Depressed about MFL in education

[MFLresearch]

I last year alerted my 6th formers about Sheffield University who have, regrettably, scaled down their MFL offering. A great shame but part of a pattern sector wide.

It is spectacularly depressing, as a MFL teacher in a state 6th from college, to track the decline of MFL over my teaching career. University MFL applications are at rock bottom in our college this year because of uncertainty about year abroad funding - Turing scheme is a lesser offering than Erasmus and our families cannot afford to make up the difference and fund the year abroad. Consequently, of my talented MFL students, fewer than ever will be pursuing MFL study at university. A-level uptake and degree applications are the lowest ever at my college - and projected to get even worse in 2023-4.

I heard on the grapevine that further MFL courses are under threat at universities currently offering them. A number of post 1992 unis apparently considering withdrawing them. Has anyone else heard similarly?

Posting really because it’s late, I can’t sleep and the whole MFL/teaching situation depressing AF (plus the government still not offering decent pay so my colleagues and I will be striking again).

We looked at turing at year abroad ( not mfl) and the lack of clarity about funding but us off. The popularity of duo lingo and other YouTube language channels suggests people are interested. One of the post 92 unis has changed it's mfl offering to linguistics an Korean Japanese and is getting good take up. Post Brexit white British are second class world citizens as they can't easily leave the UK to work abroad anywhere. A course where they could learn how to quickly pick up any language if they did go abroad might be useful

@Halfemptyhalfling They aren’t degree level MFLs though. They are add ons and lots of unis offer them. Conversation MFL isn’t a degree.

I feel that MFL degrees are not as well regarded as language proficiency tests.I wouldn't want to spend my degree course, on a language.DS has a stem degree and passed c2 in 3 languages as a hobby

@ilovebreadsauce MFL degrees confer way more than language. They aren’t the same as language proficiency. My DD never uses her languages. She’s a barrister though. It’s skills that matter. No one cared whether she speaks MFLs or not. She’s got more to offer than that. Why posters keep thinking a MFL degree is just about speaking languages is beyond me. MFL grads can compete with others for jobs very successfully but do need to avoid being pigeon holed.

York st John is offering degrees

I have languages A-levels, and I have always kept them up with evening classes and trips abroad. It's got more and more difficult, though, as MFL provision has declined locally. But I'm glad I did - my much-younger brother met a Spanish girl at uni, who was on Erasmus, and now I have two trilingual nieces - English, Spanish, Catalan - and I can chat with them and their mum's family. My provider of choice now is CityLit, whose online courses are splendid. www.citylit.ac.uk/

@Halfemptyhalfling Good for them but no one academic goes there for MFL degrees. @bellocchild Those are language based and not degree MFLs.

My daughter just got a conditional for Glasgow! Spanish and Italian. She's super excited!

Great to hear neveradullmoment99, hope she loves it there if she goes!

I don't blame you for feeling depressed about it.

The only thing I think students should consider more is deferring their university place to work for a year and save up. They'll take some pressure off themselves if they can save a bit of money before uni. You don't need as much money to live in many European locations, and there's always British Council for paid teaching assistant work. Not loads of money I know, but something.

I think students should learn to budget in sixth form for uni! Some sign up without realising how unmanageable it's going to be for them. But maybe in some cases saving and budgeting would open a few more doors.

My year 12 dd is taking German and French a level and looking at doing both at university next year. Her school went to look round Cambridge this week & they were very interested in her, as they have so few applicants now. She has the details of one of the staff members there now who said she can help her if she wants to apply - they’re clearly keen to get people in. Having always assumed Cambridge was going to be very hard to get into, I was surprised how helpful they were. Given her some confidence to apply I think which is nice as I think she thought she wasn’t good enough.

German A level numbers have slumped to an all time low. Oxbridge want such students. Doing 2 MFLs is such a bonus too.

Yes, I don’t think we realised how rare she is - there are nearly 600 in her 6th form and only 2 of them are doing 2 - one in her year, one in year 13. When I was at school in the 90s MFL were really popular - I had no idea they had dropped off so much. Still, it seems to be standing in her favour so that’s good news!

They are hard work for those with no family ties. They do also require a special talent. A bit like music I feel. Can be taught but talent is needed to do well. I don’t feel many subjects need this extra talent and certainly popular subjects like psychology or media don’t. We also don’t value them. Schools don’t really want to bother with them. Parents mostly don’t care. So doing two A levels in MFLs means you are different. I would look for an academic course though as not all jobs need the MFLs. They need the other skills dc develop.

Yes I think you’re right. Dd is really good - they think she can get A star in both languages which seeing as all I have is GCSE French & Spanish and DH failed GCSE French, is quite impressive. She just has a natural flair for it & really enjoys it. She doesn’t really know what she wants to do afterwards other than leave the UK (who can blame her?!) so hopefully fluency in a couple of languages will help with whatever she ends up doing. She’s considering applying to Cambridge (since they were so positive about it) & Durham & St Andrews at the moment, so aiming high.

