New GCSEs - do DDs grades rule anywhere out?

[PancakeMum6]

DD did very well in her GCSEs (best in her school) but she’s at an underperforming comp so it’s hard to compare. As they don’t sit AS levels these will be the only grades the universities will see, so we’re trying to work out if her grades are ‘good enough’ for us to bother looking at Oxbridge/Durham/UCL/Bristol etc. as there’s lots of conflicting information. We want to work out where realistic universities are before starting on the open day process!

She’s doing A levels in English Lit, Arabic and French, and she wants to study either French and Arabic, French and English, or French and another language at beginner level.

At GCSE she got
A*s - Arabic, media.
9s - English Lit, maths, French.
9-8 in combined science.
8s - art, English lang.

She’s been reading all sorts about “percentages of As” and can’t tell how the new “8s” are considered. At her school they were described as high As/low As.

Xenia a top 9 = a top A*, it doesn't 'surpass' it.

It wouldn’t seriously disadvantage them at all. At the moment the non native speakers are at the serious disadvantage and I would like to see a level playing field. You are therefore saying, howabout, that the native speakers do MFL degrees and expect to make use of their advantage.

I think, Errol, your summary is correct. You perhaps need a greater range of skills to investigate literature. Native speakers may not be so good at medieval French literature!

It wouldn’t seriously disadvantage them at all. At the moment the non native speakers are at the serious disadvantage and I would like to see a level playing field. You are therefore saying, howabout, that the native speakers aplly for MFL degrees and fully expect to make use of their advantage.

I think, Errol, your summary is correct. You perhaps need a greater range of skills to investigate literature. Native speakers may not be so good at medieval French literature!

I wondered why the university DD went to in Italy wasn’t in the world 100 best universities as it’s the oldest in Europe and predates Oxford. Doing a bit of digging turned up the fact that university academic positions are based on “family”. It’s who you know and not what you know. Some of the best Italian academics are in the uk and USA.

No-one would suggest discriminating against DC with a natural bent for any other subject. Why should languages be different? If there is an issue with A levels favouring familiarity over ability then surely that is better addressed via the A level syllabus than at University entry.

** I don’t follow your logic. Surely a key component of any MFL course at A level or degree is gaining familiarity ie fluency ie speaking, reading and writing in that MFL. How would you change the syllabus so that somebody who is already reasonably fluent in that MFL is not at an advantage? Perhaps you mean study the MFL literature and culture by using English translations (some Classics courses do that).
However that will slow down language acquisition which is the main aim for most non native speakers in studying a MFL is n’t it?

I think it is perfectly fine to discourage bilinguals from studying their own language by a degree designed for non native speakers. Whether they are BME is not really the point.

If language acquisition is the main aim then I am struggling to see the value. Immersion is far more effective than academia.

howabout language acquisition is required to study texts and culture in the language as well communicate so yes of course it must be the main aim.

Immersion occurs during the year abroad.
Still not sure how you are proposing to change the syllabus of a MFL so that familiarity with the language is not an advantage.

Familiarity is surely just the starting point.

There are plenty of native English speakers who could never pass the English A level .... Also never see anyone suggesting levelling the playing field for EAL.

Latest research I found with a quick google suggests conversational fluency occurs for EAL students within 18 months and academic level fluency within 5 years and so in children who have been through the UK education system there should be no need to level the playing field in any case.

Conversely, approaching 20% of primary school age children are EAL. They are providing a rich learning environment for their non-EAL classmates, as in the Op's case. By the end of secondary school all non-EAL students with an ambition to study languages academically will have been learning for more than 5 years.

