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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

MFL expertise

89 replies

Katiecan · 28/03/2023 22:28

Does anyone with MFL expertise know if Sheffield Uni went ahead with their controversial change to MFL teaching - as detailed in news report here?

https://www.thestar.co.uk/education/furious-students-accuse-university-of-sheffield-of-gross-misconduct-over-course-change-3226484

if so, that makes us wary of choosing Sheffield for MFL. Are we right to be?

Where else is good for languages - NOT literature heavy (so no Oxbridge, Durham or Bristol) please. Lancaster and Exeter on our radar and DC’s teacher rates Southampton. But what about Midlands/North? Trying to draw up a list of unis to visit but time/money pressures will probably mean we onl get to 3 or 4 this summer

thank you for reading

OP posts:
Travelban · 02/04/2023 13:33

Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool might not be top of the league, but not all DCs are Oxbridge material or want to travel to Exeter/Bristol/St Andrews/Bath but still want access to respectable unis.

Dd for example is more of an ABB student and needs an insurance option but also doesn't want to be 5/6 hours travel away from.home (various reasons including health), so.Exeter, Bristol, Bath and St Andrews all out of the question.

WombatBombat · 02/04/2023 13:41

Not seen Leeds mentioned. I did single MFL, but had friends who did 2, plus ab initio.

Easy to select modules to avoid literature (I did one compulsory one in year 1 and that was it). Great campus but also close to town.

blackpearwhitelilies · 02/04/2023 15:03

Leeds is a nice Department. The HoD is lovely.

DorisParchment · 02/04/2023 15:14

DD1 did MFL at Warwick and had a great time apart from her year abroad coinciding with Covid and lockdown.

TizerorFizz · 02/04/2023 16:36

What employers know the names or reputations of lecturers? It’s only in academia that anyone has any idea! If you are not taught by named people, then what? What employer can name a MFL lecturer at Oxbridge? Virtually no one. It means nothing to most. Mainly because it’s the other skills that matter. Only on mn does anyone think named lecturers matter.

Languages123 · 02/04/2023 19:48

TizerorFizz · 02/04/2023 16:36

What employers know the names or reputations of lecturers? It’s only in academia that anyone has any idea! If you are not taught by named people, then what? What employer can name a MFL lecturer at Oxbridge? Virtually no one. It means nothing to most. Mainly because it’s the other skills that matter. Only on mn does anyone think named lecturers matter.

@TizerorFizz By the same token, how many graduate employers would have any awareness of the rankings of individual MFL departments? They would probably guess that Oxford and Cambridge are top, simply based on the general reputation of those two institutions, but anyone recruiting for jobs where the requirement is simply a degree is highly unlikely to know or care about the relative rankings of individual MFL departments at other Russell Group universities.

TizerorFizz · 02/04/2023 19:57

They do know where they recruit from and probably have A level results. For plus a lot of tests and other info. Yes. A lot is down to the individual. Most employers have an idea of rankings beyond Oxbridge. I think someone mentioned (somewhere) how Bristol sold itself on being popular with employers. Durham would say the same. Plus Bath and a few others. It’s perception perhaps. However the employers definitely won’t know lecturers.

blackpearwhitelilies · 02/04/2023 20:38

I think I misunderstood your post tizer. I thought you were wondering which students would respect Newcastle - there are a lot who value being taught by these people - as opposed to the employers.

blackpearwhitelilies · 02/04/2023 20:39

Someemployers do know lecturers though, as it happens. This is increasingly the case as unis embed employability into the curriculum and build links with employers

MarchingFrogs · 05/04/2023 08:58

blackpearwhitelilies · 02/04/2023 13:13

League tables aren’t everything. There are some excellent academics at Newcastle MFL. Nigel Harkness and Shirley Jordan are hugely respected for instance.

But the amorphous mass that is Employers don't care about this.

Employers are absolutely on the ball about what is a Top University, whilst simultaneously knowing absolutely nothing about what may or may not make it so.

Employers don't care what you studied. But as in, they especially don't care for someone having studied something they were interested in, that was well taught, by academics with excellent subject knowledge, so you might as well do this, because Employers don't care. Employers care that you didn't choose something that you had no interest in, but was at what the Employers, with no actual knowledge of the details of any course, anywhere, know to be a Top University. Not to have made that choice shows you to have some kind of defect.

If you have the A level grades that Employers (with simultaneous perfect knowledge of entry requirements for all degrees, at all universities, and no knowledge at all of the details of any degree, anywhere) know to mean that you should have gone to one of their list of Top Universities and you didn't, that is also a defect. You have no ambition.

Employers don't care that you have spent four years learning to understand, and express yourself in, a language not your native one, and to negotiate life as a stranger in another culture. They want you to have read lots of books, if you really must have done a degree in MFL, even though they know nothing of and care even less about the ins and outs of said degree. Taking a punt on what someone might have been trying to convey in chapter 27 of the novel they wrote in 1902 is more desirable than making sure that you have conveyed into the other language the actual meaning of what someone is saying today. Employers^ just know this.

No degree, or options within it, that you have chosen because of personal academic interest will provide you with any transferable skills acceptable to Employers. That's a given.

DD is doing IR with French at Birmingham and is about to graduate. The French element is described as 'Business French' and teaching snd assessing appear to be quite rigorous. No Proust or Verlaine, though, so I am quite expecting her never to be picked by any grad scheme employer anywhere.

TizerorFizz · 05/04/2023 10:05

@MarchingFrogs So does she have a job to go to? Or more academia?

MarchingFrogs · 05/04/2023 19:53

TizerorFizz · 05/04/2023 10:05

@MarchingFrogs So does she have a job to go to? Or more academia?

Nothing atm, to be honest, but admittedly nor has she put in masses of applications. A while to go yet before we send her up chimneys, thoughSmile

MarchingFrogs · 05/04/2023 19:58

The chimneys thing is a family joke, btw, not something we would ever act upon.

To be honest, all the DC are probably too tall now to get round the angles.

TizerorFizz · 05/04/2023 20:43

We used to say that! You are not alone @MarchingFrogs

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