Foreign Language requirement for University Entry

[wijjy]

My son (Y11) has got the impression from somewhere that he needs to take a higher level French GCSE, rather than foundation GCSE for entry to some universities, and this is worrying him. He would have the choice but if he doesn't do well at mock exams he would be pushed hard to do foundation.

Is foundation French GCSE frowned upon as a foreign language requirement?

UCL asks for a C at GCSE.

www.ucl.ac.uk/languages-international-education/study/modules/courses-and-applying/ucl-modern-foreign-language-requirement

He could just about do the higher level paper, but this would be a disproportionate amount of work in an extremely busy GCSE year, and would impact other subjects (where he is capable of high grades).

As far as I know, UCL is the only place that stipulates a language qualification for all undergraduates. Unless you are doing a language at anything other than ab initio level as part of your degree, of course.

The only thing re Foundation vs Higher is that in order to achieve the top grade in Foundation, a higher mark is needed than to achieve a 'pass' in the Higher, I think. What do his teachers advise?

Btw, I can't see anything which indicates that he has to do the Higher tier? Even not having ve GCSE at all isn't an insurmountable problem, as your link demonstrates.

Not understanding this post. The link you've posted isn't about entry requirements. From what I can understand of it, UCL seem to have a policy that all students should have some reasonable basic competency in a foreign language by the time they have graduated from UCL. They can either fulfill that by having a GCSE (C Grade) in a modern language on entry, or do a module when they are there. The link isn't saying that UCL will only accept students with a language GCSE.

For what subject are we talking about? If it's a non-language subject, I can't imagine the university will care - it's mainly on A-Level results for specific A-levels relevant to that subject.

Thanks for the replies. By the time I formulated the question I realised how unlikely it would be for anything except foreign languages.

The school wouldn't let him drop French and he has struggled a bit.

I don't know where he has got this idea, probably a garbling of out of date information about the Russell Group from school and thinking he had to get all his GCSEs at a high grade for entry to "top" universities.

As others have said UCL is the only university with this requirement and even they offer alternatives so I would tell him not to worry.

He is thinking of doing something in science and engineering for which UCL is top ranked, which is probably why this has come up.

UCAS does not differentiate between Foundation and Higher. As long as his grade is a pass it should not be an issue.

LIZS

thinking he had to get all his GCSEs at a high grade for entry to "top" universities.

Top science and engineering degrees do not require a full stack of top grades at gcse. For instance, Bs (in old-style grades) in English are definitely sufficient for Cambridge gen. eng.

one of the teachers a few years ago at my son's school said they needed a gcse language. luckily he was my third son so i knew he was talking rubbish. he's at RG uni now and had offers from a load more....no-one ever queried this. he is now studying a subject very close to the subject we swapped for the language, which he would have failed anyway. stick to your guns and drop the language if you can.

I find this UK attitude to languages sad. In most European countries, kids have to take and pass 2 foreign languages to get their A level equivalent diploma. Entry to Uni for ANY subject in Germany requires at least one foreign language as part of your Alevels

So, your son may not need a language to get into Uni, but he may well benefit from learning a foreign language beyond age 15.

To be fair though Sunflower, students in other countries probably need another language more. I travel the world with my job and can usually find someone that speaks english in every corner of the world. I'd probably not be so lucky using other language. I say that as someone with a degree in two foreign languages and who adores trying to speak a bit of the language when I travel, even if it is just please and thank you.

It's not really a 'UK' attitude, it's an anglophone one. The simple fact is that English is the current lingual Franca. It's the language in which the vast majority of scientific literature etc etc is published. Some German uni courses are even taught in English.

I don't disagree that it may well be good if most kids could gain a functional level of proficiency in another language, but making it a requirement is just a pain for those to who don't have an aptitude for it who'd get a lot more from doing other subjects same goes for English lit but that's probably heresy. English secondary education does get too narrow too early, but there's arguably much more of a case for encouraging continued participation in music, art and tech subjects.

I still think it's an omission not to have a foreign language at GCSE. We all have done one and my father had to do one to get his university place in the 1940s.

One size doesn't fit all. Back in the day, Oxbridge had a language requirement- I had a colleague who was a genius in his field but who was dyslexic and had a hard enough time getting English O level. (He spoke 'computer' brilliantly!) He's got a nice job at a Cambridge research institute now, so it turned out ok but it was really daft he was excluded from studying there.

but making it a requirement is just a pain for those to who don't have an aptitude for it who'd get a lot more from doing other subjects

European kids that speak several languages probably don't have any more 'aptitude', they just get on with learning languages, in addition to all their other subjects.

Ability with languages definitely helps EU workers come and work here. They are valuable because their language ability makes them flexible. The Brits just think of the uk and not much else or anywhere else. Confirmed by Brexit. Its always a MFL that gets dropped! We don’t value an all round education any more.

My dcs are learning Spanish and French outside school. They are quite proficient I think that it is a wonderful thing to learn a foreign language whether you require it or not. Dd1 wants to be an international lawyer and so a European Language is vital

I was a teaching assistant in France as part of my degree. One of my classes was the students trying to get English as part of their BAC general education qualification. They hated it, we're so difficult to teach, they just suffered it because they had to, they had no interest whatsoever. The English teachers I worked with used to say the class was an example of how it wasn't a good idea to make children take a subject they hated. It pulled down their overall grades. I wasn't good at science, my dad was a scientist, he thought I should take two sciences, I failed them. I'd have been better off doing more languages and arts side subjects that I was good at and enjoyed..

It used to be a mandatory requirement. Then all the universities worked out it was a massive bar to access, and ditched it.