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.

All the local schools in my area (east London) offer two modern languages - generally French and Spanish - to GCSE. My eldest's grammar school offers 4 and they have to sit one at GCSE which at least means they do it to that level.

I thought the pen friends point was interesting. The grammar school has language exchanges and school trips while my younger DC's comp doesn't have exchanges. One reason is that people round here don't generally have the space to accommodate someone else for a week. It's a pity as I agree that it's a good way to learn. But there's also a cost attached to it which could be unaffordable for many.

In fact, it would interesting to know how funding has affected MFL.

I agree with you re continuing to A level with less than a 7.
I think there’s a lack of awareness about just how bad the teaching is that some kids have to deal with.

Clary - if they had replaced German with Spanish at our school it would have not been ideal but fair enough, but they didn’t, they didn’t replace it with anything.

I agree about finding books in other languages. I am good enough at a second European language to read most things but even the really big libraries near me have had the same small selection of books for about the last five years. Lots of them are translations of thrillers which I am really not interested in. The smaller libraries including our local one have no foreign language books at all. The Oxfam bookshop sometimes has some. I would love to listen to audiobooks in my second language but can't find them on the library audiobook system or with my Amazon music account (includes one audible book a month but only in English).
On the other hand it's easy to find loads of radio stations and Netflix has some series and that wasn't possible when I was young and learning.

Re availability of foreign tv, there’s good stuff on most of the streaming platforms including the free ones (The Line/A Village In France on ITVX - omg, so good!), it’s just really hard to find as you can’t search by language. In theory you can on Netflix but in practice it doesn’t seem to know the difference between Danish and French.
So the material is there, but clearly they are expecting people to merely tolerate the fact it’s in a foreign language rather than that be a benefit or even the whole purpose of watching.

Yes, there’s nothing in our local library either.
Luckily Amazon Kindle is brilliant for getting hold of foreign language books at a reasonable price and you can download free classics in some other languages just as you can in English.
Plus if you have the relevant dictionary on your kindle you can look words up instantly, I have found it a game changer.

My DD as a non native speaker did 2 modern and 2 ancient languages at GCSE and 1 of each at A level. She got full marks in her A level speaking having done 2 x1 week exchanges. She is now having a gap year working as an au pair for 6 months speaking her language daily and in October going to university to study it and another new language.
She also took a B1 level Goethe institute exam before going away and got nearly full marks ( apart from listening) She could probably have passed a C1 we think but the exam was not until summer. She obviously has a knack for languages but hasn’t had a parent speaking them and has got to a great level with hard work and interest!

Right, I saw that report, and this follow up piece from 2019 which says the changes off the back of that report weren't enough -
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/arts-blog/are-modern-foreign-languages-exams-too-difficult

"A key factor underlying excessive difficulty of the language exams for English learners is the presence of native and near-native speakers of the language in the exam cohort. This factor is unique to Modern Foreign Languages and it was partially addressed by Ofqual in 2017 with a small one-off adjustment to A level grading in French, German and Spanish. But what hasn’t yet been acknowledged is their effect on the exam papers.

This is significant, especially for smaller languages where the proportion of native speakers tends to be highest. Research commissioned by Ofqual showed that in the German A level sample, almost half the students gaining an A* were native-speakers, while at grade A, they made up almost a fourth. These are invisible to examiners, exam boards and Ofqual when it comes to scrutinising marks profiles. So even if the exam is far too difficult for non-native speakers, there will be enough marks gained at the top end to suggest the exam is working."

I don't know what, if anything, has been done since then, but I keep wondering about the stats @clary means when she says the native speaker impact isn't really a thing - is it just her own class's results or genuinely the overall picture? Because it's one thing not to worry about the issue and course it's possible for non-native speakers to get A stars just as it's possible for native speakers to not do so well, but that doesn't negate the issue that the report and this piece highlight. Likewise we can debate what native speakers means, but we kinda all know what we mean by a native speaker versus a non-native really and there's going to be a difference if you've lived in a country and/or been around a language at home to only learning it in school.