Studying further languages ab initio at University is of course entirely valid and useful from a linguistic and cultural perspective but that is not the same as suggesting the primary study be ab initio or significantly levelled down imho.

howabout English Lit A level is separate from the English Language A level and - obvious from its title - has no language content. So not quite the same.

howabout Familiarity is a starting point but (repeating myself and pls) obtaining that is part of the UK MFL degree.
I still don’t think I understand your point and comparison to EAL acquisition in the UK (which is immersion learning ). Nor do I understand how recognition of all the positives of having EAL children in schools links to encouraging these children to study their native language for a UK degree
Do you really think that non native speakers learning that MFL in UK system after five years ie GCSEs, will be to the same level of fluency as bilingual students? Sadly not.

Many apologies for strange double post above.

I agree with sendsummer’s summary. A levels in MFL do not expect the depth of language acquisition that English Literature does. They are designed for young people who have not had the advantage of dual languages being spoken at home or immersion in another culture either at home or with relatives abroad. It is considerably more difficult to get to A level standard from tuition starting at age 11 or 12 than it is if you have spoken and read another language since the early years at primary school.

The degrees require a high level of language acquisition or you cannot understand the texts or culture. Medieval French is possibly different but few universities do modules in this. It is important that non native speakers are given a reasonable chance to do well. If native speakers get exceptionally high marks in their language modules, this skews the degree classification in their favour.

It’s not even possible to look at passports and make a distinction between the native and non native speakers. Children can have British passports and still be native speakers.

The sadly not is why I have my misgivings about MFL teaching in the UK. In contrast I do know someone with a linguistics degree from outside the UK. They were fluent in 4 languages, including French and English, from infancy. My impression is that this would be standard outside the Anglophile World (although even in the US and Canada Spanish and French are widely spoken).

In any event I see no way to level the playing field. My DH is half French so would potentially be flagged as "native" despite not being fluent (he is still trying to live down confusing cakes and clouds in his O level). Otoh his Uncle on the non-French side of his family currently lives in France and educates his DC in England. His DC have an obvious advantage but are not EAL or native speakers. One French family my DC go to school with also have a non-French parent but since their parents are separated the French side has more influence. They have British surnames from the non-French side. Another friend spent a couple of years in mainland Europe at the end of their children's primary years. Their DC found school French very easy, but they have no markers to highlight their advantage.

I could go on and on with countless other examples and variants but that would be to labour the point.

Scotland does not separate language and literature in the English syllabus. Also the 5 Higher structure means that no-one would get into a Scottish MFL degree with Scottish qualifications without a decent grade in English as well as their chosen language. As the "A" percentage for Higher English is only 23% (as opposed to 33% for Maths, also almost universally studied by academic DC, or 43% for French which has a much smaller cohort ) this in itself significantly levels the playing field.

Would be interested to see similar analysis for the English system but I am aware that the uptake for English Language A Level is very low.

Of course there is a comment somewhere upthread which implies native born Glaswegian practically qualifies me as EAL - something about speaking French with a Glaswegian accent as opposed to RP English

Yes I agree howabout that there is huge variation in fluency amongst potentially native or part native speakers brought-up in the UK, even when it is the first language of both parents

Bubbles agree that passport screening is a fairly limited exercise at the moment but that may change as post Brexit more with European family connections will be adding a European passport to their British one.

We're entitled to Polish passports which I may well get if the second referendum doesn't throw up a better result, but for reasons explained above (being dim), we're a resolutely monolingual family. I think people like us may muddy the waters post Brexit. A lot of people seem to be thinking the same way about getting an EU passport if they possibly can.

Bubblesbuddy did your dd get an offer for Durham MFL that was less than 3 As? Did currently has a 3 A offer and we are wondering what they will actually accept on results day?

goodbyestranger sounds as though your DD could change the trend of ‘resolutely monolingual’ perhaps even add polish ab initio as one of her subjects (to help prepare the citizenship applications ).

Yes she did get lower then AAA. It was AAB as I recall. However it was a few years ago! It might depend on the languages DC wants to study. Spanish and French, for example, might want AAA because those two might be more competitive. It might also depend on the A levels DC is taking, personal statement and early receipt of application (not sure about any of this of course!)

