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.

@HappilyFreeNow So what instead then? The degrees are meant to be academic. Not just language acquisition. If people want that, then only dc of language teachers or those from abroad would acquire the language! This makes the lowly Brit even more disadvantaged. We didn’t have relatives abroad, speak other languages or have dc immersed in another MFL from birth. Others do and our dc have to compete with them. When they do, they are clearly bright people. They get their year abroad at university and that has to be their cultural fix. It’s clearly a subject where great advantage is bestowed by some parents and their skills and opportunities they can give but others should be given the chance to excel when they can.

@WW3Bath and some other universities very much see MFL as a business subject. Some teachers are incapable of explaining to parents about the breadth of the subject too and why it’s valuable. We have the challenge in schools that goes way beyond the Secretary of State. It’s our poor attitude to challenge, understanding others and valuing an all round education. Many dc on mn are doing 6 GCSEs that are sciences. No balance at all. We don’t value balance - we value specialisms.

Language acquisition and academic research led teaching go hand in hand in MFL degrees: one cannot properly exist without the other. The proper teaching of MFL is extremely expensive, which is one of the reasons that MFL are poorly delivered within the education system at both school and university. The number of teaching hours for 2 MFL if both language acquisition and research led teaching are to be held to similar academic standards as other humanities subjects is a huge issue given the state of university finances - and that's before factoring in the 3rd year abroad with its additional cost burden for students.

It was not a cost burden when we had Erasmus and some students worked - no visas needed for many.

@OhDear111 comments
It’s our poor attitude to challenge, understanding others and valuing an all round education. Many dc on mn are doing 6 GCSEs that are sciences. No balance at all. We don’t value balance - we value specialisms.

I think this is fairly accurate. I think in some ways parents and students cant be blamed for choosing subjects that they perceive are likely to lead to high grades or opens up courses that are perceived to offer high paying careers (essentially STEM). Sixth form offers are often based on your top 8 grades with MFL only being required if you study it at A level. People are strategic, if MFL is a riskier grade for a student than another subject it is a disincentive to take it.

Goverments (of any political persuasion) could have made/make MFL core and require it to be taken to 16, but they won't because it would be wildly unpopular. Even on MN education threads (often populated by ambitous parents with high achieving students) there isnt much enthusiasm for MFL GCSEs or the idea of a broad education for its own sake.

It's been an additional cost burden ever since university fees and loans were introduced. When I did a MFL degree many of my fellow students were on a full grant and received an additional year's grant from their local authority to cover the extra year abroad. For students who were funded (for living expenses) by their parents it was indeed an additional year for parents to fund though quite a lot of my fellow students got jobs abroad that covered most of their costs.

@Owlbookend "Even on MN education threads (often populated by ambitious parents with high achieving students) there isn't much enthusiasm for MFL GCSEs or the idea of a broad education for its own sake."

I agree with this - and it wasn't always thus. It's very sad that schooling has become so focused on achieving grades at the expense of a broad education. My DC remarks on the narrow cultural focus of so many UK students which contrasts with students from international schools and backgrounds who have had much broader opportunities for self-development.

I said upthread and I stick by it, that I don’t think GCSE MFL are especially difficult. They are very formulaic and don’t require long essay writing skills. They are conceptually far less challenging than physics. They are dismissed because of the thinking that you don’t end up being fluent, but they develop lots of other skills. You can’t be a nuclear physicist with only GCSE physics, but we don’t dismiss the study of physics.

Yes eventually you need to be language fluent to study the literature properly at uni, but you need advanced calculus to study physics at uni and yet it isn’t an objective of the GSCE, you just learn basic equations. If GCSE and A levels MFLs are only positioned as learning the language, they are going to fail/disappear because they don’t achieve that.

@OhDear111 yes, I despair when I read on mn of children doing 3 maths GCSEs - standard, further and then stats. Why?? It’s absurd, if you’re good at maths you only need one and then in further A level/uni studies you can explore other areas. If someone said they were doing 3 GCSEs in English history, French history and German history, you’d immediately see how narrow that is, instead people seem to think 3 maths GCSEs is a badge of honour. It isn’t, it’s a way for a child with an aptitude for maths to accumulate a lot of GCSEs and the school to up their % of 9s. (Sorry to derail the thread, but as a maths graduate and someone who did language A levels, it makes me very cross - it’s the schools driving this nonsense.)

