MFL

[DrSeuss]

So, at the age of eleven I fell in love and you know what they say, first loves never, ever die! My first love was helped along by Jean-Paul, Claudette and the entire famille Marsaud. At thirteen, I began an affair with the Familie Ehlers and their diet of Spiegelei mit Bratkartoffeln, which blossomed into an enduring passion when I first set foot in Das Land aged 17. I later flirted briefly with others but my heart still belongs to my teenage idols.

Yes, I'm an MFL teacher, a decision born out of a love and fascination for my subject. Little did I know that I would be joining a persecuted, hated minority. I survive a daily onslaught of "S'crap this. Wot do I wanna know this for I'm never going there and they all speak English." I try hard to be polite to parents who tell me to my face that my subject is a waste of time. I endure job interviews where a standard question is, "How do you justify the place of MFL in the curriculum?" They never ask anything like that if you are interviewing for Maths/English/Science/Hamster Keeping. I know. I checked.
I suppose I would just like a bit of reassurance that someone, somewhere, values MFL. That someone out there is keen to have their kids learn a language.

Que je ne sois pas deçue!

I think MFL is vital and I would have been horrified if my DDs had not chosen at least one language for GCSE. I am rather concerned that grammar is not given the attention that is was when I studied for my O levels, I assume that is down to the curriculum rather than the teacher.

To be fair the four languages are heavily influenced by the racial make-up of the school - the biggest race is probably Asian so we offer Panjabi and Urdu (which lots of them speak really well!) as well as French and Spanish. And a bit of German in yr 11 if you're lucky!

I thought MFL stood for Mother Fuckin inLaw and was thinking this would be a juicy thread.

Good on you for teaching MFL.

snuggle........

Some schools use a system called pathways for Y9 options, under which each kid is allocated a route, North, South East or West, and can only choose options from that route. This avoids bright kids taking options because their friends are or because they want an easy life. Obviously, a university bound kid would follow a path which gave them options as described above.

At our school, there is completely free choice. It is quite difficult to make a subject requiring as much effort and homework as MFL attractive when you can do a far easier option and get more GCSE credits for it. Management are happy on the whole as long as the GCSE results, be they real GCSEs or the kind that are worth loads of credits but are actually not as academically challenging, look good. One school I know of has a nearly 100% pass rate in Drama, probably because they follow a syllabus that has no written component. I can't compete with that, or with Horse Management, or Catering (double GCSE pass), or GNVQ Hairdressing, or an IT course that is mysteriously worth four GCSEs!

^does your school actually do Horse Management? I would so have picked that!

Personally, I would much rather a B in GCSE French to four 'GCSE Equivalents' from some dossy vocational course.

At my school we didn't get to choose our MFL. Each year they alternated French and German, and it just happened that I was going into Year 7 in a 'French Year'. I don't think it's very fair tbh.
We were allowed to choose German in Year 9, but not many people did.

I was surprised though, at GCSE we had two full French classes. Now at A-Level it's dwindled down to only 10% of the year doing a MFL. It's still not bad though, especially since everyone in my school is English/Welsh bilingual anyway.

I love languages, so does my DH and our DD is studying them with a passion at uni. She's done French, German and Portuguese at Cambridge then while on year at a German uni has taken up Turkish and Swedish!

Languages enable you to meet others and build relationships of mutual respect. For those who have an interest its also great fun. We've been very lucky to have an excellent school, a comprehensive which is a specialist language school.

I really can't bear the attitude that 'everyone speaks' English - its so arrogant to expect everyone else to make the effort!

Take heart!

Et pour moi c'etait Toto! J'apprends encore une langue car j'etudie l'Italien maintenant.

It's so sad DrSeuss when it's all about statistics. It turns a school into a business (for profits read results). Whatever really happened to what's best for the children and a well rounded education?

Effort, homework, challenge. In MFL, you are also teaching skills a child needs to survive in real life in employment or a professional career. On top of that, they'll learn a language and learn about another culture.

