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.

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.

I don't know that people are put off by there being native speakers in their class. It's more about the bigger picture, isn't it? The overall impact on chances of getting A*. That's what I was getting at in my first post - that the issue is surely about the national situation not how it is in one class or school. Maybe I'm missing your point, or you're just looking at the microcosm and I'm looking at the macro, but this also bumps for me -

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?

As PP explained, it's about the limits on how many students can attain each grade, making it harder than it was to be one of those getting an A star. Of course getting a top grade should be hard, and of course it's still possible, but it's still a recognised issue to contend with even if it doesn't bother you. I'll go now as I get that the thread is a positive one and I keep sounding negative. I think it's brilliant to be able to excel in another language and that some students will always have that aptitude, as evidenced by those who still love learning Latin and Ancient Greek, but I think it's good to be honest about the challenges now so people can make a truly informed choice and not just hope for the best.

There is no limit, in Latin lots get top grades.

@pinkdelight on your first point – I have had it said to me “he is in a class with native speakers so that’s really an issue/it’s really scary/he won’t be able to beat them” by more than one parent of a sixth former in the last couple of years. I have also read it on here several times – most recently in a post about French GCSE a couple of weeks ago. I think it’s a shame is all, tho I agree it’s not a major issue.

Wrt GBs and the top grades being “nabbed” I think someone said by native speakers – there is a figure for how many top grades are possible? I asked bc a quick research by me shows that about 80% of Polish GCSEs and about 70+% of Latin GCSEs are at grade 7-9. Surely that is way over any possible approved figure? The GBs for Polish GCSE btw as I said are on parity with French and German. As far as I can see from low-key research, the figure for Astar at A level varies from subject to subject and from year to year. In physics it has been as much as 16%, in Eng lit about 9%, in French it has been 12% in a recent year.

I have no stats on the % of native speakers gaining top grades btw as there can be none apart from an estimate – at no point AFAIK is a student asked to declare themselves a native speaker. So I am not sure where anyone is coming up with figures tbh. Tho I agree the % is higher, the fewer students take the MFL. And as others say there is such a range – I have taught students with a French parent who have accrued nothing beyond a limited ability to understand; and also students who were basically fluent, thanks to a lifetime of effort by parents and them. Where do we stop anyway – how many maths A stars are gained by students with a parent who teaches maths A level? Is that fair?

That's correct for Latin. There is no set figure of allowed top grades, it's just a common misconception on MN.

My non native speaking DD got an A star in French and an A (1% off A star) in Spanish so it can be done. Now reading both at Durham.

DD did a MFL (French) at A Level. She got an A star (with a lot of hard work) and the one native speaker in her class got an A. Both very good grades, of course. There were several other A stars in her class so I definitely don't think it's as simple as native speakers getting all the A stars.

She was however lucky that I speak the language to a reasonable standard so could practise the speaking bits with her quite a bit and also that we have been on holiday to France quite a lot so she saw me speaking and often making mistakes, but still making myself understood and getting on better in terms of my ability to navigate the world in French than the people we went on holiday with who didn't try and couldn't find anything out like where the loos are or how to find the car park or whatever.

I think possibly my attitude to speaking and not worrying too much about whether I was perfect possibly helped more than anything else tbh. It gave her the confidence to have a go and speaking French in France with French people (even if only for a week or two a year), finding herself understood and appreciated for her effort, realising that she could in fact find out how much the necklace she liked was and being able to ask to try it on just gave her a boost to her confidence to keep going.

I think sometimes British people either are scared to try or aren't encouraged to and it holds us back from trying more - and I do think many suffer from poor teaching. Even DD's teachers were not that helpful at times despite the good grades in her class. The film and book seemed particularly difficult both to teach and understand for everyone.

I know that having got to a decent standard in one foreign language has certainly made me more confident to try others and wherever we go on holiday I'll always at least try to learn how to ask if someone speaks English and how to say hello and thank you. These small things definitely help smooth your path through the world even though I don't think my Greek for instance is ever going to be great. The more you do, the easier it gets.

