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.

@Ubertomusic Have you looked at maths A level entries and grades awarded recently? It’s the top subject with the most top grades. It’s not hard for many! However MFL people are often not looking at stem careers so it doesn’t matter what happens in maths.

MfL is best seen as an academic degree. Not a vocational one. It’s a door opening one if sufficiently skills based - reading, essays, etc. Just speaking a MFL is not a degree. However learning from y7 or y8 is hard when others have learnt from babies!

You cannot disagree with someone's lived experience 😂 and I wasn't speaking about English, I said "other languages". Spanish and Italian my ex had to learn are Romance languages coming from Latin, English is not.

English belongs with Germanic languages along with German and Scandi languages, no wonder Scandinavians learn English easier. They also watch TV in English every day, Italians don't. Germans speak excellent English too because they are taught well at school.

There are various reasons why some nations are better at some languages than others :)

Good post, Clary. I’d add that in my observation (my DD did French at A-level and is now studying a non-European language), the native speakers who do so well at GCSE aren’t automatically guaranteed an easy ride at A or degree level. My niece (who is a serious languages nerd) found the worst student on her Russian course was Russian, and his problem was he didn’t expect to have to do any work. First year was fine, second not so much…

My DD has also belatedly realised that if you are good at languages, you also tend to be good at coding because having an interest in grammar and syntax is a transferable skill! And the harder the MFL is to pick up, the easier Python and R seem in comparison.

Intelligence services pay is chicken feed 😁 I think it's obvious that the economic landscape is changing rapidly, China is a super power already but as far as I understand the Chinese are not interested in imposing Mandarine as lingua franca on their colonies like the English did in the 19th century so it remains to be seen what's going to happen with linguistic landscape. What is a lingua franca in Vietnam for example, English or Mandarine? I don't mean tourism of course, but industry.

Iran will become a regional power I think in 10 years time and they are more open to the outsiders than China so there will be lots of business opportunities there for people with Farsi, I think.

@Ubertomusic You cannot disagree with someone's lived experience 😂 and I wasn't speaking about English, I said "other languages"

I most certainly can. "Lived experiences" can mean anything and its opposite, and can include flawed subjective impressions which, digging a little deeper, may well prove to be completely baseless and not representative

Yes that's true but I was referring to non-language degrees where the language a level is just another a level. If a competitive non-language course requires 3 As, they're not going to accept AAB just because the B is in a language and therefore a bit rarer.

if you are good at languages, you also tend to be good at coding because having an interest in grammar and syntax is a transferable skill! And the harder the MFL is to pick up, the easier Python and R seem in comparison.

True, my DC is a mathmo/IT geek and he nailed two non-native MFL A levels, one with A star. It is definitely a transferable skill.

As you wish 🤷‍♀️ Do you also disagree with the classification of Romance and Germanic languages?

@Ubertomusic The classification of Roman and Germanic languages is a matter that has been widely studied and on which there is ample consensus among academics and experts.

If you can point me to similarly rigorous studies, with a similarly wide consensus, on how Latin is helpful to learn certain languages, I will happily read those references.

I know a person who is convinced that attending a faith schools gave him an edge and was a key contributor in his academic success. That's his "lived experience". However, plenty of studies fail to substantiate that point. So, yes, there can be many cases where a "lived experience" is simply a flawed, subjective impression.

Plenty of people had, or have "lived experiences" convincing them that people of a certain gender or race or nationality are inferior workers. They call it "lived experiences". I call it unfounded bias and prejudice.

Well, it's first of all common sense to see that if certain languages (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese) come from the same root (Latin), they retain at least some rudiments of the common grammar structure and vocabulary, which makes it easier to study them if you studied the root language.