My ds has just completed a French A level and vehemently disagrees with you about the native speaker issue, @clary, and feels it cost him an A star. He got a 9 at GCSE and his excellent teacher said he was the most deserving pupil of an A star she had ever taught, though to be fair only a tiny amount do it at his school every year! She told us the native speaker issue may stand in the way of his getting an A star and languages teachers at my own school also say the same. I don't think they are all poor teachers. In fact, ds considers her the best teacher he ever had.

I appreciate I'm biased but ds is a massively driven and hard-working student so it certainly wasn't that which stood in his way. As I said to him, sometimes you are just on the wrong side of the grade boundaries and that's that, though in the case of MFL there is a chance that this has happened as a result of an unfair advantage rather then talent/hard work.

However, ds doesn't regret taking it and it didn't stop him getting into Oxford to do history. He found it an interesting and fulfilling subject and loved showing off to his friends when on holiday this year by speaking to girls in French! As well as this, in Oxford he is able to take a module in which he studies French history in French and do a French course to maintain his skills, despite being single honours history, which he's very pleased about as he was tempted to do an MFL degree at one point so he's glad not be leaving it behind completely.

He feels strongly about the native speaker issue and also feels, particularly where French is concerned, that the native A Level students are often from pretty privileged backgrounds as well, which compounds the issue. This doesn't tend to be the case with those sitting Polish etc, which is what we tend to get at my school. Obviously this is generalising, but it hasn't helped that he's met someone at Oxford who says their parents' business involves helping foreign students to enroll onto A level courses (appreciate this is vague 3rd hand info). I do think native speakers who don't work hard/aren't academic are unlikely to nab the best grades but those that are are likely to push those top grade boundaries higher than they would be with no native speakers involved, and that's not fair.

Ds2 has just started A level German so it hasn't put him off, but I do think it's something to be aware of and I do think it should be addressed

Anglo-European might have six though I haven't double checked.

Thank you for your post @clary it's interesting to see grade boundaries. We are considering French, German and Spanish as non-native but I'm very concerned about the level of teaching French. We have experience of four schools now including top academically selective private, and French has not been great in any of them for some reason...

Out of curiosity: is it true that top unis do not count MFL GCSE taken earlier than usual as they automatically think the candidates who sit earlier are native speakers?

Same experience.

But very few families with children in average state school have the offer of more than one or two MFL.

I think we have to evaluate what it is we want from a GCSE/A level in a MFL first. To me, GCSE seems to be about making yourself understood and understanding basic phrases and learning vocabulary specific to certain topics (school, camping, restaurants, whatever...) and the grammar gets done "as needed" but maybe isn't fully explained. If you put the work in you can definitely get good marks, although as PP have said it doesn't necessarily enable you to hold a conversation with someone unless it's very scripted.

Then you have a massive jump to A level where you're suddenly studying culture, films, literature etc. and it's a completely different beast. I can see why at that point it's not an easy A for native speakers (and there can be a range of competency with that) but if you've got a native understanding of grammar and a big vocabulary then it would certainly give you a head start on the other things as long as you were prepared to engage with them and someone who only has a GCSE level "basic phrases" understanding just doesn't have that.

Very true. We relocate to our native country in Scandinavian at Christmas.
English is taught from 2nd grade (8yo)and German or French from 6th grade (12 yo). You can choose German or French in most schools. Rural schools tend to do German.
All pupils have 3 languages from 6th grade

Still German or French is in decline at highschool and later university. Fewer and fewer pupils choose these languages at A levels/futher education.

German and French teachers for primary and secondary schools are hard to find as people tend no to choose these at teacher training.

English teachers are many. It can be hard to get a job in state school as so many have English as a favorite subject.

We never found a state school locally teaching German so we went with online classes to make sure she was accepted at next school. We have known for a while we would relocate.

Years ago then her older siblings were in school they had quite a few MFL to chose from even Latin. Here we see the age gap from our oldest to our youngst child.

Congrats!

Did the school organise the exchanges? DC doing A level Spanish and would love an exchange, but the school does a trip only

school organised one and we organised the second as it wasn’t clear the school one would definitely happen

Out of curiosity: is it true that top unis do not count MFL GCSE taken earlier than usual as they automatically think the candidates who sit earlier are native speakers?

