Why do ALL the pupils at my kids' school hate French??

[kitnkaboodle]

Languages were my Thing at school and I still use them in my job. I'm aghast that every single kid from the school that I talk to hates French - it's 'up' there with RE as the most unpopular. All they ever report that they've done is grammar and translation over n over. I don't know if it's the fault of the syllabus or the (two) teachers. They seem to v rarely do any listening to recordings/watching videos etc, and NEVER seem to do any speaking practice. When I asked them if they ever do stuff like doing role plays pretending they're in a restaurant or suchlike, they literally didn't understand what I meant. What's going on?? Kids in Y8 and Y10 (yes, doing it for GCSE - in the interests of doing a broad range of subjects. Partially own choice, partially on the advice of teachers.)

I didn't like French at school. We had a great teacher, I loved her and we did lots of fun stuff including exchanges. But I found the accent impossible and the grammar never made sense to me. I took German at GCSE'S but I wasn't actually much better at that, it was easier to speak though. I'm fairly shit at foreign languages to be fair.

Oh, this makes me sad! I loved French from my first day in year7 and ended up doing a degree in it. Always found it a beautiful language and loads easier than German or any other one I've tried dabbling in.

My DD is dyslexic (still at primary school) but hates French, I talk to other oarrnts of dyslexic children and MFLs always seem to be the subject most want to drop in secondary, bad enough learning to read and spell your own language without doing another one.

I liked it though, enough to take A level at night school in my 20s even though it is totally irrelevant to my career.

I think children don't like learning languages as it's hard, you have to learn the vocabulary, you can't get away with waffling. Mine have all done Latin, French, one did German & the other 2 did Italian as their 2nd MFL.

I haven't been to an All Inclusive holiday so I don't know but do they speak English if you go to stay in one? My children can see the benefit of speaking languages as we go places where you have to speak the native language.

My DC have done GCSE French & German (one each) in past few years & hated it. It seemed to involve a lot of memorising long passages of text, which they'd prepared with help and then had to reproduce verbally. Seemed like a memory test with no need to actually understand what they were saying. There was little conversation & they seem to acquire vocabulary about things like recycling but to emerge with their C grades but no functional language skills! Disappointing.

competence in a foreign language is highy sought after by recruitment agencies

Really? Maybe it depends on the sector, but I've never encountered this. I think this is a myth perpetuated by foreign language teachers to justify their position - along with the one about it being 'useful' on holiday, the few badly pronounced french words I had learned never did me any favours when camping in Wales as a kid, nor later on when visiting France.

I'm surprised so many schools still do French, I thought Spanish was more widely taught as it's more useful and spoken in more places. I suppose they have to wait until all the French teachers retire 😄

My dd loves French! It's one of her favourite subjects.

Such a shame. I did both French and German until A-Level. I always preferred French and am now a fluent speaker. I do think that at GCSE level it is a language that you get a feel for rather than following more logical rules like German.

However, I teach primary where we manage to teach a bit of French, although the curriculum is very squashed, and the kids all really enjoy it.

It's difficult to learn, and relatively useless for the average person. It was my first major in uni, but I dropped it after one year.

My dcs hated French at primary school, it wasn't till secondary that they started to enjoy it. It helps that we have had quite a few holidays to France, they have started to feel a connection, they quite enjoy the thrill of communicating in a foreign language.
However if it was up to the "talk" by one of the French teachers about why you should take French they'd have said no, I was saying no. She made it sound so dull, so functionary, "universities will be impressed, you could work for an international company, you could do business with French" - none of these reasons would convince me if I was dithering. In contrast the other subject teachers actually promoted their subjects on the interesting topics, joy of learning, skills...the French "talk" was frankly a desperate attempt to suggest French would be useful.....I know it's a radical thing to say but I doubt GSCE French would be of much use to any except the very few. It's not worth enduring the challenge of a language GCSE if you have no love for the subject.

Hmm ... interesting points. Makes me start to feel a bit more kindly to the French teachers at our school!

• maybe it is French itself, then, rather than languages which the issue. But I don't see how it has more boring/difficult rules than other languages - especially not German!

• oh, yes the 'French exchange'! Not quite sure if that was every much use to me, though. Although I found languages easy, I was too shy to speak a word to my host family at age 13. And you shudder now, don't you, at the thought of kids going to strange families for two weeks.

Getahaircut - that's a good point about doing it earlier, at primary. My kids seems to have gone to the only state primary around here that did some French. But it was with a non-specialist teacher (who I saw several times making some weird errors) and they seemed to do about 4 years of colours and not a lot else! Always just learning nouns and never putting them with anything else. Maybe if you've covered a bit of the basic grammar at primary it helps you grapple with it more in Y7.

