How important do you think having a MFL at GCSE is?

[AbbyGal]

DS is revising hard for his GCSEs and all the moaning is about his French. He got a 6 in the mock so he's doing ok but he insists it's REALLY hard and 'none of his mates are doing a language'

We did persuade him to continue with French as it was always seen as really positive back in our day but I'm wondering if that is still the case today?

DS’ school haven’t offered a modern foreign language for his year, so hopefully not that important.

DM taught languages and once had a lowest set boy take both French and German because he wanted to be a lorry driver. I often think of him when people say they can’t do languages.

Uni's do not need MFL.

If studying an MFL negatively impacts your ds grade profile, and they also aren't enjoying it, then drop the gcse and use the time to study effectively for the remaining 8 or 9 gcse's.

That is what my ds did. MFL is hard and it can be taught badly at GCSE and not to a particularly high standard. The kids that do well have at least one parent who speak the language at home. Not really a level playing field.

Wait - they cannot choose an MFL at GCSE at all?

It's 100% unimportant to have it at GCSE but it's 100% important to have an inkling at the very least of any other language

I agree. French was badly taught at DD's school, so DD didn't choose it at GCSE. I was good at languages and have good O level grades in French and German, and have A level French.

It often comes in useful when doing cryptic crosswords

I think this confirms that AI is going to ruin the world. Trite, pointless, boring, without soul and believable to some.

Wrong thread 🤣

Ds1 didn't. They've now made it compulsory for ds2 at his school.

I did French and German O level and then french A level, and do think languages are important - not for getting into university, but as a life skill. It’s never been a core part of my job (although I have had to interview people in Morocco and France) but it’s definitely been an asset. My DCs have both done French and Spanish GCSEs and v happy one is doing à language A level. So sad to hear the PP whose child cannot choose a language - very sad.

GCSE doesn't teach you another language. It's worth it if you want to take it through to A Level, but I got a B in GCSE French and can remember none of it now.

Both DS chose GCSE's which would give them the best grades. Neither took a language. They both got five offers from RG uni's.

My daughter looked long and hard into this as she wanted to drop French but also apply to Cambridge. She dropped it and didn’t regret it as she wouldn’t have got a high grade. It obviously didn’t matter to Cambridge as she has an offer

@AbbyGal - something that can be helpful are the language CDs or apps - so they aren't strictly learning curriculum but are just generally improving their language. I used to listen to the CDs in the car and it's amazing how it improves comprehension by just having it on.

Or watching French films with English subtitles. There are some great crime thriller French films.

Op I am assuming your ds is actually in Yr 11 so whether he should have taken GCSE French or not is moot tbh. He's doing it and needs to do his best. Good GCSE grades overall may well help with uni applications (depending on where obvs).

A 6 I would class as a good grade btw. Does he need any help or is it more about motivation? Tbh the exams are so close and he has most likely completed a quarter of ut anyway. Best of luck to him.

None of my kids are using the language they were forced by the school to take.

I was appalled at the amount of rote memorisation my daughter did to achieve a 9 on her Spanish GCSE (because it impeded her actual learning of the language). She didn't need it at all for entrance to her RG university.

Not important unless you like languages.....I have german and french o levels. Absolutely useless. I need a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian, Arabic, Hindi/Nepalese/Urdu and Albanian could be useful too. My friend in a similar job in different area would need Chinese - traditional/Mandarin and African languages. Translation is going to be a huge field in future - preferably if you are a native language speaker in those languages and have a high command of English too. Would never be out of work.

Citizenshipship/culture and a good knowledge of language translation apps combined with people skills are more important. Perhaps we need a communication and culture GCSE.

DD’s school (a good state secondary, but nothing special) pretty much insists all but those in low sets or with particular SEND do a language. The reasoning given was around Russell Group Universities wanting to see it on applications. How true this is I don’t know, as my older DC has SEND and didn’t do a language or the full set of GCSEs, so my knowledge is out of date.

DD doesn’t like French, but was strong armed into choosing it by school.

We didn’t get a choice at school (early years of GCSe being introduced). We had to choose a language, a humanity and then one or two creative or tech subjects OR you could do triple science instead of double.

This is really interesting- surely it's too late now and he can't just drop it because he doesn't like it?

I have a degree in 2 languages and work in a company which has offices in 3 countries whose language I speak to a high standard but I barely use them because everyone works day to day in English and it's the only common language in most meetings. I was naturally good at MFL and enjoyed studying it but chose the linguistics rather than the literature papers at University. My biggest issue with languages study was that they would give you a topic to write or speak about but where did you get the ideas for what to say? They were only teaching HOW to say it. Once you've got beyond the "I have a dog and enjoy playing tennis" stage it is hard to come up with content.

If your son is more of a STEM enthusiast then emphasise that analysing grammatical patterns is quite scientific. You could also encourage him to find things like French You Tube videos on subjects he is interested in- he can use auto English subtitles to help him. I advised my 13 year old niece who is doing Spanish to go on Netflix and find either her favourite shows dubbed into Spanish or some fun Spanish shows, which she can watch with the English subtitles on, just to get her used to hearing it spoken in a context that actually motivates her to watch.

I personally don't, you're not going to learn a language doing it at GCSE in the UK, especially if you only learn it from year 7, there was no previous commitment to language learning until that point so it just seems fruitless, "French studies" would be more useful and interesting. DS's school mandates it though. Our languages are woeful in this country but a GCSE won't fix it, it frustrates me as DS wants to do further maths and triple science but he will likely only have 0-1 choice left over due to having to do French and he'd like to do IT and DT.

No it doesn't matter for applications to University, any University.
School are wrong if they are saying so.
Assuming he is Y11 and he obtained a 6 in a mock then he is doing well. No reason to give up now. Has he done the speaking yet, our school have, so he will either have done 25% already is is about to do so.

Not true- jobs in translation are going to be a fewer and fewer because AI is getting better and better. I was sceptical about it but it is really impressive now. Simultaneous oral interpreting might be a safer bet.

Apologies @HatchlingDragon, you did talk about translation apps in your final paragraph, which I skimmed over in my haste to reply to your comment about jobs in translation. You idea for a "communication" GCSE is a great one!

@ChocChipHandbag I think I mean the same thing - oral in time translation but also AI needs to be checked for written translation....by a native speaker. Really important if you are translating stuff for new, politically sensitive, difficult to reach cultures.