Ohh very interested in this too, as everyone I know has taken their native language as an early GCSE, but I am actually making my daughter take it together with the rest of her exams in Year 11 and I thought I might have made a mistake.

Surely the drop is because it’s a pretty pointless qualification - i.e only for fun/ interest. With the progression of tech as it is no-one will need to ‘learn’ another language. And speaking German or French isn’t much use to anyone anyway.

I love learning Spanish but that’s for my interest not because it’s particularly useful

Errrr... what?! I'm a Solicitor, but speaking two languages (in addition to English) to a native/fluent level has been ENORMOUSLY beneficial to my career. Languages are THEE most useful GCSE/A-level one can pick. I can tell you that if you want to have the opportunity to work/live anywhere other than UK/Ireland/USA/Australia you absolutely must speak a MFL to a decent level. Languages open up enormous opportunities.

I find reading books in their original languages quite enlightening 😁 There is a reason for saying "lost in translation".

I got straight a* in languages and wasn’t particularly good. Easiest high grades for me!

DD might have to take German in y10 or even 9 as her music commitments are set to increase a lot and we won't have enough time. We are non-native speakers, she's just been learning with a tutor and I'm wondering if I might be putting her at a disadvantage for top unis if they think she's a German...

The main issue is the jump between GCSE and A'level - it is huge - coupled with the number of native speakers who weren't in the GCSE classes because they'd all taken that exam in year 7 or 8. My DD got an 8 in Spanish and chose to study the language at A'level. Of the 12 students taking Spanish A'level, 7 were bilingual. Needless to say, with no one with less than a grade 8 taking the language and a huge leap in difficulty, there was no slow start and my DD found it completely intimidating. We had to get her a tutor to boost her confidence and help her keep up as the pace was so advanced.

Interesting as I believe that the IB language papers differentiate between native and non native speakers. Not sure how you prove it though. Maybe that is what is needed here?

Sorry all - been out. Thanks for all responses, very interesting. To give my thoughts on a few replies:

@Bufftailed wrt the grade 7 – I agree that if a candidate has a 6 achieved with massive effort, loads of revision etc, then maybe A level is not for them. But if the 6 was gained with less effort, not-great teaching, perhaps a disaffected class made to take MFL – then yes, a keen student who was going to work harder for A level would be a better prospect.

I’m sorry that so many PPs’ DC have had poor teaching of MFL. Unfortunately the recruitment and retention issue is real. In MFL as in other subjects.
Yay to those where multiple MFL are offered tho.

@Sandyshandy yes it is harder to get the highest grades if you are a non-native. I have never said it isn’t. But I genuinely think it is not really relevant. The exam is targeted at non-natives; the tasks and questions are truly accessible for a non-native speaker. Yes they will have to work hard and have a good ability. But after all, an A star is supposed to be a grade for the very very best candidates. Really I am just trying to say to people, don’t be put off by a native speaker in your class – embrace it and use them to help you do better.

@CheeseNPickle3 that’s why I prefer a candidate to have a 7 at GCSE or the equivalent ability and understanding – that should mean they have much more than a basic phrases level of understanding. If you gain a 7-8-9 at GSCE and cannot hold a conversation with someone in that language (right then I mean, not a year later) then someone has been fiddling something – ie a teacher has told the student what to learn and given them a series of scripted answers to what they will ask. Even then there is a good deal of the speaking exam that you cannot see (let’s hope you have not seen it!!) until the exam itself. A strong candidate will be able to deal with that. I agree there is a jump to A level, but that is true for most subjects, as I understand it. Certainly DD found it so in English lit, for example.

@pinotnow I am glad your DS took French and enjoyed it and had a great teacher. Also great that he is able to continue it at uni. What board did he do? I take it from your post his mark was just below the GB for an A star? Can you share what it was? Did you have it reviewed (maybe not as no need since he got to Oxford which is fantastic and he should be really proud). Why does his teacher think his overall mark being an A not an A-star was caused by native speakers? Is it bc the GBs were pushed up by them?

Tbh I would always be wary of predicting an A star (or indeed a 9 at GCSE) as things can go wrong – mishearing in the listening, collapse in the speaking, misread of the writing task – I have seen all these.