Edit: sorry I don’t think I meant to quote @Ceramiq on this

@WW3 One of the issues with the study of MFL is that they don't become conceptually as challenging as other subjects until a very high degree of fluency and cultural knowledge is achieved - understanding where other cultures are coming from and discussing the validity of other cultural perspectives requires a fantastically deep and broad knowledge base.

Yes, I don’t disagree with any of that at all. I’m not diminishing the study of MFL. But it starts with baby steps and the first step is to choose to take it for GCSE and at that point it is actually quite straightforward.

So I’m disagreeing with people saying their DC don’t choose it for GCSE because it’s difficult - and for the govt dropping it as a requirement when they insist on everyone studying physics.

@WW3 A very good argument for the study of MFL at a basic level is metalinguistic awareness this imparts which then feeds back into one's mother tongue. Sentence structure, vocabulary etc are all improved by a good grasp of how this works in another language.

@WW3 My DD found it straightforward but you only have to look at the mn education boards to see loads of dc do drop it and the numbers taking the GCSEs. Way down at A level too. Dc do see MFLs as difficult but selective schools are much more likely to have dc doing 1 or more MFLs because they value them. They also see the benefit of having well trained teachers. In other schools MFLs have been marginalized behind media, film, sport, psychology, etc.

Possibly a bit of a tangent and more illustrative of the competition for university financing even between departments at the same institution, but my degree (History with German) was designed such that after the year abroad at a German university, my 4th year was meant to revert to the standard History final year. I thought that was nuts to ditch the German just after I’d attained the level of fluency gained after the year abroad, so I argued to continue doing a third of my modules in the German department in my final year - and got to continue doing a language and Middle High German module. I was talking about this to one of my old History lecturers I bumped into at a conference a few years later, and she confirmed the fight I’d had to do so was because the History department wanted the funding for students doing their modules.

@curliegirlie Is that because you did “with German” though and not dual honours? Other degrees would have examined in both subjects I believe so maybe you didn’t have the rigour other degrees did?

I don't think it is right to casually blame non-selective schools like this. My DD's school is non-selective and they fully support MFL. It is offered, but parents and students are choosing other GCSE options. This is a wider societal issue and not really the fault of individual schools. All students at my DD's school complete a three year MFL key stage 3 course. At key stage 4 all students can take MFL GCSEs. A large number choose not to. I am not aware of any secondaries local to me that dont offer a KS3 MFL course or dont offer a GCSE MFL option. Media, film and psychology aren't commonly offered at KS3.
Countrywide language teacher recruitment is consistently below target. A lot of factors influence that, but it is not the fault of individual schools. They are doing their best to provide an appropriate MFL offering.

I think it's a real shame so many places are pulling modern languages. However, I think in the rest of Europe (if not the world) - they think of learning a language more like learning how to swim i.e. a life skill rather than an academic subject. Brits mostly dont think of languages in this way because for most of them it isnt a life skill i.e. most wont need a foreign language. And in reality it is different.

When I lived in Europe both high level but also low level jobs require English or another foreign language i.e. both waiters in a cafe and managers in a multinationals needed to speak English (often with another language) - therefore most kids learnt it. Kids were not only learning it because English is lingua franca abroad but also because it was a requirement for a lot of jobs at home even if they never went on holidays. That just isnt the case with English. I also dont see the point of studying just a language at uni - French plus Econ fine. German plus Engineering ok...but by itself that is quite niche.

It's not easy to take A-level French here let alone any others.

One of DD2 friends needs french - they have two native langages - from eurpeoan country spent early years there and family speak them both - but wanted to do French beyond GCSE to aim for an MFL degree.

The regional college not exactly small no longer offer any MFL at A-level and only one sixth form offers French A-level- there about 6 in city.

Leicester university has wider problems with some courses and departments futures still unclear many of them science based -DD2 was intertested in one and she looking at a hard science degree.

Any serious MFL students might want to consider actually studying for their degree in another country.

I have a dc studying on a MFL degree (ab initio Arabic and Farsi type of thing) in Germany, and there are no tuition fees and much lower cost of living (my dc pays €280 a month inclusive of bills for a nice big room in student halls, and can live there for the duration of the study). They pay a semester contribution of €350, which includes free public transport throughout Germany.

DC does have dual nationality, but if you don't you can get a student visa. You need to prove you can support yourself (in the region of €10k a year), although you can live much more cheaply than that.

