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.

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

Thats totally bonkers!!!

When I was at sixth form back in the late 90s I had friends desperate to get onto English courses at Oxbridge/Edinburgh/Durham

As I recall only one got Edinburgh but nobody went to Oxbridge- it was the local state school so it wasn’t that kind of school/nobody (teachers) had a clue about how to succeed at interview/how to win a place! Well this last bit is probably for another thread really!

Dd is studying mfl - Oxford is around 48% acceptance rate so although easier than some subjects, it’s certainly not guaranteed. She is at Durham with a lot of others who didn’t get in, and they are all super smart. It’s not a pointless degree, any more than English / history / classics is- they study literature, art, culture AND come out multi lingual. It’s definitely harder for the kids with no foreign parents (inc my Dd) but she is loving it. Erasmus funding starts again in 2027 so the yr abroad should become easier. I think it’s a brilliant degree.

to the pp who said ‘just get a job abroad’, I’m astonished anyone these days thinks that’s still an easy option post Brexit…

I don’t agree that the A Level is literature heavy at all - I’ve toured several 6th forms this year with my twins who are in year 11 and have both chosen one MFL for A level (alongside Maths and other Stem subjects). All the teachers for both languages have said that there is only one text studied, and one film.

When I did French A level in the late 90s 3 texts was standard - I did Camus, Sartre and Voltaire.

I have a joint honours degree - MFL and a social science, I honestly got so much out of it and while I don’t use the language day to day I’ve benefited enormously from the discipline of language learning, the cognitive and logic skills needed for translation, the appreciation of literature, culture, politics and history and the ability to write fluently about any of those topics. Spending my year abroad at a foreign university and having to write assignments and sit exams in the other language was the absolute making of me. The degree is so, so much more than just trying to become fluent in another language that may or may not be useful one day.

I have a successful career in the city so hasn’t held me back in any way (appreciate job market much harder now) but I have a secret wish to become a language teacher.

My twins are both interested in making their languages part of their degree but I wouldn’t encourage them to do a pure MFL degree. Combining it with a science or social science (as I did myself) makes much more sense and as other have said, in fact makes it more likely they will receive more offers from top universities than if they were applying for just the other subject on its own.

Respectfully, how old are you? It certainly wasn’t impossible to get the top grades at A level when I did them - I got an A but I’m now mid forties. The UK is now way more international even after Brexit so there are just more native speakers in schools and that does push up grade boundaries. I’ve discussed it with my kids teachers and they will admit it is a factor but will say that it is by no means a done deal for a native speaker. My two will be taking a language each for A level but alongside Maths, Econ, Computer Science etc.

Interesting thread. I agree it is poor and also agree that one big if not the main issue is that there are not enough A level MFL candidates so how can they choose MFL at uni?

That’s for lots of reasons inc a shortage of teachers (that’s terrible @Meadowfinch), insularity, lack of a GCSE, “we don’t need the language as everyone speaks English” and also perceived difficulty of the subject. Plus at A level the spectre of native speakers taking all the top grades (I don’t personally think this is the case with mainstream European MFL at any rate – I have posted about this before at some length (!) – but agree that prospective students are concerned, which may put them off, as @Ccgag says, which is really a shame).

I have to say a couple of things tho:

• If you applied for MFL at Leicester for Sept 2026 you didn’t do much research, as the uni was flagging this step in November last year (which would certainly have put me off)
• If you are predicted a grade 9 in GCSE German and cannot say “Ich möchte eine Pizza bitte” then something’s up

Maybe @AllJoyAndNoFun was being somewhat glib but I suspect their DC can in fact make that request. I actually think the GCSE is much better since the 2018 reforms (interesting that @beeble347 thinks it is easier than the old one with IMO and IME cheatable CA) and it genuinely covers relevant and useful themes. Including ordering food, booking a hotel and buying a train ticket. As well as discussing your family, school and future plans, possible careers and uni, hobbies, use of technology, concerns for the environment and what your town is like.

I often read here that the GCSE topics are irrelevant but would genuinely be interested in what people think they should be, if not what they currently are?

I will just say wrt native speakers – I conduct a lot of speaking assessments, frequently including native speakers (as I am usually working with YP who are not in school or doing the qual outside school) and the quality is very variable.

