A level languages in non-grammar state schools

[arlequin]

Interested in whether many comprehensives have a really decent secondary offer for MFL including a level? The schools I know of it seems to be the biggest gap between private/grammar and comprehensive in terms of numbers taking languages at A level and it makes me concerned for my DS (I say this as a linguist!) Hopefully you all can reassure me! Thank you.

I teach French in a primary school as part of my role as a HLTA. I do have a degree in French and Italian but the scheme we use is made for non-speakers to be able to use. Everything can be read aloud by the whiteboard!

Our local secondary doesn't actually offer French, but I've always seen my job as getting them off to an enthusiastic start about MFL generally e.g. making it fun, showing how they can use their knowledge of other languages to figure words out (act as 'language detectives'), encourage them to be confident to give it a go, teaching them memory techniques and learning not to worry about making mistakes as that is par for the course when learning a language.

I wondered if the current (albeit outgoing!) primary curriculum obsession with SPAG might have had a positive impact on MFL due to better knowledge of grammar generally. Have secondary MFL teachers seen any effect?

Yes and no @HLTA12832 because I would argue that all the good grammar work is completely counterbalance by the teaching of phonics. It makes teaching French almost impossible when you have pupils trying to blend the sounds as you would in English!

Ha! I hadn't considered that might have caused an issue!

I just looked up my old school. When I left in the early 00s, we had the choice of French and/or German to A Level. Plus in the sixth form, you could add Spanish or Russian GCSE alongside a MFL A Level. I had around 10 I think in my French and German A Level classes and there were two of us in Russian.

The school has turned into an academy since then and now offers French and Spanish to A Level. So based on some of the comments, it seems positive that it at least offers two!

I do think its a shame that so much schools have swapped German for Spanish though. Having already learnt a language with a case system in German was so helpful for me when learning Russian.

Ahhh @StarryArbat I love that! I took three languages for A level 🙄two MFL and one ancient, which we had done for O level (oooolllld) as an optional lunchtime extra (my DC are astonished that there were 10 of us willing to do this). Then in sixth form a bunch of us who were taking French A level also did Spanish O level. So I have three MFL O levels and two AFL (ancient F Lang) O levels as well as my A levels. Wahhhhey. Sadly impossible or at least unlikely today tbh.

I am really really heartened by your options evening experience @OttersMayHaveShifted that's brilliant :)

I expect one of the problems is getting properly qualified teachers. I taught languages for 14 years and was the last of the 40 who had done Teacher Training at Uni to leave education.
I taught in 4 schools and was the only specialist in all of them. I was the only one who had sent a year + living in France so the teachers had poor speaking skills themselves.
People who had barely scraped A level themselves 20-30 years before were teaching A level because it was easier than teaching across the ability range lower down the school. I remember a group of visiting foreign language teachers saying ' why do you have such large classes', we have maximum of 10-12 for language teaching?' Answer, 'because we have rarely/never taken modern language learning seriously.'
My children's school many years later had the same problems. They would bring home worksheets with mistakes on them ( written obviously by people ( as above ) who hadn't managed a good grade at A level themselves, had never lived abroad, needed to take the GCSE (!) tape home to listen to several times to understand it. Needless to say oral work was rarely done.
We still have the mindset that we do not need to learn other peoples' languages so we have rarely if ever invested in language learning.
Nevertheless ( and perhaps sadly) when a survey was made of retired people , asking what subject they wished they had studied more at school 'a foreign language' was the subject most often mentioned.

That sounds like such a great bunch of languages! I never had the chance to learn Latin but I would have loved to. Our Russian class was basically one hour every Monday morning and then we sat the GCSE 😅 So definitely not my finest work at the time but I loved it so much I took it on to uni and then lived in Moscow, worked using my Russian in the UK - that one hour changed the whole direction of my life.

