MFL at secondary level, is this normal?

[MidnightVelvetthe3rd]

Just looking round state secondary schools now. One school we have visited just offers French as a MFL, is this normal or do most schools offer more than 1 language? I think I thought that most schools offer 2 so was surprised.... but I have no experience

Gunpowderplot - all sorts of people become English teachers in France these days by virtue of being native speakers of English and having done a TEFL course. They are mostly awful! Teaching your own language to children as an MFL is a real skill.

But actually being fluent in the MFL is so important, and ime plenty of English teachers of MFL don't speak the MFL accurately.

NB according to a survey carried out in 2007:

"Adults remember an average of only seven words from the languages they studied at school."

My DD spent a few years at a private prep, and the German teaching there was mindboggling atrocious. All she ever did was learn vocab, and only nouns! A couple of years in, she spent a weekend in Germany, and realised that she hadn't been taught how to say please or thank you! She could, however, say "guinea pig" and "pencil case".

When I mentioned to the teacher at parents evening that learning a language was about being able to communicate in the language, she looked at me as though I was insane.

That is perhaps a one off, but how much German can an average school leaver who has studied the language to GCSE speak or understand, on going to that country?

NB in adult life, from a grounding of practically zero, I made some German friends and spent few hours a week with them, over the course of a few months. By the end of that period I was fluent.
We need to take the English out of the MFL classroom.

Gunpowder - I know and I agree (and I learned three MFL direct method with native speakers and retain them far better than the one I learned via English). But it is not sufficient to be a native speaker to teach MFL.

We need to take the English out of the MFL classroom.

Sorry, do you mean remove English native speaking teachers out of the classroom? If so, that's pretty offensive.

It is really not offensive. Just not really possible! There are some perfectly good MFL teachers who are British. My DDs school had language assists for oral work and they were all native speakers. At the time my DD was at the school, three of the MFL teachers were native speakers too.

However everyone has to accept that some of the better MFL students in our universities may not wish to become teachers. My DD is not aware of one from her joint honours MFL course. They have already done a 4 year degree and, if MN posters are anything to go by, MFLs are not highly valued by parents or children or many schools. Truly, why would high quality students bother when it is a thankless task and few persevere with it? Any MFL teacher teaching in a school where there is only one language taught must know they are not valued!

It is offensive, if indeed that is what the poster meant, because the assumption is that one nationality would be a better teacher than another. There is far more to it than subject knowledge.

The number of languages taught in a school does not correlate with the amount of value placed on that teacher.

Parents who don't respect education aren't picky about which subject. They tend not to respect any.

MillyMollyMama - I can only remember one person from my joint honours MFL degree going on to secondary PGCE and she had a French mother and was almost a native speaker. I think most students didn't feel that the classroom would be much of a reward for their efforts and - perhaps more importantly - for many students the attraction of an MFL degree was the opportunity for travel and mind-expanding experiences. Which of course a teaching career was not likely to offer!

The school I work in has three fantastic MFL teachers. The children do French and Spanish at KS3. We usually manage to get one option group of between 20-30 students at KS4 from year groups of 160.

One or two children will ask to do two languages at GCSE but we can not afford to timetable those classes. It costs about 1300 for a lesson to be timtabled for a year. They get 3 a week for an option subject so that is about £4000 for an MFL option group per year. We get £4500 per students to cover 30 lessons in their timetable and everything else a school does- cleaning, admin, Guidance and support, trips, equipment etc.

You can see why a couple of students opting means the lesson can't run.

It is impossible at A level. Between us, the other two local schools, and a sixth form college and a private school working together, we managed a group of 5 to study French in Y12 last year. Not financially viable but we went ahead. 2 dropped out during the year and we are now runnng it in the second year for 3 students.

MFL is just not popular with children in most secondary schools. It will be even less so when he new GCSE comes in which is extremely hard and dull.

Our 5 feeder primary schools do not have a specialist MFL teacher and the children come up with a poor experience. WE have offered them one of our staff part-time but they can not afford it.

