Yet another university pulling Modern Languages degrees

[tadjennyp]

Just seen on the news that Leicester is pulling its MFL degrees despite students having accepted offers. Are languages becoming the preserve of prestigious universities with very high tariffs? What hope do students in sixth forms in schools with low prior attainment have of going to university to study a language? I am feeling quite demoralised as an MFL teacher. What can we do to prevent the decline? And no, google translate does not do the same job as a person being able to converse with confidence.

Brexit has a lot to do with this.

DD is doing a joint degree with French but without her Irish passport the language would be a lot less useful to her.

Foreign languages are spoken outside of Europe, both European ones and non-European languages. Not everything can be blamed on Brexit though it seems to be

Former translator and language tutor here.

It's so short-sighted. Studying languages is so much more than the languages themselves - it's about learning to understand and appreciate other ways of being human. The type of skill and insight that is becoming less and less common in our world, unfortunately.

But the people making the decisions don't see these "invisible" benefits.

Really worried about lack of mfl options, as one of my DC wishes to study mfl at uni. Possibly combined with another subject.
OP- as a MFL teacher which universities do you think are most likely to keep their mfl courses?

The OP makes it sound like there are lots of students wanting to take these degrees but universities won't offer them. If there was a demand for languages in lower-tarriff universities they'd be falling over themselves to offer them, and students who do want to do a languages degree will find it very easy to get a place as there's so little demand. The decline in language learning and perceived value of language learning is causing university courses to close, not vice versa.

It's really sad. I got a degree in German & Swedish in the 1980s and still use it in my job. The Scandinavian Studies element there shut down donkey's years ago.

Even if you look at Cambridge, the number of offers to applications is very very high relative to other subjects (basically, if you're an all rounder who wants to go to Cambridge and doesn't really care which subject, do language A levels), which suggests it's just a case of general lack of interest and that languages are already lower tariff than other subjects.

TheRealMagic, that's because so many secondary schools have stopped language teaching or massively cut the range. The government dropped the obligation to do so years ago. Do not fall for the idea that the public get what the public wants.

This. There just isn't the pipeline of students to make these courses sustainable, unfortunately. The problem is at Secondary level.

Even Oxfords MFL is struggling, so I think it’s a global thing.

To reverse it, we’d have to devote more time to it at schools and have better resources. You’d need to consistently show kids cartoons in the languages at break times, have entire kids foreign language sections in the library, and run loads of language events/trips. There would need to be competitions, and prizes for most improved speaker (so they are not all taken by natives), and the languages would need to be ones kids might want to learn and potentially have natives around to practice with, plus those the UK actually needs.

But that’s not going to happen - so aside from language specialist schools and independents, languages will carry on sinking.

We desperately need people to learn languages. I feel ashamed by how few english people bother. Im buffing up my basic french and german in evening classes because I dont feel confident travelling on my own to these countries without being able to converse well.

The reason why this links to Brexit is the rise in insular thinking; the inward-looking idea that we are not part of something larger than our poxy island.

Honestly, I think there are a number of problems- some are structural and some are geopolitical

Firstly, the international business language being English means that UK kids do not have the same incentive to learn another language as DC from minority language countries, and for most of those, at least one of their second languages is English. If you're (e.g) Danish, English is a no brainer if you want to leave the country.

Secondly, the most useful current languages are all very hard- Arabic, Chinese,. Russian, which means it is a lot of hours to get to even basic proficiency and you basically need immersion or huge dedication.

Thirdly, GCSE doesn't differentiate between native and non-native speakers so there's a (possibly wrong) perception that the grade boundaries can be deceptively high. DC who aren't prioritising languages but need "all 8's and 9's" for competitive Unis will drop what they see as risky options to achieve that.

I basically forced both my DC to do a language at GCSE but at their school only about 50% of kids do - ironically DS is predicted a 9 despite not appearing to be able to order a pizza but there you go, so possibly that's another issue- in making them more accessible to encourage participation the GCSE level is not actually useful for anything - but then that contradicts the perception of high grade barriers so not sure what's right there?

