Language lessons at school

[mummy68]

DD3 will be in primary 6 next year and we have been told she is likely to get a foreign language, probably French or German with a teacher from the secondary she will go two in two years time. I remember not having this until going to secondary and wish I had started sooner. Is it a good thing to get them started from a younger age? Personally I am all for it as she may come abroad with us next year or two, plus its good for her confidence to speak another language.

DS1 in year 2 at the moment will start French for an hour a week when he goes up into Year 3 and I think it's a great thing to start it so early. He's really looking forward to it. I think it's rare around here to begin a language so early but it should give them some advantages when they go to Middle school.

I have a feeling that there is an intention to do modern languages in all primary schools (KS2 probably).

I think starting earlier is a good thing - but it is very dependent on the teacher - and I guess most primary teachers are not linguists. So if they are bringing in language specialists that sounds a good thing to me.

It won't harm her but don't expect her to become fluent anytime soon... IME they don't do enough of it to have a genuine impact and also they all start again from scratch in Year 7. The good news is that a specialist will be delivering the lessons.

It's a total waste of time. They will learn nothing useful. (after a year of one lesson a week they will not be able to say anything more than the colours or to count to ten....)

But the secondary school will have fulfilled it's directive to outreach to feeder primary schools......

I think it's fantastic that they'll be getting a specialist teacher from the local secondary-presumably members of staff from the language department will also visit other feeder primaries to deliver MFL lessons there too. This will allow for continuity in the language provision when the children move up to the secondary school, instead of what often happens, which is that some children have already started learning the MFL at primary school (French, for example), but have covered different topics, or different amounts of the language, depending on which primary school they went to. Others may have learnt a different language at primary (German, Spanish, etc), whilst others won't have done any at all. In this situation, what most year 7 MFL teachers will do is just start from the beginning again, to 'level the playing field,' if you like. This can lead to the children who already have some competence in the language getting bored, as they've 'done it all before' at primary. So primary MFL teaching which makes good use of links with local secondary schools, is, IMO, definitely a Good Thing .

Haha, just re-read my post, sorry for the slightly teacher-y tone, can you tell this is my pet subject? :) I'm a primary MFL specialist, and also wrote my BA dissertation on MFL provision in primary schools!

I wouldn't expect too much from it but what's the harm?

PinkGirlyThoughts - but not all kids come from the feeder schools, so still won't help with what you're saying........

Indeed, Indigo.

Depends on the area you're from, I suppose. In the area I studied whilst at uni, the majority of secondary schools did take all of their children from a set group of feeder primaries. In my own secondary school, we came from loads of primaries spread over a wide area, so it obviously wouldn't have worked there. Horses for courses, perhaps.

I should probably clarify, though, that I don't think your daughter's y7 teacher will just launch into her first lesson where she left off at the end of year 6... just that knowing the majority of your new class already has some competence in the language you're going to be teaching them, as well as an idea about what topics they've covered, and how they've been covered, will be useful knowledge for the teacher to have, and might (hopefully) allow them to move a little more quickly onto new material, rather than spending a long time assessing where everyone is up to, while some children get bored at the back.

Yes, the good thing is that an MFL teacher is teaching them and if there are 2 year untill she starts secondary school then they might learn a bit more than just counting to 10. So if they covered all Y7 topics and all children came from the feeder schools that would really be positive.

However, as pinkgirlythoughts said, usually language provision in primary is provided by non-linguist primary teachers who teach a bit of the language they have learned themselves, and as they change teachers, the language they learn may change. I have done supply in a primary school though where from Y4 all pupils had one lesson of French and one German. Again, that was delivered by the class teachers.

I think the problem is the fact that there aren't good enough linguists around - they don't have to be fluent, but if kids learn a language from Y4 to Y6 there should be some consistancy and progression. Secondary teachers starting a language from scratch after 3 years of language learning is just sad!

The argument is that primary languages are just meant to give them a flavour of language learning - but 3 years of it? A bit of French, Spanish, German and whatever languages the teachers can come up with! But the kids can't do much in either language.

OP- your situation seems more positive though.

Rant over.

The French that they do is pretty basic (in pact, ds started in P5) - but the secondary schools will now expect them to have covered the basics once thy get there, as all of them should have done 2 years minimum by then.

Ds is in P6 and can now say things like "Je m'appelle [x]" or "J'ai dix ans"

The teachers, of course, don't have French degrees - unlike the secondary school teachers - so the accents and the depth that they can teach is limited.