I think it’s great - a good MFL degree from a top uni when you don’t really know what you went to do career wise is a great choice IMO, particularly if you hate the UK 😆

My daughter is in her final (4th) year at uni doing Spanish and German. She did A level Spanish (A*) but had no German at all. Her first two years were difficult with lockdown and online learning. Her 3rd year was her year abroad - mostly living and working in Germany and some time in Central America too.
The course is difficult - not just grammar and language speaking. Lots of history, politics, cultural influences and literature. For her these have been in both languages! She is at last enjoying the rigour of academic study and can speak and read Spanish fluently and her German is not far behind.
With hard work, I think a degree in MFL is a measure of language acquisition but also of resilience, of interest in the world and it’s people, ability to live and work in a different country, make friends and travel confidently.
Her future job is not yet planned but she has such a lot to offer many employers. I would recommend thinking about it for any DS or DD who have an aptitude for languages.

In spite of the title of this thread, it's encouraging to hear the positive stories from those YP following a MFL direction, even better when not coming from parents with native advantage or academic legacy (talking personally here!).

Access is the fundamental barrier, but for those who are able, want to be challenged, and can capitalise on their point of difference in a competitive post graduate world, then it's definitely worth it. For enrichment alone!

It's early days here, but mine has just had a major endorsement of being accepted onto a Spring Taster in Business Tech consulting for one of the majors, focusing on attracting women into the field. If she hates it, then it's 3 days worth spent, and if successful, she gets onto the summer 2025 internship programme and doesn't have to worry about applications in her penultimate year. She's aware that most candidates will have come from more business related UG courses, but has used what she has got from being a MFL student to get through the assessment process so far.

I agree with those saying the second language ab initio is hard work, but choosing an institution where expectations to get language skills to high standard matched with the exposure to the wider cultural elements, resulting in a fulfilling degree with many transferable skills. Mine is really enjoying the editorial and writing side for her Middle Eastern and Hispanic journals as an example.

German is very heavily supported in DD's uni with scholarships focused on attracting talent due to its low take up vs other languages. A good time to study it if one can!

@Henrytheeigth I have no O level in MFL. DH has but we speak very little French and are absolutely not linguists! So I’ve been amazed at how DD got this talent. Do persuade DD to have a go for Cambridge or Oxford. It’s one choice out of 4!

DD found at her uni quite a few DC did know what they wanted as a career but actually working abroad was only what one of her friends did. If you have the brains to do well at MFL you really can compete with “business” degrees because employers do like a mix. The best courses are not vocational leading to a rigid career path. DD is a barrister. A friend’s DS is a magic circle solicitor. Any dc who wants a career which is generalist really can get them with a MFL degree. They just need to believe in themselves and have a strategy to get the career.

The other huge benefit of MFL is thinking differently. Living in another country and sampling other cultures develops this. Linguists are often people who get on with others, are capable of negotiating and are confident. They probably have engaged in societies and writing articles. My DD did. By getting work experience or volunteering to further enhance the cv, why would linguists not be able to compete successfully? It’s just such a shame schools don’t support talented linguists in the way they should.

The other huge benefit of MFL is thinking differently. Living in another country and sampling other cultures develops this.

Going abroad for a semester, a year or for a whole degree abroad is of course a great experience and most European Uni students spend at least one semester abroad.

My dc spent a year in another European country while studying Engineering in the UK.

In other words, you don't need to study MFL to spend some time abroad and many graduates will have been abroad while studying something else.

Except that places are competitive and very limited. DDs friend went to a Grande Ecole in France as part of his engineering degree. He had to pass French exams at uni to be allowed to go as he didn’t have A level French. So for non native speakers, quite frankly, it’s very very hard. Funding has made it significantly more difficult. Obviously other English speaking unis are available in the world but it’s far from being the norm to study abroad in a language you are not studying. It’s not widely available to British students at all.

Good to read of the positive examples some of you have posted. I do agree with the point of the OP though.

I do rather agree though: any degree will do as long as you can go abroad appears to be what’s happening. No depth of MFL study which is what the academic study of MFL is about. A semester abroad is an add on. It’s not the whole degree.

In agreement with and encouraged by the positive thoughts. I too am astonished at the drop on popularity in MFL in recent years. We've supported DD in her desire to be multilingual and to do a MFL degree because of the options and experiences it will give her. She is bilingual, but in a very different language from what she'll be studying. The year abroad (teaching preferably) is what she is most looking forward to, but she is interested in the culture and linguistics aspects too, rather than just fluency. At the moment she's thinking about a media or publishing career, but like most sixth formers, isn't really sure, so may as well follow her heart, and see where whatever experience and skills she comes out with take her.