Please do encourage your non-native speaker DC to take MFL for A level if that’s what they would like

[clary]

MFL is my subject – I studied MFL at A level and university, taught MFL at secondary and now tutor and conduct speaking assessments. This isn’t an ad! – just to show I have some knowledge.

Take-up of MFL at GCSE and very much at A level is sadly (my view) diminishing. There are a number of reasons – it’s seen as difficult or not needed, big focus on STEM (which I am not against FWIW).

One suggested reason is because of all the native speakers who will make it much harder to gain a higher grade (esp at A level). I wanted to help people to see that it’s not an issue, and that if their DC is keen on French or German or Spanish or any other language, they should (please) pursue it in some way, whether that’s qualifications or some independent method (Duolingo, travel, online class).

People worry that grade boundaries are unfairly pushed up by the numbers of native speakers, making it impossible for a non-native to get a good grade. But in fact there is no need to be of native speaker standard to gain a top grade – which the AQA spec clearly states. If you get the marks – and they are there to be got – you’ll get the grade. The GCSE and A level exam are not targeted at the high end of a native speaker ability. It’s not easy, you’ll need to work, but what’s the issue with that?

And are the GBs pushed up? Pretty sure they are not. Polish GCSE, for example, which surely is sat in virtually every case by a native speaker – AQA GCSE GBs for a 9-8-7 last year – 196/173/150; GBs for French (mostly not sat by natives) 195/172/150; Spanish (ditto) 195/170/145. Very very similar. More than 80% of those taking Polish GCSE get a grade 7+ – but you can see, that has not affected the GBs. Nor should it IMHO.

And looking at A level, where German is taken by so few students that the % of native speakers must be higher than for French or Spanish (both taken by three times as many) – GBs for A-star and A, 351/304; French 358/325; Spanish 344/303. A higher mark needed to get a top grade in French, not German, even tho the % of natives in French will be lower.

A colleague said to me last year that their DS was in an A level class with a French native speaker – “of course that was a nightmare as he couldn’t do as well as her” – firstly it’s not a contest – you can both get an A-star! Secondly it can be a massive benefit. I had a friend in my A level French class who was amazing at vocab. She was an asset in class and my colleague’s DC's classmate could be too. Ask them vocab, learn the latest idiom from them, they will have interesting views on the social and political issues you need to discuss. It really is a positive.

Also I want to stress that despite what some ppl believe, being a native speaker is not a shoo-in for an A star at A level. For sure it is a help, I would be foolish to deny that. But I have seen native speakers in speaking assessments who have clearly thought they just need to rock up and boom! top grade. They have presented a woefully inadequate IRP form, and not done their homework on the topics. I had a native speaker candidate last year was emphatic that she didn’t need to have read a book or watched a film, as no one had told her about that element of the exam. These students will not get A stars.

I tell you who will tho – a student (native or not) who has worked hard, researched their IRP topic, learned some good vocab, stats and current views on the 12 topics; a student who has learned how to do to do well in the written exams, including summaries (often the downfall of a native speaker IME) and translation tasks; a student who has read the book, watched the film, read around both and acquired the necessary vocab and structures to write cogently about the themes therein. All of that is available to both native and non-native speakers. Some of the very best candidates I have seen in speaking assessments have been native speakers who had clearly done lots and lots of work, and some of the other best have been non-native, who ditto.

All that said – I really don’t advise A level MFL without a strong grounding in vocab and grammar – which usually equates (other factors aside) to a grade 7 at GCSE.

Anyway what a long post! sorry! but I am interested in others’ views and experiences.

Thanks for this @clary - I have a y11 DS with French as his strongest subject (I wonder if Linguistics might suit him as a degree subject) who is debating this right now. The ‘native speaker’ question has been in the back of my mind.

So great to see a post advocating MFL!
DS is lucky to go to a state school which used to have a language specialism back in the day (as did my secondary school); DD has discounted a very good school for secondary, because they don’t offer German - she instead wants to go to a school that offers 6 languages.
I hope they will continue a language to A Level 🙏🏻

Really interesting post @clary as I hadn't realized this was a thing until recently when we went to a top London 6th form. Dd is interested in taking German A level, and the student we talked to was a little obsessed with native speakers, telling her she could still take it even if she wasn't a native speaker. I don't think it had ever occurred to us that she couldn't take it for that reason as it's consistently been one of her strongest subjects (predicted a 9) so just feels like an obvious choice. Dd was quite bemused by the whole thing and has probably decided to stay at her current school.
But then a friend at another school told me it was almost impossible to get a 9 in GCSE Spanish if you weren't a native speaker as the oral is so hard so it does feel like there's a lot of misinformation out there.

Sorry but it is an issue in skewing results, in my DD’s class of the 13 A’s/a stars, every single one had French heritage (big college) of the b’s she was the only one, the rest of the class (16) all got c or below

Native speakers did a lot better than non native speakers at our childrens' GCSE / A levels.

Our native language isn't taught so not an option.

