Do GCSE subjects need to be rethought?

[GnomeDePlume]

Do the subjects taught at GCSE need to be rethought? A couple of subjects especially spring to mind:

• modern languages
• physics

Modern languages: rather than teaching a single language would most students be better served by a course which taught a bit about life in different countries. Some simple do's and donts, how to order a coffee (or other drink of choice), some basic courtesies, basic numbers.

The aim of this course would be to provide students with the tools to allow them to visit different countries.

Physics: would students be better off either studying a general science course or if they have the aptitude to study an extended maths syllabus. Physics could then be introduced later.

Students dont study engineering at GCSE level so why physics? It is such a broad subject, does GCSE level do it any justice at all? Would students be better of being given the tools they will use if they go on to study physics later?

Are there any other subjects which would benefit from a radical rethink?

Put simply: no, students could not study sufficient basic physics concepts in a more general science course. And while maths is absolutely required for degree level physics, it isn't essential for A level. 40% of the current a level includes GCSE maths skills - meaning there is no requirement to use A level maths skills, and 60% of the A level requires no maths.

The GCSE uses KS3 maths skills, and the majority of the course doesn't require maths skills. I'm pretty sure it was possible to get a grade 7 last year with no maths at all, but I'd have to double check the numbers. Your idea that students require higher level maths to understand physics at GCSE is simply wrong. And I suspect your misunderstanding is down to the fact your DC had poor physics teachers.

In 2002 three quarters of children took a language to GCSE. Now it's only 47%. Lack of language skills costs the UK 48 billion a year - 3.5% of GDP. Language learning brings general cognitive benefits, employability, and a sharpened awareness of your first language.

There is a crisis in scientific literacy in this country. e.g. one-third of the UK population thinks climate change is not real. The best way to address this is through more science education.

So yes, OP, GCSE subjects need to be re-thought - but not in the way you suppose. We need more languages, more science and more scientific literacy in schools, not less.

Is the problem with MFL that students start late and that the way and what they learn is artificial? All three of my DCs found language learning in secondary school frustrating. This despite having been fully fluent in a different language at an early age.

The third of your links talks about bilingualism which I think is very different from the academic approach taken in secondary schools. From what I have seen small children acquire new languages in a very natural way. Not from a desire to properly construct sentences but from a desire to play, to make themselves understood, to make friends.

If we teach language with the idea that it is really about teaching grammar then we might as well teach latin.

But MFL as taught at GCSE are actually pretty 'grammar lite' and very 'hear and repeat' (phrasebook methodology) heavy. Young children have a window of time in which they can acquire any language fluently - without looking up the data, the younger the child, the easier the acquisition, but by about 10/11 and moving into puberty, people's ability to acquire languages tails off and very few adult learners will ever become properly fluent. If we're not introduced to certain phonological differences in early childhood, it's very hard to produce or even hear them later. After puberty, some people are just better at it than others, like many other types of ability.

In small children, therefore, it's not primarily about motivation; it's about how the brain works. Acquiring new skills is very brain-intensive and so there seem to be optimum periods for certain skills. There's loads of data on language acquisition and I find it very interesting.

So adults and older children can't really learn languages the way small children do, and schools don't have time to teach by immersion, as would be ideal. Any of us, if forced to move to a new country, would learn an unknown langauge much faster in situ, ideally with supporting lessons too, than they would in a British classroom. I'm not wild about the way MFL is taught in schools though the new GCSE spec looks better.

We don't intuit grammar or have time for trial and error as small children do, so we need it explicitly explained to us. And most of GCSE vocabulary is the sort of basic stuff you would use on a holiday. I remember my sons had lots of role plays for the oral involving booking hotel rooms or campsites, or buying things in a shop, or explaining you were going to be late arriving. It's all about ordering chips and hiring a bike and using public transport. There's a little bit of social and cultural stuff about the environment and sports, but it's pretty practical stuff. They're not reading Voltaire and reciting verb tables.

That's a shame, reading Voltaire would really bring the purpose of learning a language to life - to understand what other cultures add to our civilisation. Reading the perhaps adapted passages from the inventor of the freedom of speech would suitably illustrate the origin of this key tenets of our democracy and illustrate what unites us with European nabours. The fluency in MFL advances hugely when you read in that language. Perhaps reading at least one book per year, well chosen would be the reform needed.

Oh, I agree, and I'm not down on the idea of reading Voltaire at all - it's just that the level of language learning at GCSE is much more at the holiday phrasebook level than at the literature level, and the OP was originally suggesting that it wasn't practically 'useful' enough. I definitely agree about reading books in the target language (well, I would, I guess, with my degree in languages), even if they are simplified passages.

Ups, that was neighbours, lol

Is the problem with MFL that students start late and that the way and what they learn is artificial?

Yes I think that's a lot of it. In this country we play at learning MFL's but we're not really serious about it.
At primary over 4+ years they learn a couple of hundred words, tops - less than one year's worth of bog standard secondary provision. At secondary they learn around 200 words a year for the first 4 years - the average vocab in year 10 is around 800 words. That works out at 2 or 3 words per lesson. To hold a conversation you need around 2000. There's a jump after year 10 when only the more serious students keep it up but it's still too little too late.

what works better (than the UK classroom snail's pace):

1. Self-paced courses (Michel Thomas etc)
2. apps (e.g. duolingo and memrise).
3. 1:1 or small group tuition with a native speaker
4. immersion via exchange programmes

I have skim read the whole thread.
I am a teacher - very academic at school loving Maths and Science. My DH was a pretty average student but did OK and also loved Science.
One of our disappointments with DC in secondary is that they both hate(d) science, no interest at all - both are above average, one more academic than the other. My DC see it as a learning of facts exercise, being continuously tested and with very few practicals done, in fact they seem to watch a lot of practicals on u-tude/videos.
I remember a mad Phyisics teacher talking animatedly about crazy things, a chemistry teacher who seemed to throw chemicals together and see what happened (and it did go wrong)! and I remember biology being a bit boring because I had to learn a lot, but related to real life so ok.
I have friends who teach Science and they despair over the restrictions of the curriculum and time available to teach it (triple in particular) - I don't know the detail Maths is my subject, but it just seems sad.

I'm with Ontop largely here - I do think learning another language is 1) a useful skill and 2) the learning about grammar etc helps with other things. So e.g. ( and I am not expert ) but if you learn e.g. French or Italian it makes it easier to learn Spanish. Now at GCSE - that may not be to boardroom discussion levels but surely may open more options. Any inflected language ( I may be using the term wrongly - I mean one where grammar , word order , fairly logical and disciplined structure and rules - e.g. German & not MFL but Latin ) - is a good discipline. I do think handwriting is important to be be able to do competently , but not necessarily prettily iyswim , but I speak as one whose son is dyslexic and therefore bashes most stuff out on the computer -no calligrapher he

@GnomedePlume I couldn't be less offended by your question. But I have to say I think it is good for most to at least attempt a basic grounding / qualification i.e. GCSE level in a different language. What you are describing re MFL sounds like those schools who end up offering Classical civilisation rather than Latin ( I do appreciate that Latin is a rather niche point but I hope you see the analogy)

But how many students get switched off from MFL because there is too much grammar and not enough focus on functional skills which can actually be applied?

I find the opposite is true! There is not enough focus on rigorous grammar but too much learning of whole sentences and phrases at the beginning. Too many pictures too!

You need a strong foundation in grammar to properly learn a language.