Just wait until the government announce every child has to do it until aged 16. It is an awful decision and I thnk Secondary Head's will rebel and refuse to make children do it. It is not appropriate for every child.

I await flaming from middle class leafy suburb MFL teachers.

LuluJakey1 - what an excellent case your post makes for selective education.

Really? What a bizarre conclusion. It seems to me to make an excellent case for proper funding for education.

No, Bertrand. There is no sensible case for economically unviable classes.

Some of it is funding, but some of it is also due to decisions about funding by SLT.

Some schools will only offer one MFL and no further maths, but will offer a dazzling array of vocational courses. Everything from Dance to Food tech.

My niece's school for example cannot possibly stretch to Spanish but can offer Polish to four students (a very cynical decision).

Ditto they can find the funds for six students to study Animal Care.

In France, non-mainstream MFL chosen by small numbers may be offered by schools a la charge des familles (billed), if the school is private, or taken privately by distance learning through the CNED.

In my niece's school it is a very definite decision to boost league tables by offering Polish language to Polish children.

Sure. Not exactly using the budget for the greater good.

The DD of a friend of mine who went to Lycee Hoche (huge and excellent state lycee in Versailles) took Modern Greek as an optional third MFL in her bac. The family had to arrange and pay for CNED lessons. It wasn't a big deal - my friend is if Greek descent and had taken her DC to live on a Greek island for a year and her DD went to primary school. And visited said island every summer. Lovely to get the extra points in her bac but there is no argument for it coming out of school budget here.

Apologies, not read all of the thread.

Here, local comp (leafy, MC) offers French in Year 7, choice of 1 out of 2 more in Year 8 and 9, so 2 MFL timetabled (except for a small number of SEN children, who continue to do 1 MFL and use the extra timetable slots for interventions related to their learning difficulty).

Almost all do 1 MFL for GCSE, a couple of sets do 2.

2 more modern languages, and Latin, are offered outside timetabled hours - the MFLs to GCSE standard, Latin, I think, only as an extracurricular but I may be wrong. So it would be possible, though unlikely, for a child to emerge with 4x MFL GCSEs - I think more common for it to be split between 1 and 2 (a mixture between those doing the second in normal time and those who do it as an extracurricular option), with a very occasional 3.

At some schools prioritising further maths or another MFL over vocational courses would be outrageous.

bertrand the vast majority of the cohort in most schools will be of middle ability.

Those pupils should have an option of MFL. That is not a remotely outrageous proposition.

I said "another MFL" Not "a MFL"

Yes of course in an ideal world there should be a choice of loads of different languages. Even 3 would be great.

But I suspect that MFLs are becoming the new Latin- a middle class yardstick to use to find schools wanting.

"MFL is just not popular with children in most secondary schools."

Hmmm.

'MFL is not well taught in some secondaries'?
'Where children have a poor MFL experience in primary, they arrive already disaffected'?
[Pupils at a school I taught in, 35%+ FSM, about 30% on SEN register, LOVED French. It was their absolutely favourite lesson. taught by a non-specialist, but after a good course run at the local uni]
'The benefits of MFL are not well communicated in some secondaries (especially ones where the community the secondary serves is relatively insular in outlook)'?
'MFL is hard, and some secondaries may choose to prioritise 'easier' GCSEs for league table performance, especially if they are near the Government's floor level'

But simply 'not popular with children in most secondary schools'?

Unlike Latin, which is withering and dying in all school systems, MFL are part and parcel of the international educational arms race.

Just thinking about the 'not popular' comment.

In my local school, the 'option blocks' are quite 'directive' - there is an option block which consists pretty much of a choice of MFL, with only a couple of very 'niche' options to compete with them. As a result, most pupils choose a MFL.

If, on the other hand, the option block also contained very popular options not placed elsewhere in the timetable - e.g. Art, or some Design options - then far fewer children would choose MFL.

Perhaps it is a case of 'MFL not being popular enough to compete with the other options we offer in that timetable block' rather than 'not popular per se'?

Inevitably, competition will have an impact on take up.

Up to the SLT to timetable in such a way that pupils are not forced to choose between subjects that in an ideal world they would both like to carry forward.