I wish languages weren't compulsory at dds school. Total waste of time and then she could do music instead.

At my eldest kid's options evening the idea was perpetuated again that universities will be impressed by a big spread of GCSEs, and that a language is sometimes actually required for university entrance, even if you've done STEM A levels and wish to do a STEM degree.

Some research on my part (and listening to people on MN) suggests that this is totally untrue, apart from ONE university (I think it's UCL, or Imperial College - one of the London ones) ... but it's one of the unis that my eldest could possibly aspire to, so he bit the bullet and opted for French. It's one of those odd situations where he hates a subject but does pretty well in it

I was surprised when DD chose to do German rather than French for gcse (it was mandatory, she'd have preferred to do neither), because I'd found frenhc ok but couldn't get on with german. Her reason was that, once you'd got the F, Vs and Ws sorted out, the pronunciation was easier, and once you'd got the hang of word order it was more logical.

I realised that my preference might stem from the fact that we had done a bit of french in primary (anyone remember the books with in which the dad was a douanier with a kepi?) whereas we didn't start German until the second year of secondary school.

Wow, some real anglophone arrogance on display on this thread. I can assure you, not everyone speaks English out there, and why should they?! Languages can be very useful on a practical level, and also open up a whole new world that the monolingual miss out on. If you want to understand another culture, their language is a very good place to start.

I agree we start far too late in this country though. Although with some of the attitudes towards language learning on this thread, I suspect we could start in the womb and it still wouldn't be enough!

OP - its UCL and even there gcse language isn't actually required, but if you haven't done it you have to take a language module in the first year. Really not a reason for a kid to spend a gcse option on a language at the expense of something else, especially as they're now generally doing fewer. Of course, if there is any likelihood of them wanting to do eg chemistry with french, or engineering with a year in Germany then they will probably have to have the relevant gcse.

I agree with pp who said languages need to be taught in primary. Especially languages like French where there is so much rote learning/rules. Also mastering pronunciation is much easier at a young age.

They also need to have more lessons. In France/Europe they spend 3/4x hours a week on each foreign language.

Also total immersion is required as much as possible imo. My friend in UK was telling me his DD is finding Spanish A level really hard because the teacher now only speaks Spanish. Er, totally the way it's taught in Europe.

Errol - probably outing myself here, but at the moment he's very interested in aeronautical engineering. That's a big industry in France, so it seemed foolish NOT to do the GCSE. He really dislikes it, but keeps coming home with 'well done' certificates in it, so I imagine he'll get a decent grade.

I think languages can be difficult in the beginning because until you have a certain level of competence you aren't really communicating and it all seems a bit pointless. In the UK, you either need to be the kind of person who naturally enjoys working at something or have a very inspirational teacher. Unfortunately, there isn't a cultural drive to learn other languages and few people expect to be able to do so.

From a learner's point of view, all European languages have good and bad points at various levels, e.g. more interesting media, more difficult pronunciation, more interesting literature, easier grammar.

More languages in primary would be great... but apart from time and budget constraints, where would the teachers materialise from? I suppose it may be a field in which more use of media can be highly appropriate- even back in ... blimey, may have been the 60s the primaries were using video/audio tapes.

It was the French teaching at primary that turned DD off (and most of her friends).

They hated it. Rote learning and done by over stretched class teachers. Once they 'hate' something it's hard to shift the attitude.

DD dropped French like a hot potato the minute she could - doing Spanish and German which she likes.

Kit - in that case, sound plan. DH did quite a bit of work with Airbus in the past, and although the technical discussions were all in English its good to be able to speak the language socially (or at least, showing willing is appreciated) and if your DS is likely to live there its wise.

I think there is a perception that foreign languages are hard, and to a certain extent I agree. You have to learn quite a lot before you can really use it. Plus in the 3rd lesson I couldnt hear the difference between chat and chien and was made to feel like it was my fault. That put me off. We were also told just to get used to french handwriting without any practical help.

And dont underestimate island mentality. I never could see the relevance of french and the dull and stupid french teacher didnt help. Now Im an adult I really wish I had stuck with it a bit more. I tried to get into international development and languages were sought after. They are a very useful skill to have in your back pocket.

For gcse I had a wonderful teacher who made it seem achievable and it made all the difference. And it has helped me in life. I moved to denmark and had to learn danish. The perfect tense is exactly the same as in french. So I nailed the perfect tense in about 5 minutes.