We've managed a 50% take-up of a MFL language in our new year 10, which I think is quite good for a bog-standard secondary. Everyone had a free choice.

DrSeuss: if you have the chance to read/comment on my thread about GCSE reports (specifically MFL) I'd be very grateful for yur view

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/1093205-GCSE-target-and-predicted-grades

I'm a languages teacher and really do not want to see it being made compulsory again. I would far rather have a class of willing volunteers than a class of conscripts. Added to which, an 'academic' education does not suit everyone and some young people are far better off doing practical courses because they are interested in them and can see that they are likely to lead to employment.

I currently teach some children who are barely literate. They really struggle with French (even though many are keen to have a go). Fair enough that they do it through KS3 but I see no need for them to carry on beyond then.

To me, the curriculum from 14 onwards should be about choice, perhaps a guided choice with input from teachers and parents, but a choice nonetheless.

My dad insisted on my doing a 'proper' science (I'd already chosen geology) because 'employers like to see a traditional science'. So I picked physics as the least of 3 evils and got an O level grade D! No on has ever asked why I don't have a 'proper' science, employer or otherwise!

Sorry to jump in on this a bit late, but I came across it having searched up 'how do I persuade my teen to take German A level??!' She's just acheived top marks in her class for her GCSE mock, her only A* in her mocks. We really don't want her to waste what ever talents she has, but she's keen on the 'softer' subjects such as media and photography etc. I'm not totally against these as I have worked in the media myself and we're a creative family so I understand her desire to fulfill this side of her potential, but I really think it needs to be balanced. She doesn't want to do german because she thinks it will be 'hard work' and it's not a popular course with only 9 participants in this years cohort. Any tips that can help me sell it to her would be gratefully received. In the end I know it has to be her decision, if for no other reason than she'll resent us if she hates it!

Well, I do French and I love it! I'd certainly recommend a MFL at A-Level to others. From this you'd assume that I'm naturally good at it, but I'm far from that. AT A-Level it's so much more interesting and a lot more fun than GCSE. Although you have to do extra work, it doesn't seem like work because I like it so much. French is the only one of my choices which I can say I genuinely enjoy, even though I like my other choices too. The small class size is good in my opinion. Only 7 do French at my school, and it's really nice and a laid-back atmosphere.

Let her do Media, photography etc if she wants, but only the one she feels most passionate about. My friends tell me Photography's fun but stressful and time-consuming, and Media's not even fun. Definitely wouldn't recommend Media even if she, like you, wants a career in it.

So anyway, French/MFLs in general are awesome!
Even though I probably won't do as well as I would've if I chose a slightly easier subject, I'm really happy I chose French.

SHow her my post to convince her. =P

I'm an MFL teacher too.

Most parents tell you how rubbish they were at languages at school, yet they impress upon me how much they want their DD/DS to study a language.

Our Head tells me it's important/crucial/highly regarded yet pushes it to the bottom of the pile in terms of curriculum time/resources/what it's up against.

Ofsted say they want it brought back to top priority again. University admissions tutors love it.

Students mostly dislike it, simply because "it's hard and you actually have to remember stuff".

A very confusing position to be in

Ah, les Bertillons- je croyais que c'etait seulemnent DP at moi qui connaient Philippe, Alain et Marie-Claude. Souvenez-vous- 'voici les pillules PLEIN de vitamines'- la vie dans l'annee 2000???

But, I must say, while I think MFL v impt, have been dissappointed with how it's taught, so little grammar, so inflexible. 3 oldest dcs alledgedly 'good' at MFL but still unable to string a sentence together if 'we haven't done...shopping/sport/holidays yet'
perhaps a bit unjust
have just asked ds1 now doing linguistics at uni, he says they were v badly taught, or to be more precise, syllabus v bad, 'you just parrot stuff and only learn for specific situations'

As an MFL teacher, I can only agree with your DS1, Shallishanti. I just wish we had decent textbooks/resources which supported the teaching of grammar. I do teach it but the books just aren't up to the job! And we don't have enough time to reinforce the grammar as well as learn all the rubbish irrelevant stuff that we are supposed to teach.