But if common sense and common knowledge are not satisfactory, there is a plethora of research on Latin you can find on google. Here are just a couple of examples:

https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/items/d1ae722c-ba61-42de-8894-ff344decf772

An old research done before this Labour government decided that Latin is too highbrow for the plebs and defunded Latin in state schools.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1944-9720.1977.tb02999.x

Chapter "Transferable language benefits" https://tcl.camws.org/sites/default/files/TCL%2011.1%20Final%20Edit.pdf#page=97

For the true connoisseurs, a comprehensive study on how Latin influenced languages of Roman empire, among other topics

www.cambridge.org/core/books/bilingualism-and-the-latin-language/1977D30B88BA060AA02ED9BF4DACE354

HTH

PS Your comment on racism is absolutely ridiculous and neither here nor there on this thread.

Why does none of that translate into Italians, who study Latin more than any other country in Europe, being better at foreign languages?

How funny, my daughter did it the other way round! There’s no such thing as a waste of education, truly.

@Ubertomusic
This study https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/items/d1ae722c-ba61-42de-8894-ff344decf772 looks at whether participants who know Latin are better at deciphering an unknown language. Not very relevant for real world applications about fluency with real languages.

These https://tcl.camws.org/sites/default/files/TCL%2011.1%20Final%20Edit.pdf#page=97 were interviews with 12 advanced learners and teachers of Latin. Of course those who like a subject will tell you how great it is. Textbook selection bias

This meta study the only one which is potentially relevant, as it tests English verbal skills of students studying Latin vs those not studying it
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1944-9720.1977.tb02999.x

However, the studies are about 50 years old. They refer to a different world, with different demographics, different challenges, different teaching methodologies, different everything. They were also conducted in the US - it is totally unclear if they would have ever been relevant to England, where the demographics and the teaching methods have always been different. More importantly, since the underlying studies seem inaccessible, it is unclear how they normalised for all other factors. How can you run a scientific experiment by taking two groups of identical students, and letting only one of the two study Latin? How do you ensure there aren't other factors affecting the results? Eton students don't outperform those of a comp in a run down part of the country because they study Latin, but because the socio-economic background is radically different.

Lastly, even if Latin did give you some transferable skills in learning a new language, there remains a very simple banal question: why not study this other language directly? Why study Latin and Spanish, in the hope that the former will help with the latter? Why not study Spanish directly?

PS I know I am a broken record, but Italy remains an excellent example of how studying Latin does not necessarily translate into being better at foreign languages.

I think you replied to me on another GCSE thread so thank you. I posted about my son doing French A-level with a 6. I've been reading that the grade boundaries were stricter than expected this year with a new marking scheme. Indeed, if my son had got the same percentage last year he would've got a 7. Have you read about this too?

He won't consider any subject other than French so I think all I can do at this stage is support him. But also must remember that in old money it was a B, and I'm sure plenty of B grade students did do the corresponding A level. (he's not expecting to get A/Bs at A level so I don't think it will hurt if French translates to a C or D grade).

Yes I am aware of the higher GBs this year. The exam was changed – for example, instructions (as in, what essay to write) were previously in TL so these now being in english has made it more accessible. Other changes such as the read aloud and dictation aimed to ease candidates into the speaking and listening papers.

I presume as a consequence it was felt the exams overall were a bit more straightforward. Comparing with previous exams and GBs is not very helpful for that reason, unfortunately.

I would really be doubtful ICL about taking French A level with a 6. But if that is what he really wants to do, if his teachers are on board with him doing it (they know him, and his abilities, which is worth a lot more than a cold GCSE grade), if he has looked at the spec and is happy with it, and if he is aware that a 6 is likely to translate to a C or D then all good.

Is he doing four in case he needs to drop it? If not there is often some leeway in the first couple of weeks (my DD switched – to French funnily enough! – after about a week).

No, he is only doing 3. He had Media Studies down instead of French, but then all the Media studies teachers left.

It is complicated by the fact French is a consortium subject at his school, so his GCSE teacher won't be teaching him - he'll be traipsing to two other schools in the same town just for this subject.

The GCSE teacher said he was not an 8/9 student but he'd progressed a lot over the year and if he worked hard it was doable. On the fence, in other words.

Tbh I know it is just a case of not hearing what I want to hear, but I find it v disheartening to be told a B grade student should not continue with a subject, when the Bs are his best subject. I understand there's a point at which students should consider other qualifications, but are A levels really only for A grades?