DD chose a language as her fourth A-level, and narrowly missed the A star. Her friend did the same, and got a good A star. Both non-native, and in DD's case, her time in France amounted to one year 7 day trip, one two-night school trip, and one week with us.

Grammar and etymology interest her, and studying Latin outside school probably helped, and possibly also the two years she did of a second language. She was a bit of a Harry Potter nut, and she read her way through the French translations - in contrast to the originals, she was much quicker reading the later ones, because she was by then reading them reasonably fluently. It was definitely a good way to get started on reading in French.

She can't do any language modules as part of her degree, but is doing an extra-curricular French class. She also continues to read quite a lot in French - she says in some ways she prefers it because she reads a little more slowly and takes more in. She has been considering the option of a year abroad as part of her degree.

Her school used to teach three languages - I think everyone did French, and then one top set did Spanish and the other German. The problem with that is that they did not get viable GCSE groups; inevitably, drawing on only 30 or so kids. So they cut to two - sadly ditching German just due to the specialists they had. They also increased the number doing a second language in year 8, then allowed them to choose to continue with one or both - DD was in the small group who opted to do two languages in the time everyone else was doing one. We thought they'd be pushing them very fast to keep up with the other groups, but unfortunately that only seemed to be the case in French, and that is why she lost interest in continuing Spanish.

I wanted to add – those of you with DC considering A level MFL (yay!) I’d advise looking at the spec. I think it’s great but there are other, equally valid, views from PPs here. There’s a good deal of politics in the topics – subjects such as immigration, politics and youth, crime and punishment, reunification of Germany, the EU – so if those topics are not of interest it may be best to think again.

Tho tbf the first year topics are a bit softer – music, film and culture in the specific countries, the changing family, the internet and new tech, art and architecture, customs and festivals – so IMO a bit more linked to the GCSE spec (which does cover some of those topics in much less detail).

That’s good to know - I clearly need to be a bit more persistent searching.

My feeling is that a lot of what’s available is aimed at adults and it possibly is due to the success of Scandinavian police programmes like Wallander etc. - rather than as seeing school pupils as an audience. It’s not too dissimilar to all the nouvelle vague films I watched as a teen to improve my French - I’m not sure if they would have been the best choice for a teenage audience but they were all that the television stations made available.

I just think it’s a shame - I’m dubious about the point that it’s easier for other countries as English is the obvious choice. There are clearly 2 languages that are the most popular to study in the UK (Spanish and French) - both have a strong and distinct culture in literature, music, film, food
and fashion. It’s not too much to expect the BBC to showcase this for younger viewers as part of their educational mission in return for the licence fee. The BBC have plenty of their own content from the last 40 / 50 years that they could use as well as links with the foreign broadcasters that they sell their own stuff to. As well as the reasons already discussed on here, there are a lot of children having time out from school due to physical / mental ill-health since Covid, so there’s a strong argument for having resources to keep children engaged in learning.

Amazon I agree is brilliant, although I do find that you have to know what you are looking for - possibly including a foreign language book in the daily deal would help.

I agree. There are so many great films/series made in Spanish and French. It would be fantastic if they would be shown.

Off the top of my head, "The Invisible Guest" (Spanish) and "Nothing to Hide" (French) are some of the best films I have ever seen. The Invisible Guest in particular is truly incredible!

DD wanted to do Italian at A level but the teacher left and the replacement didn't have it so had to switch to History instead. However I got her a subscription to Italian Vogue so she could keep the reading up. Magazine subscriptions in foreign languages are easier to access than books (other than on Kindle). I would recommend Maurice Druron's Accursed Kings/Les Rois Maudits as a good Kindle read for French A level - its the series they based Game of Thrones on if you need a popular cultural hook to sell it with.

My son took mandarin at GCSE and enjoyed it. He worked very hard to get his grade 7. A substantial number in his class were Hong Kongers and got their grade 9’s without doing much at all.