Thank you DustDustDust, that's a really convincing pro-MFL post that MIGHT just convince her! And I agree about the smaller classes as I can see that it would make for a nice atmospere plus ensures you get plenty of attention. Thanks for the advice about the other subjects too. I was wondering whether media would live up to expectations, from what you say it definitely wouldn't!

Believe me, I work for a European company, not a teacher and my years of MFL learning and my degree have come in very handy.

Oh. Having read Tinuviel's post, I might withdraw my support for MFL. Why don't you have enough time for grammar? - DS is doing Latin and he is doing all the analytical stuff (parsing, declensions etc).

In fact, what on earth are you doing for 5 years that means you don't have "enough time to reinforce the grammar"?

Because, Senua, we have to do role play; listening; speaking; reading; writing; fun activities so that everyone enjoys it; learning vocabulary. There is virtually no grammar in modern textbooks. As Shallishanti's DS said, it's all about learning parrot-fashion, substituting vocab in set sentences. I don't agree with it but I have to follow our schemes of work.

We do grammar but not in enough quantity to make it stick and the courses are taught by topic with grammar 'tacked on' rather than looking at a logical approach to teaching the grammar and fitting topics around that.

I am currently redesigning our year 9 Spanish course so that it is grammar-based but it's quite hard to fit everything in as I can't make any assumptions about the pupils already knowing how to set a verb out/how verbs work/adjectival agreement etc because although they've done 2 years of French, they haven't done formal grammar before. I only have 3 hours a fortnight to teach them and I only teach 2 days a week.

I use Galore Park textbooks with my own DCs (we home educate) and they are much better on the grammar side but quite weak on the listening. Maybe I need to write my own textbook!

On questioning why we hadn't learnt any French grammar in Year 7/8, the teacher told my parents "Why would they need grammar at this stage? They learn that all next year"..

I wish we'd been taught grammar properly from the start though, even if it was less fun than what we actually.(eating croissants and rote-learning stuff.)

Incidentally, if any of you teachers could offer tips on how to do well in AS-French(particularly for the WJEC exam board) it would be très utile. I really need it.

DD1 wanted to study French & German at GCSE. Head of MFL was not encouraging. We reminder her that DD1 already had one language GCSE under her belt. Head of MFL looked at her and said 'oh yes, you're the linguist' in much the same tones as she might have said 'oh yes, you're the rabbit throttler'.

Thankfully DD1 was allowed to study both languages but it did feel touch and go at the time.

Having worked in business in London I can honestly say that my German has really helped me develop my career - many of the smaller/medium sized companies' employees only speak very rudimentary English and it really helps if you can speak to them in their native language.

My DC is currently choosing options. As school is a language college study of a MFL is compulsory. DC is talented in French and has been identified as having ability to learn a second MFL between Spanish or German. DC would choose Spanish. Would have 2 years to study for GCSE .study groups are small and learning pace is therefore fast. This year after doing all compulsory core DC's are left with only ONE option. DC cannot decide whether to use this one option to study Spanish or whether to choose Fine Art or Geography . DC is bright and predicted A*/A in most subjects. Options deadline is looming and we dont know what to do? DC will hopefully go onto uni so do universities recognise 2 MFLS as agood thing to have or is it better to go for the "safe" option of Geography?

busymummy3 dual linguists are not thick on the ground. So if your dc can get A* in 2 langs it would certainly stand out on any application form.

Thankyou Renniehorta. I dont know though whether DC could get an A in Spanish would be completely new to it in Y10 but school think because DC predicted A/A in French and given small class size would be able to do and do well in 2 year GCSE course Spanish. But.... we are thinking would it be a bit of a tall order would DC be better sticking to a "safe " GCSE in Geography where also predicted A*/A (but hates!) or Fine Art(loves) where is gifted but worried about time consuming when also studying a lot of academic GCSE's DCin top set for everything.