If German is not up to speed you can do Studienkolleg, which is like an access course for foreign students, and will take you up to C1 language level. https://studienkollegs.de/home.html

I think other EU countries do have higher fee costs, but most will still be nowhere near the cost of studying in the UK.

this is a few posts back but the reason Europeans generally achieve fluency despite not specialising is that they are required to take a language for much longer, up though the end of school. Of course for English this is also reinforced by pop culture and so on. But even the French were eventually pushed into a primary school start for languages.

You do need school as well as real world exposure. Without formal teaching you often have gaps in grammar and higher register vocabulary as well as writing. You see these gaps in heritage speakers who learn at home but don’t get school reinforcement.

I moved to the USA and Spanish became very useful in my line of work.

Dd would be studying in france if she were well enough. She is also a dual national and would pay subscription only fees.

@Owlbookend Well yes - KS3 obviously. GCSEs then flow from that and how many DCs have studied 2 MFLs in KS3? Hardly any. Most schools offer 1. Selective schools know dc are more likely to choose MFLs so offer more. DD started French in y7 and Italian in y8. Very few bog standard comps allow for this. Yes of course parents and dc choose the easy options - because MFLs are perceived as hard and are marginalized. Less so in academic selective schools where more dc are capable of doing them and actually want to.

I would also predict the universities with greater challenges for MFL numbers will be taking more state educated pupils. Many of whom will never have had the chance to study 2 MFLs. Many state schools teach either French or Spanish and often dc are required to choose 1. They don’t timetable two.

@OhDear111 'bog standard comps' you are talking about the type of school my DD attends. I think language matters in all senses of the word.
'easy options' what are these? Some students find french easy others excel at computer science and physics other students are strong in humanties and social sciences. It is about aptitude for different types of subjects. I think it is about a perception of difficulty for MFL rather than actual difference.

@Owlbookend My point is really that few comps offer 2 MFLs to a pupil in KS3. Does yours? Most offer 1 choice. There are of course outliers with well resourced MFL departments offering numerous MFLs. Many have cut GCSEs in MFLs due to lack of interest and teachers

It’s also true that years ago far more dc did MFLs and there was no bespoke curriculum for certain talents. MFL was a core subject that was taken to O level or GCSE. It’s not now. The idea that other subjects are not easier is a bit of a joke I’m afraid. It’s for this reason that Cambridge list MFLs amongst the A level subjects that prep dc best for their humanities courses. They don’t spec media studies or film. Science is completely different but I still don’t think 6 out of 9 GCSEs should be a science with limited essay skills or lack of study of another culture. In my opinion, it’s too narrow.

Three MFL GCSEs and Latin at my comp.

Until the year my DD joined, her school offered an additional MFL to set 1 language students from Year 8. They have stopped doing this because so few students opted for two MFLs at GCSE level, they felt devoting teaching time to it wasn't worthwhile as at most a handful of students continued with two. Some years no one did. It wasn't a resource issue (the number of KS3 language lessons didnt change, they are now just devoted to a single language). They reasoned, given the very low numbers continuing with two, offering just one would give a better grounding for GCSE. Students can still take two at GCSE (students are allocated to french or german at KS3 and both run st GCSE), but one would be starting from scratch. I don't know if this was the right decision or not.
Im not going to detract the thread by getting into an 'easy' subjects argument. However, the only way to make students choose a breadth of subjects is to make some subjects/subject groups compulsory at GCSE level. Otherwise, people will be swayed by children's aptitudes and likely grades. As I said upthread, I don't think this would be popular with parents (even MN parents who aren't that representative 🙂).
What I will say is that at DD's school the students are offered a broad range of options and are offered advice about what would suit their abilities and aptitudes. Student A may opt for GCSEs in triple science, history, french and geography with further maths as a 'period 6' option. Student B may continue with combined science and opt for BTECs in health and social care and sports studies with GCSEs in geography and design technology. It is a comprehensive school and offers a good range of choices for different interests and aptitudes. Traditional subjects are offered as well as more vocational ones that suit some students. We don't refer to it as 'bog standard' as a general rule ....
For there to be a higher uptake of 2 MFLs at GCSE level (or even 1) there needs to be a societal shift in how education and qualifications are viewed. Schools won't offer two languages at KS3 if uptake at KS4 of two is 0 or close to it.

Completely free choice at my school (although things are in columns these don't deliberately restrict choices). We have plenty of students who choose two languages, loads who choose one and a decent uptake for Latin which begins in year 10.

I think when you don't attach ideology to subjects it seems students more genuinely choose what suits them.

Our problem is converting those GCSE to A level and then the A levels to degree.