Crikey, there are some misconceptions here.
goodbyestranger, I never said that the schools should mention poor MFL provision on their language forms; what I meant was that the applicants should mention it in their personal statement. I can see, however, that in some cases this might be too delicate to do in practice (as the applicant wouldn't want to offend the school). However, it crossed my mind just because in my many years of reading UCAS applications, I HAVE seen some schools and applicants be refreshingly honest about the lack of good language provision, and state that the candidate was so motivated that they carried on pursuing the study of the language anyway.
A few other points:
- It's just not true that our MFL courses at Oxford are dominated by native speakers. In fact I find the idea slightly humorous, having just marked three sets of language translations from different year groups that are riddled to varying degrees with comprehension errors! At the main college where I teach, we have no native speakers at all across the current four years of students. In the secondary college where I teach, I think we have two: one in one year and one in another. Again, I think there's a misconception here that knowledge of the language is everything, whereas in reality it's only one component of the course. In fact I think interviewers tend to be a bit wary of native speakers, because we want to make sure they have a genuine passion for language and literary study and are not just using their knowledge of the language as 'an easy way in', as someone above said. I have interviewed lots of native speakers who weren't ultimately offered places. The bulk of the MFL admissions interview consists of a mini-tutorial where you ask the candidate questions in English about a literary text written in French or German or whatever. They will generally have had time to study the passage beforehand. Then in the last five minutes or so of the interview, we chat with them in the target language. It's a pleasant surprise if the candidate speaks beautifully in those five minutes, but their aptitude at discussing the passage is more important. Also, we don't look for perfect spoken grammar, but for candidates who are willing to take the risk of speaking and making mistakes (as that is how they learn). The only way you can really doom yourself in those last five minutes is by being too frightened to say anything in the target language at all. The written work that the candidates submit beforehand also gives an indication of how fluent they are in the language they're applying for. Again, however, they can have a perfect mastery of the foreign language (though they generally don't!) and still not be admitted to Oxford, because they haven't shown enough evidence of the all-important literary and analytical sensibility.
- I hold to my statement that the analytical writing skills of Oxford's MFL graduates are every bit as good as those of Oxford's English graduates. With all due respect, Marianovella, I think you must have studied MFL at a place where the course was structured differently. Some universities do all the MFL teaching immersion-style, so that all the teaching and student writing happens in the target language. There are obvious benefits to this in terms of language learning, but it doesn't work that way at Oxford. Some (though not all) of the language teaching happens in the target language. But most of the literature lectures, and all of the literature teaching, are conducted in English. Students also write in English about the texts they have read in the target language. I sometimes feel quite sad about the fact I can go so long in a term without actually speaking the language I teach! But the advantage is that the students are not held back in any way by inability to express themselves. Because they reading the texts in the original language, but writing and conversing in English, a major focus of the course is on how to make clear, nuanced arguments in English. I have done co-marking with colleagues in English literature (both at the undergrad and post-grad level) and frankly, we are using the same marking criteria. The only difference is that the MFL course has the added linguistic element. (But even in English it is possible to study the evolution of the English language over the many centuries it has existed.) Like the bookshelves of my English colleagues, my bookshelves are laden with books on literary theory, gender studies, post-colonial criticism and so on. I sometimes think it's a shame that the course isn't an 'immersion' course (as is the case at most American universities), but the benefit of doing it the way it's done at Oxford is that our MFL students leave with English writing skills that will be immensely valuable to them in the work world. And they do have one exam that involves writing an essay in the target language, as well as translation exams that involve translating fluently from one language to the other and vice versa.
-- Finally, I have to roll my eyes at the idea of a tutor who would rather teach people from independent schools. Seriously?! I suppose tutors like that may well exist, but they're not the norm. I could give a whole list of reasons here to prefer students from state schools. I'm reluctant to do so because the bottom line is that we want people who are passionate about the subject and will work hard and make the most of their time at university, regardless of the school they come from. But here are a few reasons I could give for preferring state school students after many years of teaching at Oxford:
- they might have less of a sense of entitlement, so be more 'teachable' and work harder. They're not complacent about their cleverness and tempted to 'coast' along doing the minimum
- they might be less 'burned out' compared to students from independent schools who have already been pushed hard and hothoused
- they might not yet have realised their full potential. If they've achieved what they've managed to achieve without lots of individual attention and tutoring, imagine how much they will achieve once they get the one-to-one tutorial attention that Oxbridge offers
- they are more like my own DC (OK, there, I've said it!). Academic salaries have not risen over the years in equal proportion to other professional salaries, and living in Oxford is so expensive that many tutors cannot afford to buy houses in Oxford on the salaries they earn, much less send their DC to expensive private schools.
I teach lots of independent school students who are absolutely lovely and who have made the most of their education, so I don't want to imply that prejudice swings the other way, but please don't assume that most Oxford tutors prefer students from independent schools, because that's utter rubbish.
I might also mention that there are a fair few MFL applicants from independent schools who have not been well-taught. As part of the application, we receive marked written work, and some of the written work is very badly marked (with high marks given but basic grammar errors not corrected, etc). So poor as MFL provision in state schools may be, don't just assume that sending your child to an expensive school necessarily means that they're being taught well.
And yeah cinnamontoast, I don't doubt for a moment that the Etonian actually said that. I just think he was an exceptional twat. I hope he didn't get in either. 