Lack of clear career benefits. Language-specific jobs like translation are being lost to tech and it's hard to predict which specific job your specific language will be helpful for. Yes French is helpful if you end up working with French clients but what if you end up working with Italian ones instead?

Also, all Unis have undergone a shift where STEM course have gained massive popularity over the last few decades at the expense of arts and languages. When I was at school there was a national push to get more kids to do maths and science A- levels. Engineering was a relatively low tariff course at most Unis. That has totally turned on its head now.

The thing is the people going to Uni are probably not those people so that doesn't explain why those YP are not choosing languages.

I think there is a loss of confidence in "general degrees" leading to jobs in what is an increasingly difficult job markets, and possibly pressure from parents for clearer links between Uni and career.

Anecdotally I don’t really think this problem is fixable with school.

I know a lot of people who learnt English and it wasn’t at school, it was because films, games, tv shows and the internet were in English so they wanted to learn to understand.

Similarly I know people who learnt Japanese because they wanted to understand anime.

For most people school is not a conducive environment for learning languages. I guarantee that there are way more kids that would want to learn Korean because they like kpop than German because one day they might be in a random town in Germany where no one speaks English.

We treat languages as some higher purpose academic thing rather than as a way of interacting with other cultures.

I know why it is happening. That doesn't mean I don't think it's incredibly sad. I teach in a school where students don't always have high aspirations and tend to go to local universities or ones with lower tariffs. If I had A Level students who wanted to continue with their languages, they wouldn't be able to do so at the types of unis they typically apply to.
I also feel that we need radical change, perhaps at primary level, so that students experience success earlier and feel that it's an option for further study. This isn't something we should be proud of, it's a product of making languages optional at school back in the 2000s.

To be fair though I also think making languages purely academic is the problem.

I did GCSE French, I wanted to continue learning but choosing it for A level meant sacrificing another subject as well as risking getting a lower grade. If you want to do STEM or etc you can’t really do languages. IB does it better by making it 1 out of 6 and you can pick up a new language from scratch whilst here it has to be the language you were randomly assigned in year 7.

Other counties don’t make students take up 1 out of 3 subjects or choose a degree to learn English. English is something you continually learn.

We make languages too big a commitment and so rationally most students choose the subjects that will get them the best grades and enable them to study what they want next.

It’s difficult though. My kids got a 9 at GCSE in French/German. They couldn’t entertain taking them for A Level, despite enjoying them, because there are too many candidates taking those A Levels who have a parent who is a native speaker, or they’ve lived in a country that speaks the language etc.

Choosing an MFL would simply have torn my dc’s grades down. So that was the end of that.

Smart girl I know has applied to do the course she wants at a high tariff university as a combined option with German. So first choice is a difficult to get into Uni (A star/A) grades as a single subject (not with a language) and insurance is at an equally prestigious place but as combined studies and it's lopped several points off.
So, low tariff uni's must be struggling

As a languages (modern and ancient) teacher, I think an important issue is that the rest of the planet puts in a lot of effort to learn English and thus many young people don't feel any pressure to try.

Pupils also know that if they want to work abroad, their colleagues will speak English and, possbily, being a native English speaker will be an important quality.

And, truthfully, to be anywhere near to fluent, a lot of work is required. Language GCSEs are tough and A levels are harder. Languages are just as complicated as chemistry or maths but, for most pupils, just not as relevant.

Every single one of our students who applied to Oxbridge for English or any MFL got an offer. 100% success rate of getting in.

That's mad- in the 90's English was probably the most competitive course to get onto.

If more.students took language A levels, this would cease being a problem.

Unfortunately once the previous Labour government decided that languages should no longer be compulsory at GCSE, the path was set.

Yes, I agree. My two eldest did the IB at a state school, where it is one of six subjects. The government has pulled funding for that though, in its wisdom. I do think we specialise at A Level far too early and continuing some form of maths, language and humanities would be more beneficial for our students all round. This is not going to happen though. Eventually they will have to pull languages from schools altogether as they will not have enough MFL teachers coming through. We get so few applicants now, never mind in a few years' time when all the university MFL departments have closed.

We teach three languages to A level. Students still don't apply for MFL degrees.