Blimey : MFL A levels have changed

[Piggywaspushed]

Disclaimer : went to school in Scotland in the late Middle Ages.

I studied French and German as CSYS level (kind of like A2) and got As so considered myself good. But what my DS is doing now is really turning him off. we did three lit texts in French and German (this may have been more than we needed knowing my school!) and some history (German was east Germany and education , I remember; French I think was the resistance) But all our teaching was basically in English, certainly all our discussion of texts and I SWEAR we wrote essays in English!

DS can't even seem to learn grammar in peace now without it being related to some 'ishoo' and even his homework is set in detailed Spanish.

I know this is all very worthy - but it's no wonder kids talk about the gulf between GCSE and A level in MFL!

DS already dropped French after one week. He can't drop Spanish, not least because he got near as dammit full marks at GCSE. You wouldn't know it, though. He is really struggling, hates it and is now being supervised in free periods to force him to work... there is no shame emoji so I went for blushing...

The teaching isn't great either, which does not help. Boys definitely respond negatively to weaker teaching much more than girls ime.

Anyone else share my his suffering?

[MargotsDevil]

@Piggywaspushed I believe we may be of a similar vintage; I too possess CSYS German and French and recognise some of the texts you mention. However - we definitely wrote essays about the texts in the foreign language... I found mine when cleaning out some stuff recently so I'm pretty confident about that!

[Piggywaspushed]

Hahah!

It is faintly possible I may be misremembering but I really don't think so... perhaps it changed at some point after I did mine (ca 1989..)

[GallicosCats]

I did A-level Latin too, in the 80s, Lancelottie. Politics and religion galore. I needed weekly booster sessions in the first year to get my grammar up to speed as the School Classics Project O-level had almost no formal grammar in it at all.

I am hearing impaired, and MFL speaking and listening was always a challenge for me, so despite getting an A in an old-style O-level French, I don't think I could have coped with A-level. I knew how I struggled to find the vocabulary to put captions to pictures; whole essays would have sent me over the edge.

[Piggywaspushed]

My friend - a Spanish teacher- has just told me there aren't discursive essays on 'ishoos' in the new A level, so now I wonder what the duck his teacher is doing setting him an essay on marriage...

[clary]

Ah Piggy we did Katharina Blum too, that was the one we read in English! So so hard!! Also Besuch der alten Dame (love) Gute Mensch von Sezuan and Romeo and Julia Auf dem Dorfe; French was Tartuffe (aaargh), Candide ( aaaarrrgh), La Porte Etroite and Ka Guerre de Troie n'aua pas lieu. Quite a mix! Besuch the best by far.

Loving everyone's memories :) I did a level in 1982 too! I love Le Grand Meaulnes, it's like the great Gatsby? Really want to read some of these now!

[Danglingmod]

I took French A level circa 1991 and the lit texts were Les Quatre Cents Coups, Zazie dans le Metro, Silence de la Mer and Boule de Suif.

Lit essays were written in English but our teachers also made us write about lit in French too, for extra language practice. My whole class got As, but it was my hardest A level.

[Piggywaspushed]

Oh Brecht ! I forgot him! We did him for Higher German, I think. I can still remember all his titles in German. LOVED Brecht. We also did him for SYS English!

I loved Katharina Blum but couldn't have talked about it in German...

I just like learning for learning's sake : my aim never was to actually converse with actual Germans

I am more of an enthusiast for learning than DS though. Really have never understood what he does like. Sigh. If anything.

[noblegiraffe]

The thing I remember most about Brecht is his invention of Verfremdungseffekt which means 'you're watching a play, remember, don't get drawn in, you're supposed to be thinking about it'.

[IveGotBillsTheyreMultiplying]

Piggy

I’m the same. I love learning and can’t understand why the dcs aren’t as geeky as me..

[clary]

Sorry for typos, my phone doesn't like all this French and German!

Igotbills and other PPs, the new GCSE doesn't include rote learning, it is all exams, so anyone in current yr 11 or below will be much better prepped for a,level or even going to the country on question.

I am reaching dative case, imperfect tense, vocab on all kinds of things, booking a room, ordering food, as well as more complex stuff eg whether to get married and what career I would like. Much better honest!

[clary]

Aaargh teaching not reaching!!

[Piggywaspushed]

I was going to mention verfremdungseffekt but didn't want to push the showing off intellectualism.

;)

And then in English we called it alienation effect, unless we were being v pompous.

[iseenodust]

Another 1980's student here. We did Eugenie Grande, La Porte Etroit, Antigone.