No way was DS going to take mandarin at A level in a class full of native speakers. Way too depressing.

Personally I think that native speakers should have a different A Level to non-native speakers.

Thank you for the tip about Nothing To Hide!

I watched Portrait Of A Lady On Fire in French on ITVX at the weekend and that was one of the best films I have seen.

It’s true there’s not a lot for teenagers and an awful lot of crime drama. I find myself wading through crime drama after crime drama looking for things. It could be so much better.

When my db was doing French A level in the 80s my dad had a multi standard tv and we were near enough the Channel to be able to pick up French tv. My mum was worried about db because all he ever seemed to do was lie in bed watching tv, but he was actually watching it in French and aced his A level!

Walter Presents on channel 4 also has some great foreign language content. We're watching Deutschland 83 which is great for German students or those studying the cold war in History.

Call My Agent is a good French one - I think it's on Amazon or Netflix.

Great thread! My youngest dc was a hardcore STEM student - Maths, FM, Physics, but added in French A level because she enjoyed it. The Maths dept kept pressuring her to give up French (they were very sceptical of people doing 4 A-levels) but she stuck at it. Two of the four students in her class were heritage speakers, albeit with quite complicated backgrounds, but dc was the only one to get A* - because she turned up regularly, did the homework and lots of supplementary listening/reading, and generally just worked really hard.

She then started a maths degree taught in English at a university in a non-francophone EU country (dual citizenship, but not bilingual in the other lang). By the end of the first semester she realised she enjoyed the languages aspect much more than the maths, and switched to an MFL degree with a year in the target country and has now ended up with B1/C2 (ie. good compentence/near fluency) in three languages as well as English.

I don't think she'll ever come back to the UK, but that's another story. And if she does, she will be a very rare beast in terms of having had to establish herself in other countries and being able to communicate well in such a range of languages.

I am really shocked by the decline in MFL in UK schools and universities, particularly German, which used to be the standard second MFL option. Now even quite high-powered schools are dropping German, and most schools only offer one MFL. When I did A-levels in the mid-80s there would have been at least two or three French A-level groups - in my dd's large sixth form college there were only a total of four students. Spanish had a couple more, but it's really become a very niche choice. And as others have said, even a high grade at A-level doesn't translate to actual communicative competence. Among my dd's university friends, who mainly have links to central/Eastern Europe speaking three or four languages is the norm rather than the exception - it's the UK who is the outlier. But there doesn't seem to be any will to address the problem.

Sadly we’ve missed the boat with Call My Agent- I think it’s only recently that it’s been taken off. Hopefully it will come back at some point.

Loved the Deutschland 83/6/9 series. I would think they would be pretty good for engaging teenage viewers, too.

Thanks for a great thread. The decline of ML in the UK is just so depressing, and it's a vicious circle. If language learning isn't normalised then fewer and fewer students will choose to take it, which means schools will offer fewer languages, which also means fewer ML teachers in future. DS has been incredibly lucky to be able to take four languages at GCSE (two modern, two classical - independent school), and is now taking two at IB, and will be going on to study ML at university. No native heritage, just great teaching and a whole school culture of language learning. Incidentally (side-whinge), one of the many sad things about the government's decision to scrap IB top-funding for state schools is the impact on ML - small numbers of students involved, to be sure, but it will still cut at a stroke the number of state schools where all or most students are taking a language to 18. The government has signalled very clearly that it places no value on the study of languages or humanities.

Interesting thread.

DS took French A level, in fact did exactly the same as @PollyPhonic ’s DD (Maths, Further Maths, Physics) as he wanted to do engineering and is now at Uni doing just that. But French caught his imagination and he stuck with it - he was originally going to do CompSci as a 4 th A level but went on a school trip to Berlin v early in 6th form and came back determined to drop it in favour of the language instead. He said he missed feeling European, and that being surrounded by German made him realise how much French he understood! He had taken it
a bit for granted and he now wanted to build on his GCSE and work at it. He got an A* and whilst it was his Maths and Physics that counted for his Uni offer, he loved his French classes as they allowed him variety and a different brain challenge.

