year old to simply learn what "Bread" and "water" are in 10 languages or so. That is holiday language.

I have a degree in French and Spanish and picked up Portuguese along the way. My school-level French was enough to equip me for working as an au pair in Paris- obviously I improved a lot during my year there but I was able to communicate with everyone enough to do my job well from day one.

I studied languages because I am nerdishly fascinated by and they came easily to me; unsurprisingly I did a lot of the linguistics options on my degree. Weirdly I found the culture stuff a bit artificial and understanding more about what people were saying made me realise quite how culturally different we were. I found the literature side deadly dull and had a lightbulb moment when I realised that I was being forced to read foreign language books that would never have interested me in English. On the other hand, living in Brazil and Mexico and being able to understand trashy telenovelas was fantastic! I think that a lot more people would enjoy language learning if they were allowed to learn from gossip magazines, TV comedies and chick lit or detective novels. That is how a lot of immigrants to the US/U.K./Aus learn English without formal teaching after all.

I’ve had jobs in the past in which I have used my languages a bit, bit even with a good degree I don’t have the fluency to draft complex written work in any of them (my profession demands very precise writing). However it is a fun party piece to roll out with French/Spanish/Latin a American clients and I do see that I am better than many of my peers at modifying my English when working with non-native speakers. We are so used to dealing with people from all over the world who routinely work in English that colleagues sometimes forget that they might not recognise slang or regional expressions.

My son is 2.5 and he is one of the few kids in his nursery who is not bilingual due to his parents. I hope he’ll learn a language when he is older, but my advice to him will be to focus more on science/history/social science when in formal education as languages can be picked up and practised in so many other ways.

Is there really much point in learning a single language if you're not actually interested? What's the point in learning GCSE French if you're never going to go to France? It's pretty useless if you end up on holiday in Greece or working in Germany isn't it?

One of the most useful things about speaking French for me was using it as a lingua franca. I've met people from West Africa and Italy; I couldn't speak their language nor they mine but we used French to communicate.

DH and I are both linguists and languages teachers, and think it is fine for kids not to do a language, if it does not suit them

Honestly, everyone always goes "wow!"'when we say how many languages we speak, but the only foreign language that ever got me a job is English (am Scandinavian)

Spanish was useful when I lived in Spain and Colombia, but if you have no ambition to ever live abroad, doing a language for gcse is pretty pointless. Also, if you are motivated you can learn a language in about a year.

Coding has been a more useful skill for me! Yet so few kids do computing....

It's tricky. I'm a teacher and was genuinely shocked in my first job when one of the French teachers said 'It's impossible to motivate them; they know perfectly well they don't need to learn French. And to be honest, who can blame them?".
Just recently, a MFL teacher at my current school said casually that she thought learning French was fairly pointless nowadays (she teaches mainly Spanish, to be fair).

I do think it should be compulsory, yes, not because you necessarily need to speak another language but because you learn about foreign language structure which can be useful for so many things further down the line.
It's also important to get a feeling for another culture, and ideally that comes through language learning too.

I was shocked recently to discover that you can basically take GCSEs in anything you like (I believe maths and English are still a must though), so a friend's dc is taking the shittiest most pathetic subjects you can imagine which will get them absolutely nowhere - there are no basic skills involved, no proper knowledge, it's all artyfarty media-type stuff (and I say that as someone who thinks more art and music etc should taught - BUT PROPERLY). They will end up with a handful of qualifications which are worth absolutely fuck all. Shocking.

taking the shittiest most pathetic subjects I thought all the GCSEs were harder now, so what are these pathetic subjects.
I think most kids do not get much of a choice after the compulsory -2 English, Maths and 2 Science are slotted in - the number of exams has been reduced by many schools as the universities only look at the top 8 results. So we're only looking at a choice of 3 subjects for many kids.

I'm always surprised to read that so many people find languages hard. I found GCSE French and German an absolute doddle, whereas Maths was another story... there is no opting out of Maths though, however hard you find it. I think it would be good if more schools did a wider range of languages other than just French and German, although obviously this comes down to the difficulty of recruiting suitably qualified teachers. I don't know the best way to engage children and get them to enjoy learning a language, and to see how it can be useful.

When I spent a year in Germany during university, half the time people would reply to me in English when they heard my accent, and some asked why I was even wasting my time learning German when I could have been learning a more useful language like Spanish. I've been watching some speeches by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg (who started off the school climate strikes). Her English is amazing in comparison to the foreign language abilities of most British 16-year-olds, and I expect she's not unusual for Sweden.