I recall being asked in the French oral 'What plays are you studying in your English Lit A level?'. That was a real spanner in the works as I tortuously attempted to explain the themes in The Tempest. The boy in after me got the same question and when he said it's about life on an island and a shipwreck the examiner said 'the girl before said it was about magic, good and evil..' . So I managed to stuff it up for two of us

[Leeds2]

I did French and German A Level in 1984.
In French, we read Therese Desqeroux, Le Roi Se Meurt, Le Petit Prince and Les Clos Du Roi.
In German, Bahnwarter Thiel, Irrungen Wirrungen, Die Physiker and another I can't remember!
All essays about the texts were written in English.
We did write essays in the TL, but these were based on fictional titles given in the exam.
Even back then, there were only two of us in the German class, but I seem to remember that the French class was quite full (maybe 20 students). There was certainly no-one who was fluent, or had a French/German parent.

[GU24Mum]

We did (mid 80s) - Therese Desqeyroux, Le Misanthrope, Le Neige en Deuil and Flaubert's Trois Contes - still can't look at a parrot without thinking about it............!

Lancelottie and GallicosCat - another mid 80s Latin student too - I remember learning reams of Virgil and Ovid - mostly about entrails being scattered around iirc!

[Piggywaspushed]

I had food poisoning the night before my French oral.

I got the old small talk at the beginning

'comment ca va?' etc. I proceeded stupidly to tell the examiner I was ill and then they asked me loads of questions about what I had eaten.... which didn't really improve matters. Not only was my medical French not up to much , I was sick again straight after the exam..

[Bekabeech]

When I was in an English class in Germany (A'level equivalant) the whole lesson was in English! Thats partly why I went to my exchange partner's sister's lesson as my German wasn't very good.
My friends who did MFL back in the day certainly read the text in the target language and wrote essays in it (they did also privately get the English translation to read).
At O'level we attempted to write some Poetry in French - fortunately not something that was needed for the exam!

[Piggywaspushed]

This obviously all changed some time in the less late Middle Ages (the Restoration perhaps?) .

This is all fine so long as a) teachers are aware of this jump and manage it appropriately and sensitively b) teachers differentiate for the needs of all students and c)students don't get totally left behind and exist in a perpetual state of existential despair and/ or confusion.

[Lancelottie]

Can't beat a few good entrails, GU24mum. I might consult the oracles about the likely outcome of DD's mocks. (Did you do Tacitus as well?)

[pointythings]

I did French and German A level equivalent in Holland in 1986. We had to write essays in the target language but our literature exam was oral - in the target language though. So there I was talking about Madame Bovary and the portrayal of female characters in literature, and talking through a comparative analysis of Le Cid, Phedre and Jean Anouilh's Antigone (deliberate juxtaposition of dramas on my part). It was amazing and I loved it. I am so glad DD2 is doing the new style French GCSE, it has so much more content and substance. She loves it too.

I don't remember my German books - didn't love them quite so much - and my English (as foreign language) didn't count because I've been bilingual from age 10.

[EBearhug]

We didn't have quite as many entrails in Latin. We had sex - Catullus. The themes were well beyond the experience of the sort of person taking Latin A-level... We had Tacitus in translation for GCSE, and Pliny for actual Latin.

[donajimena]

I got A* at GCSE Spanish. I lasted one term of A Level. I was pretty fluent in Spanish and took the GCSE as an adult external candidate for vanity I speak even more than I did then and the thought of a Spanish A level still brings me out in a sweat. He has my sympathies and I hope it works out for him

[vlooby]

I'm really sad reading this! I've been teaching MFL for over 10 years and been a Head of department for a good few of those..... quick summary of my thoughts on thread:

GCSE current y12 took was appalling, you did not have to be a 'linguist ' to get best marks- in fact it could be a disadvantage!

ALevel and AS were fine before rewrite, but a lot changed, however a student sitting the gcse in summer 18+ will be miles better prepared. Essentially the fault is the GCSE.

I've just had a grammar loving pure linguist type, who got A* at GCSE get a B in the new AS. He'll get an A at the end of 2 years, I'm pretty sure, because that grammar knowledge will really help his expression.
Also choosing a topic of their own for the extended unit should be really engaging.

As far as I remember, essays in TL was a strong recommendation of ALCAB and I don't think ofqual would've certified the qualifications without this- but it has been essay in TL since 2009 at least,,..

[donajimena]

vlooby I think you are right. I aced my GCSE and felt like I wasn't stretched. Then A - Level. ..

[vlooby]

2 years ago I taught an academically weaker boy (scraped c grades in maths,not in English). The gcse from last year encourages rote learning. He couldn't do this so he worked REALLY hard to understand the structure of the sentences and the grammar behind them, then he improvised his spoken and written tasks (60%) . He deserved a C, He got a D or E.
You then have students who CAN rote learn 300 words- they would get an A* but couldn't improvise - who is the better linguist?