Getting a C/D is not a problem. At this point (he is a young 16, so things could change), based on his academic career so far, he is not an A/B student at A level regardless.

Would a weekly session with a French tutor help? It is something we could look into further down the road. I have only just stopped paying for GCSE maths tutoring though!

No indeed A levels are not only for A grades. My two DC who did A levels got two A grades between them and both have gone on to achieve well.

A lot of YP tho may be aiming at unis which (at offer level anyway) will ask for A grades or As and Bs. So it's worth being aware, that's all. For sure plenty of unis and careers are accessible with lower A level grades.

The thing is about MFL that as it is linear, ideally you need to be secure in verbs, tenses and basic GCSE-level vocab before you start, as it is unlikely to be retaught (there is a lot of topic content to cover). And a grade 6 suggests simply that those elements are not fully secure. Someone who was on top of the irregular verbs and knew their vocab would gain a 7+, most likely, unless there was some other reason (illness, missed out a question, that kind of thing).

It's a bit different for other subjects that are more topic and text based (Eng lit, history, sociology).

Anyway I hope he enjoys it and does well. It's always good to study MFL further esp if you are keen.

Sorry just saw your qu about a tutor – yes that should help. I have tutored and known former colleagues who have tutored students taking A level MFL in school or college. It can be very supportive.

There is a bit of nuance here. DC got 7 on a remark for MFL so was borderline 6. Secondary teaching v poor. A lot of his otherwise high/ fair achieving friends got 4 or 5 or even 3.

He is end of year 12 and flying. Teaching at 6th form excellent. Teacher says at least a B. There is catching up to be done yeah.

I would let DC go ahead @FancyKeyboard if they are keen

Edited to say if they are not on a A/B profile anyway even more reason to go ahead. I think the advice around maths / MFL is more relevant for children who would be looking at high grades otherwise.

That's great and well done to your DC. Sounds like he has worked hard which is always good. And yes, a high 6 remarked to a 7 is a bit different from just a 6 with all the work they could muster.

Yes for sure there is nuance. That's why I described a GCSE grade as "cold" – it's hardly a delicately calibrated assessment of ability and work.

It sounds as tho @FancyKeyboard's DS is only, or mainly interested in French A level anyway and tbh as long as he enjoys it and gets some learning and extension out of it then that's a win as far as I am concerned. I would always happily teach a keen student who might achieve less well. Over an unkeen, able one that is.

Thanks @Bufftailed that is useful intel too. The nuance is the tricky thing. For example my son had a great teacher, but did very little work at home. I think he needs to buck his ideas up, because if he continues like that he will fail. but if he actually puts the effort in... he could do well. It's in his hands now!

Good luck. DC also doing maths from a 6 (7 in mocks) and struggling with that, although flying in MFL. As long as you’re pragmatic and prepared to consider different paths I think it’s good to let them follow their interests

MFL all about practise. Teacher told him to start revising GCSE higher grammar so could start there. And as much daily listening / reading as they can muster!

@clary just revisiting this thread as DD had her first German class at her new school yesterday. The class was bigger than expected - the previous year they only had 6 over Y12 & 13 and ran a joint class - but this year they have 11 year 12s, 9 of whom are native speakers. DD was a bit disheartened but hopefully being surrounded by native speakers will actually help her. She found the bridging work very easy so I think was shocked by how good everyone else in the class was.

She did get a 9 with full marks on Listening and 45/50 on Speaking so hopefully will be fine.

Brilliant that they have got so many. Yes do encourage her to see the native speakers as a useful resource. It's not a competition – I know it's hard not to think it is but if she gets a mark of 75%+ then she will get an A (based on 2026 GBs but they don't vary that much IME), even if everyone else in the class also does that or better.

Wishing her all the best with it. I love the AQA German A-level syllabus. Does she know what book and film they are doing?

Mine is in an a level Spanish class of about 20, with three native Spanish speakers only. Only one lesson so far, but he’s impressed with the bulk of the teacher’s speaking to them being in Spanish during the lesson - says he has to concentrate much harder but it’s going to be good.