Two years ago I had one who had no idea she needed to read a book and watch a film for the exam; and last year I was contacted about three weeks before the assessment by a native speaker asking about the "talk" [ie their individual research project which they need to talk about for two mins and then discuss for 10] they would have to give – what did it need to be about?

So a top grade at A level is by no means a shoo-in for a native speaker. An A or A-star will always entail a lot of work. In any subject. For everyone.

It’s not impossible for non-native speakers (with non-linguistic family) to get a top A Level grade even in a difficult non-European language. But the student really has to have a passion and an aptitude and, granted, it’s probably not the norm. It takes a lot of work and dedication but it’s a very rich avenue.

My Dd got a stars in both her a level mfls, so it can definitely be done… she worked very, very hard though and definitely has a talent for languages.

@awalkalongthecanal It's not guaranteed but it's still 4-5x easier than the most popular subjects. My intention wasn't to denigrate MFL undergrads but really to show that even at Cambridge, the demand isn't there- it's not just low tariff universities that are suffering from lack of applicants and that the "in demand" courses have shifted towards STEM and economics. MFL was one of the subjects that Trinity Hall said they were going to target private schools for in an effort to increase numbers (a u-turn from a general trend to widen participation).

@clary - yes, the pizza thing was an exaggeration but I'm not sure I'd even say he has "holiday French" - although some could be teen awkwardness I suppose. I'm just not sure GCSE is a solid base.

@mummyinbeds I don't think MFL or arts degrees are a waste of time (I'm a history grad) but I think we need to be careful of assuming the employment landscape is the same as when we graduated. It's changed dramatically, and teenagers need to think about how they adapt . In terms of employment, general degrees are higher risk in a market where blind recruitment is becoming the norm because the value of a general degree to an employer was where you got it, not what you studied (i.e. they used the Uni as a benchmark of aptitude). Also, while high pay sectors like finance do still recruit people with general degrees, they recruit more people with relevant degrees as a proportion of total intake than they did 30 years ago and they want more assumed knowledge. I went into finance with no maths A level but I think I would really struggle now. I do understand why, with student loans and an incredibly tough grad market on top of that, teens are considering employability.

So @AllJoyAndNoFun genuinely (I am not being arsey, I really am interested when you and others on MN say this) – in what way is it not a solid base? Are the topics misdirected? Should it target mainly speaking at the expense of (say) writing? Is it too easy and the GBs for an 8 or 9 just too low?

If it is that it is not well taught at your DS's school then that's poor and a shame for him, and I apologise on behalf of MFL teachers everywhere. But tbh if he is going to gain a 9 he must be getting a pretty high mark. Last year in French and German AQA you needed 85%+ for a 9. I personally think the new(ish) GCSE (and yes for sure I know it is different again this year) is more rigorous than the one my DD took in 2017.

Sorry op i have a MFL degree and i wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, unless they have a really really clear career path in mind.

I left uni having no idea what i wanted to do, i think to have a career in it, you need to study at least 2 foreign languages. And i didn’t feel the university gave me enough steer for any career path based on my degree.

It is too much money to learn a language and there are better ways to do it.

I also found myself studying the same literature i had already done at a level.

@clary Yeah, I honestly can't answer that. I think MFL are likely taught as well at his school as anywhere and the grades for MFL are as high as for anything else, so maybe he does just go into panic mode when faced with an actual French person in France and clams up. I suspect the speaking test would be his lowest mark.

I do have big regrets over not forcing mandarin more (we used to live in HK) but I'm not sure it would have been sustained without massive effort.

At out school it's not really recommended to carry on with MFL unless extremely good at them. There are so many bilingual kids taking them and getting the top grades that other kids are essentially marked down. It starts in primary, my DDs class alone had more than 15 languages spoken and despite doing well at HS, she doesn't see herself as good at languages because she's surrounded by amazing kids. In turn, these fluent kids are not going to take it as a degree, an easy A level maybe, but it's just part of their life.

I think it's brilliant to have so many cultures and languages around us, my complaint is in the educational system not recognising it and keeping up.

A level French was literature heavy in the 1970s when I took it. We read Balzac, Mauruac, Moliere, Racine and Voltaire.

I was never any good at English literature. I love reading but was rubbish at analysing texts, and still think to this day that the literature element if my French A level brought my marks down.

I enjoyed languages so much that I continued with language evening classes (French and German) for years after leaving school.