DS year 12 doing Spanish. Am delighted. His sixth form comp has 18 doing A level and he says a couple of native speakers. Not really worried about grade impact, although I have heard it raised as an issue.

He scraped a 7 but the MFL teaching was v lacking in pre-16 school & a lot of his mates, getting top grades in other subjects, did foundation.

The joy of knowing another language is just brilliant and getting so rare it feels special. Need to get him to Spain for some practice. Hopefully he can get a decent grade. Early days but he is really enjoying it and says teaching is excellent.

My DD is doing Alevel French . No native speakers in her class. We have French friends who visit us , so she gets to practice with them. I know very little French, so does my husband. She wants to do it at uni with Art History ! All very exciting !

DD1 is only Y8 but I am drip drip drip in her ear about how she's good at French, she should stick with French, it's easier than other subjects (maybe true maybe not!) - I will be delighted if I can persuade her to stick with it.

I did Spanish at A Level and found it A LOT harder than GCSE and very very different. I think I was quite underprepared for it no longer just being a memory test. So I would make the effort to try and prepare DD a bit better if she did want to take it further.

Ditto for us. Russian was a particularly good example of this at DD’s school with native speakers very consistently out performing their counterparts.

The problem is that a 7 (or even a 9) at GCSE does not imply a strong grounding in anything. My DCs have a 7 and an 8 in their MFLs and can barely construct a sentence; they just learnt the relevant choice phrases on the required topics. They were at good schools; at my comprehensive, students with straight 9s in other subjects often get 5s in MFL and it’s universally detested. Thankfully we have a consortium for sixth form and the 5 schools just about produce enough students for one French and one Spanish group most years. The step up from GCSE to A-level is huge and unachievable for most students, even with good grades. I’m not sure what the answer is; 30 years ago my French GCSE was good enough to allow me to have spontaneous conversations.

I'm pretty shocked by how few students take mfl. DD1's school has about 2% of A Level entries as MFL. On the plus side, the class sizes are likely to be small. But presumably in some schools they just don't run the A Levels due to numbers.

DS did German A Level. Several native speakers or kids with German parent. No impact to speak of on grades at A Level. I suspect the reason was that most native speakers or bilingual kids were staying it as an extra to help them get uni places in Germany and they were not very engaged with the literature and film elements of the course.

DS took A Level post COVID but Yr12 was his first opportunity to go to Germany with the school. Luckily it was an immersive work experience visit for a couple of weeks. This part of the experience - along with the film and literature elements - has influenced his choice to do a liberal arts type degree where a 'with' subject can be added in semester

I don't think native speakers in A level/GCSE class should be an issue - it's when they take uni places at top courses that there's a problem. I'd be interested to know the proportion of Oxbridge MFL students with a British name but native speaker parent or who has spent a substantial amount of time in the country.

Under 3% of A level entries are now languages

The trouble is that dcs’ school only teaches French and the standard is so bad.
We picked the school in part because it was a specialist language school and also offering German but in the 2 years between us moving to the area and dd starting there the German vanished and was not replaced by anything else.
It was dd’s worst GCSE and the worst A level of her 2 friends that took it. DS2 is having tutoring, as much because I can’t bear the thought of him leaving school with no language competency as because it would be a pity if it let down his GCSEs too.

Which school offers 6 languages?
Here you are lucky if you find anything else than Spanish and French in state schools.

This is a lovely post but unfortunately this wa

@MumChp it’s an independent, rather than a state school - Mandarin, French and Latin in Year 7, then in subsequent years you have the opportunity to pick up Russian, Italian or Ancient Greek instead.

Yes of course. Most parents can't afford that.

Agree. DDs both got A stars in two languages each at A level, as did many of their friends. No native speakers. Then got Firsts at languages at Oxbridge. I don’t even know if there were native speakers there. Got great job offers in the City/Law. I’m just saying this to show that not being native hasn’t held them back. We need more young people doing MFLs!

The native speaker in my french a level class didn't do particularly well! I expect she was just complacent but she got a C I think and lots of us got As.

I also think everyone should learn to speak another language to a decent level of possible . I love being able to see the world through the lens of a different culture. It makes you think differently. And it made me more confident and playful with my own language too. It's a great skill for subjects like law (which can feel like learning a whole new language) at university.

I'm thrilled my son is doing A Level French. He's the only boy in a class of 20. He's off next week on a French exchange. Languages can open many doors.

State school btw

Apologies as don’t know exactly how it works, but isn’t it about numbers of native speakers sitting the exams overall rather than how many are in a particular class/school? Surely that’s what affects the grade boundaries making it tougher overall, rather than whether a poster’s kid’s school/class only has a few native speakers and it not seeming to have an impact?

The thing you don’t mention is that aside from the native speaker issue (unknown in my day!), the syllabus is so drab and uninteresting, depressing social issues and uninspiring films/works of literature — AND MFL are perceived as hard subjects to get top grades in.

So I agree that more kids should study languages but unfortunately I can see why they don’t.