Language GCSEs - too hard to get good grades?

[clarrylove]

My DS is looking at his Options. He is keen to take both French and German. However, I've heard that it is difficult to get the top grades in languages. Is that true? Any stats that show whether some subjects are easier than others?

Following - we have the same problem :)

What are his grades like currently for languages? If he's keen and enjoys them he'll do better following that path. Intrinsic motivation is the key to good grades.

Dd was predicted a 7 all the way through for French - she worked hard and enjoyed it although struggled a bit with the listening. She got a 4 and it really upset her. I could kick myself for not encouraging her to do Drama instead!!

I've never heard this. DS1 did no extra work for any subject whatsoever, all throughout school. Minimal revision. He failed Comp Sci but passed every other one, with Spanish being his top grade 7.
I think with languages GCSEs you have to keep on top of the work as you go along. You learn by understanding the grammar and memorising the vocabulary and the verb endings... but then you have to practise them many times. It's not something you can cram in a month before the exam.

My not very academic DD did 2 MFL under the old system.
What we liked was not having to write long essays, and the fact the exam & CA technique was the same for both MFL, so whatever she learned in one was transferable to the other.
She did French & Spanish which also helped with vocab as she could guess words if she knew them in one language but not the other.
Because they were cumulative subjects there was less revision at the end too.

However I have no idea how relevant this is under the reformed system.

My DD's predicted grades were emailed out recently following their most recent GCSE mocks and she is predicted a 9 in Spanish but obviously that's not a given. She's had no extra tuition in the subject.

Silly to predict a 9 really unless she is insanely good at Spanish. Our school never predicts 9s.

I think languages are something you either get or you don't. If you get them, they're actually pretty easy. If not..... I speak as a linguist with a profoundly tin-eared partner ;-) My guess is if your son is keen on them he's probably in my camp, so he should go for it. We need more linguists! It also gives you a much better understanding of the English language which might come in handy if he also wants to take that to a higher level.

My daughter got a 9 but she had a very supportive French teacher who worked hard with her to get that.

That's not really true at GCSE level. A level yes, but not below that.

My DD took Spanish last year. She had always done well in it previously but didn't really enjoy it. She was fairly conscientious with revision but didn't have extra tuition. After the exam she said it was awful but went on to get an 8 so can't have been all that bad. We did suggest it to her as a potential A level but she was aghast 😁. Unfortunately the experience of the GCSE seems to have put her off languages for life, which is rather disappointing.

DS and DD both did 2 languages at GCSE, and DD one for A level. The main way in which languages are ‘harder’ is that Grade 9s are harder to get for students because native speakers (those who are bilingual ir whose families are from that country) take the same GCSE and take a proportion of the top grades, leaving fewer available. So DD, for example, did exactly the same GCSE French exam as did her half-French classmate from a Francophone home.

Old-style GCSEs were really good for those who were good at rote memorisation - speaking was literally a recital of a pre-written and learned text. New ones are better at identifying those who can actually speak something of the language more spontaneously. Sadly, my ‘rote memoriser’ is not the older child, who did the older exams…..

Hey OP – MFL specialist here.
A few thoughts – yes the format of the exams (assuming the same board, most likely AQA, but I would check they are the same board at DC’s school) will be identical; the topics covered are basically the same; the things you need to do (opinions and reasons, x number of verbs used, extension of your answer in xyz way, reading an original text from a German or French fairytale) will be the same for French and for German.

They are very different languages but for some that is an advantage as you are unlikely to get them confused. OTOH the way (for example) the perfect tense is formed is very similar in both (even the use of verb to have vs verb to be) so that is helpful.
I think it’s great that he wants to take two languages – so few people do this and if he wants to go on to do two at A level well wowser, excellent and something that will surely give him an advantage in the jobs market going forward.

Are they harder subjects? I mean a lot of schools insist that all or most students take a language and often they do not like it and do not enjoy it and do not do very well, which will surely skew the figures. DS2 had to take MFL and a lot of his mates got a 2 or a 3 when the rest of their grades were 5/6 and above. Not sure that necessarily means MFL is harder. But of course the students also had to take geog or history and the same thing didn’t happen there.

In terms of percentages – I checked a few AQA 2019 grade boundaries and a 9 in Eng Lit required 88%; in drama 86%; in French or German, 83% and in geography oooo just 73%. So that feels middlish to me.

I agree with a PP that I would never predict a 9 for MFL – why would you? An 8 is a great grade. I also agree that MFL requires study and earning from yr 7 – you cannot cram knowledge of verbs and vocab into a few weeks in the way that you could, perhaps, with English texts or history topics. Maybe that’s why they are seen as challenging? But if your ds is on top of this and getting goo

Sorry for essay - meant to add that IMHO the native speaker issue is not a major problem at GCSE as so many students take the exams, compared to relatively very few at A level (which skews it IYSWIM)

Thanks clary. One of dc’s GCSE languages was a niche one, very unusual to find in schools but taught in their’s. That meant the native speaker issue was particularly significant at GCSE, as there are so few non-native speaker candidates.

Ah yes for sure. I taught in a school once where a lot of the students spoke Urdu or Punjabi at home so a GCSE was a relatively easy win (tho they had to do a lot of work on the writing!). It was very very challenging for a non-native speaker to join the class (some did tho and good for them).

Thank you, some great info here.

DD got a 9 in Spanish but we go a few times a year to an area where not much English is spoken and I speak it quite well so she was used to hearing/speaking a bit from being quite small rather than just starting at age 11

I’m in my 40s so GCSEs were an awfully long time ago, but I took 3 languages at GCSE and found them much easier (and more enjoyable) than maths and science. I got A grades for all three. As a PP says above, if you enjoy languages then you will be motivated to study consistently throughout the course. Your DS should go for it!

Lad in our son’s year, not especially bright, excelled at languages, 2 grade 9s. He just had an aptitude and enjoyed them.
Does yours? I think it’s hard to get top grades in anything you don’t t particularly enjoy.

Sounds from this that the grades were recently recalibrated in French and German because they were a bit too hard in the past:

www.gov.uk/government/news/inter-subject-comparability-in-gcse-modern-foreign-languages

Ds2 currently choosing options, his school insists on a MFL, so it's a good job he likes Spanish.