I agree that the teacher training pipeline for MFL is very weak - Brexit has had a horrible impact on native speaker teachers arriving from France/Spain/Germany.

However, there really is no shortage at all of multilingual people for businesses doing trade overseas. The issue is that companies do not want to pay extra for language skills - the shortage is of people prepared to supply their hard won skills for free.

I did an MFL degree back in the day.
My year abroad was the absolute making of me, and I have absolutely used the skills I learned (if not particularly the languages themselves) in my career ever since.

My DC and her best friend both want to study languages at university, they are year 11 so hopefully there will be some places left still teaching it!

With AI and online translating apps, the need to study another language has gone,unless its your area of interest.
It's a shame. Thanks to learning French I have made so many wonderful friends in France and hope to retire there eventually.

But that’s my point - learning a language doesn’t have a singular goal ie translation. It’s so much more than that.

Yes sorry that’s what I meant. It was literature heavy back in the day - now it’s not at all. They study 1 book - L’etranger - and 1 film - La Haine - which surely makes the A Level far more accessible to those who don’t enjoy literature or analysing texts, but does open their minds to some culture and history.

I am a linguist, trained abroad where I'm from.

There's a jumble of things in my head but these are my main takeaways from experience.

• A levels are ridiculous. A 16 year old should not 'specialise', that's what uni is for. Students are being robbed of a wider knowledge in various fields. You know, good old general knowledge.

• Grade boundaries are ridiculous (or at the very least the perception most students and parents have of them). Why should your grade depend on how good or bad the people taking an exam the same year are? Attainment is attainment, why is it being compared?

• Being bilingual at home does not a good linguist make (otherwise everyone here would be an exemplary writer and orator in English).

• A high level of proficiency in a language is very hard to attain, and takes time and effort, a lot of both. I think the expectations of how much a GCSE can teach are unrealistic.

• I agree that companies don't want to pay extra for those hard earned skills. We all agree NFL are hard subjects, but they are not appreciated. I've never understood that, especially in the current frenzied thinking that STEM=good, Humanities=for dummies.

• The point of studying languages is not just acquiring the language, but everything that goes with it, and especially the true understanding and appreciation of different ways of thinking about the world.

• AI is reshaping the labour market at industrial revolution levels. No one is quite sure how 'useful' any degree is going to be for our children. And that's scary. Very. But basing your studies on second guessing this seems misguided. It's as if people are forgetting how to be human and just strive to be the best fitting cog in the machine.

Oh I hate this. Former MFL student here (well, History with German), and I had such a great time studying for my degree, and especially the year abroad, which I spent studying History in Germany and taking all kinds of modules I would never have done at my home institution. One of the modules ended up as inspiration for what I did for my PhD, for which I spent 3 happy years doing archival research in Germany and conducting oral history interviews. Admittedly, sadly I don’t use my German in my working life now (I’m in the Civil Service), but studying languages had such a huge impact on my early 20s. I feel so sorry for all the students who won’t get these opportunities in the future.

But honestly, the rot set in when the Labour government ditched the requirement to take MFL at GCSE in 2004. This was entirely predictable and Brexit has just added an additional layer of pain.

Ah OK well I have said this before (and I know this is off topic, sorry) but GCSE French does not make you fluent, how can it? any more than GCSE biology makes you a doctor. No one expects that but for some reason some people (don’t mean you @AllJoyAndNoFun ) seem to expect fluency from MFL GCSE.

Actually even A level won’t make you fluent. And that’s fine. Tbh if you are 15/16 and in France and your parent says “go and talk French to someone” I can see why you might panic. Just as if you did art GCSE and met a professional artist – you might not be keen to show them your sketchbook. Tho I am sure in both cases it would be helpful and they would be understanding and give useful advice.

If he is worried about the speaking exam (which is probably in the next month or so) it might be worth him seeing if he can do some extra sessions with his teacher after school. Or find a tutor. But the teacher is better as they will be leading the exam.

Great post @stickygotstuck hard agree with all that.

@clary I have a DC who is planning on taking French A level. He is strong in languages abd enjoys them and is thinking of pursuing a mfl degree after a levels or mfl combined with another subject. Which universities do you think are strongest in languages and most likely to still be offering in a couple of years? Thanks!
Universities we are currently think of are
Oxford/Cambridge
Warwick
UCL
KCL
Exeter
Durham