I think what they might accept will depend on the results of others. However if there is doubt about getting AAA, go for a decent insurance which is easy to find with languages.

It might also depend on the A levels DC is taking, personal statement and early receipt of application (not sure about any of this of course!)

Unless by 'early receipt' you mean, 'by 15th January' vs 'after 15th January', then the last would not be permitted to make a difference. Universities have to give equal consideration to all on time applications.

They give equal consideration but they might like some candidates more than others!

My daughter has just started her first year at Cambridge studying French and Arabic. She is not a native speaker of either language but does have very good spoken french through constantly skyping people she met on a school exchange. She reports that in her arabic class, apart from a couple of people, they are all total beginners. The pace is fast and they do pick people who they think have good language ability as part of the selection process. I suspect there may be a few more bilingual french speakers in the French classes. I get the impression if you are of the academic standard that they are looking for they would discourage you from taking a native language especially ab initio as much of the initial language classes would be unnecessary and a student could be doing something more valuable.

Your daughters GCSE results look excellent and I didn’t think either Oxford or Cambridge were going to distinguish between grades 8 and 9 at present as they don’t have enough data to know if it will make any difference to how well the student will do.

There are many parts to an application to Oxbridge and they look at them in the whole. The GCSE’s are a very tiny component. My daughter took tests at school, had a school report, a personal statement, written tests done at Cambridge and two interviews (one for each language) all of which were considered.

Her A level offer was for AAA which she exceeded. They also don’t specify the A has to be in the foreign language as I think they are aware that the top grade can be very hard to achieve. There are certainly less applicants per place than many of the other courses which can make an offer seem a bit more possible.

My advice would be choose the subject she in most in love with. Apply to Oxbridge if she thinks she would like to. It is only one of five choices on the UCAS form and if she chooses to do French and Arabic there are a limited number of universities to choose from anyway. Cambridge have lots of information if you look on their website and you can see the statistics here. www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics
Go to an open day if you can and and speak to the director of studies and students doing language courses.

Also useful is the student room forum which has loads of useful information on universities, colleges and languages which I found very helpful as we went through the process of applying. They do question and answer session with admissions tutor which might be useful.

She’s having a look at a few courses - Classics and Oriental Studies at Oxford (or Oriental Studies and Classics) has been added to consideration along with English and Arabic, French and Arabic, Arabic and something ab initio, French and something ab initio. The list just seems to keep growing so I imagine when open days swing round we’ll be attending hundreds of different talks...

Sorry that I can’t respond to everything on here or really enter into some of the debate (I don’t feel I know enough to weigh in), but I really appreciate all the responses and have read everything over a few times (and showed DD).

Hope your DD is enjoying her first term Carpetofleaves!

DD year 9 and DD year 8 (and myself ) are hoping to do GCSE Arabic when one of them is in year 11. My husband's 1st language is Arabic but tbh he doesn't speak it much at home.

The school doesn't offer it but we study it privately with a Syrian teacher and will be able to take it at their school when the time comes.

I would be thrilled if one of them did languages at uni - DD1 is thinking about it - French and Arabic.
As a teacher of EFL/ESOL, I am always in awe of so many of my students who speak more than 1 or 2 languages.

Pancake, also look at which subjects are more competitive than others to get in for, given how hard it is to get into Oxbridge even if exam results will be very good. (My twins are not at Oxbridge and did not try - they are elsewhere, but my siblings went and we know a few people who are there, not that I am any kind expert on it).

I’d be quite disappointed in her if she compromised on course just to get into Oxbridge/Durham so I’m hoping she ultimately just goes off which course interests her more. She and DD1 are off up to Durham for a night this weekend to visit our neighbour/family friend (who’s in second year but dropped out of Oxford after her first term) and she says for the first time she’s going to actually go with the view of how she’d like to study there and she’s going to chat to one of the neighbour’s housemates who studies Spanish and Arabic.

mizu good luck to you and your DDs on your Arabic!