I love this! brilliant that you ended up really using your Russian :)

Ahh, but that was the carrot to the stick in 2004, when the Government decided to scrap MFL being compulsory at GCSE. The crappy rationale was that if you get the kids hooked on languages earlier, it would naturally increase take up at GCSE, despite it not being compulsory. Trouble is/was, even back 20 years ago, MFL was a minority pursuit, so very few primary school teachers actually have the skills to make a decent stab at it, and as others have pointed out, the contortions gone through to make English “phonetic” doesn’t remotely help kids read other languages which are!

And now we’re in the situation 22 years later, where funnily enough there are fewer and fewer MFL teachers having gone through the system, resulting in more schools abandoning languages, so few kids studying languages at GCSE and A-Level, and multiple universities ditching languages departments. Add Brexit and the UK coming out of Erasmus into the mix, and we’re now royally screwed and I just can’t see a way back.

Do you not think Spanish is more useful as a general world language? A genuine question?
German can also help with Dutch and similar languages but the way the world I would rather my children learn Spanish than French tbh.

I was lucky enough to learn Latin and did it and French at GCSE. I understand Spanish and Italian as a result although my spoken language is dreadful now.

The state school where my DC attended have compulsory MFL in Year 9 at GCSE. They have daily language lessons from year 7.
The only issue is that it is then optional to do a second MFL and few take it up.
you can continue with the language if you are taking it at A level but I think they are missing a trick here. Both my DC got a 9 in their MFL and very good linguists but neither did it at A level.

There's a secondary in a nearby town that doesn't offer a foreign language at all. The rationale is that they have such a huge proportion of Y7s who need to retake SATS they can't timetable it.

Our local secondary used to offer two languages (from a bank of three), now only offer a max of two (for the higher achievers). The second nearest secondary wastes Y7 on a carousel of languages (1 term of each language), then kids choose which one to start properly in y8. Then they wonder why they have such a low take up for GCSE.

Local (massive 3k students) sixth form college only offers French and Spanish, but some years doesn't have the intake necessary, so lets teachers go in fallow years. Last year French A level was taught by an italian-speaking history teacher!

Much as I applaud the sentiment of primary school MFL, it is an utter waste of time. Half-hearted, random language choice and isn't even consistant. DC2 did three different languages (as it depended on the class teacher's skills/interests) - 1 year french, 1 year spanish, 1 year Portuguese (TA had portuguese husband). DC1 learned to count in French and sing a couple of songs - then did Spanish German at secondary. It would be better to push for a better secondary MFL experience.

Remember that French is the official language for most international organisations @AGlessandahalf so it definitely does still provide a very important stepping stone. I have a friend who is an interpreter who speaks English, French, Spanish and Portuguese but she only ever works between English and French because that's where the demand is.

Recruitment of decent MFL teachers is awful, especially after Brexit. I hope that Erasmus brings over some more native speakers. That's how I ended up in the UK!

It looks like there is still a big difference between the Grammar and High Schools local to us.

DS’s Boys Grammar offered French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Latin; only Chinese is not available at A Level. DD’s offered only Spanish, German and French; you started with two, one choice, the other allocated.

The local High School offers French and Spanish but no choice. One year group learns French, the next year Spanish etc. Not sure what happens if you wanted to study Spanish but were in a French year.

Last year only 64.5% 16yos got a grade 4 or above in English and Maths.
Partly because its designed this way... but mainly because too many children don't a full grasp of literacy and numeracy.

They need that before they can achieve qualifications in foreign languages

(Nb.. some of these children will have English as an additional language)

If you are comparing a Grammar and non Grammar in the same area, you non-Grammar is going to have far more of these children who are struggling in English and Maths.

I did one MFL at high school (French), then at my 6th form college took that to A Level and also took Spanish GCSE in year 12 and Spanish A level in year 13 - so sixth firm colleges can and do help students catch up to two MFL A levels (although this was ten years ago).

That’s something, but there’s still a lot less choice in language courses (including joint honours degrees) at universities, also I believe traceable back both to the 2004 decision, and the general Tory disregard for Arts and Humanities subjects.

My school (comprehensive) has multiple MFLs offered to A Level. I’m sure some do and some don’t.