However he has been very lucky. He went to a fee paying school who offered French, German, Spanish and Latin, and pupils were introduced to languages from junior school. His GCSE and A level French teachers were outstanding and the classes were small. We are not native speakers but I took French, am reasonably fluent as I continued it with adult classes and took my B2, and we go on holiday there once a year. We also supported him to do the trip away element of his Gold DoE at a language school in France, so he had a week of intense immersion. I am well aware that the majority of pupils aren’t able to access such advantages. However, he worked really really hard and was proud of his A*, I can’t fault his work ethic.

In contrast, I volunteered for some time at a local state primary, to help with Year 6 reading and run the school library. Along the way it came up somewhere that I speak French and the supply teacher would occasionally ask for my help when teaching French to Year 6, as she didn’t know the language. They were doing a very basic introduction but I still found it quite scary that schools can’t rely on having knowledgeable language teachers. It makes such a difference.

I don’t buy this one bit. I’ve got relatives who live in France and go to international schools - their kids got 9s in GCSE French, and to quote one of them ‘it was laughably easy’ where as my DC sit and revise bloody hard to scrap a 5

@runningpram High. DD noticed this. Plenty of dc with their lives split between Uk and the country of their MFL language. They are totally immersed and this is a huge help with the degree. London was the 6th largest French settlement outside France a few years ago. Of course dc have an advantage from this background.

Polish? Who gets taught Polish? These dc just get entered with next to no prep. Same for Urdu and similar languages. These candidates don’t have teachers in school.

Polish lessons outside of school is actually a big thing among my son's friends (Yr 8 at a middling Catholic comp). Lots of them speak Polish at home but their parents are keen for them to be able to read and write it too. I imagine this would tie into some GCSE prep further down the line if they want to take the exam.

We had the same experience @PollyPhonic and @MotherOfCatBoy DS is very much into STEM, did Maths/FM/Phys/Chem, but sat one MFL early as studied with a tutor so he had it under his belt for uni admissions, just in case. He dropped Chem after AS and did another MFL instead, he took it as GCSE before so not from scratch but no tutoring either. Both MFLs are non-native, he just approached studying them as linguistic structures, similar to maths, and he's an avid reader.

He did pure Maths at uni but interestingly Bristol was impressed by his MFL A Level A*, probably because it's unusual for pure maths applicants and it was definitely an advantage.

@UbertomusicDid he get interviewed by Bristol then? How do you know they were impressed?

Polish children go to Saturday schools.

I know of Polish children who take multiple languages, being bilingual in English and Polish only. They ace non-native MFLs too.

@MotherOfCatBoy Lol at a fellow M/FM/Phy/Fr A-level student - it is quite a niche combination! Although possibly slightly less so at an academic independent school, perhaps? DD was at a large FE college covering a huge mainly rural area where the arts/science divide was very real. She used to say that most 'normal' people backed away from her when she said she was doing Maths/FM/Physics, but the STEM crowd all backed away from her when she said she was doing French. 😂

When she was researching UK university choices she did look quite seriously at some of the STEM + year abroad options, of which there are quite a few. But I suspect most of the ones featuring exchanges to non-anglophone countries are taken up by heritage speakers rather than British learners. Like your ds, she has really thrived on the buzz of being in a cross-cultural environment where it's normal for people to just casually switch between different languages - it's one of the reasons I think she won't come back to the UK, because she says she just finds the mindset a bit limiting.

Similarly-minded Brits may wish to know that there are in fact quite a few options for studying in other EU countries on degrees taught in English, with the option of learning the local language as a side-line. Most undergraduate courses in Germany have no fees other than a semester contribution of c. €300; degrees in Poland/Austria/Czechia etc do charge fees to non-EU students, but still substantially lower than UK universities, and cost of living is much lower. Most of those countries will give graduating students a visa that allows them a fixed period to find work, which would then give them a path to permanent residence.