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.

Could you be a little bit more detailed in terms of these job opportunities, please?
So far working for the government has been the only option presented to my DC and they’re not keen

Logistics companies, shipping companies, fast moving consumer products, cosmetics, pharmaceutical companies. Check out industry specific websites for up to date information and give companies names that are not in major press such as FT.

@kittywittyandpretty My dd has a MFL degree. No they aren’t sought after! However a good graduate will get a job if they target what they really want. DD doesn’t use her MFLs. That opens up any job that wants a grad. An academic graduate needs a decent cv and needs to tailor it towards a career but DD was never intending to use her MFLs. Teaching - last resort. MFL grads are resourceful and as good as anyone else but need to target a type of job and get a cv that’s good and ace any pre tests.

That’s definitely been our experience. She’s ended up retraining as a maths teacher which is very fortunate that both sides of her brain work and she’s good at the arts as well as maths.
Where she’ll go from there, I don’t know
She quite fancies the Law so maybe by the age of 30 she might be gainfully employed with all of these pieces of paper to her name

@kittywittyandpretty DD is a barrister. MFL grads can do anything!

Fingers crossed a Chinese speaking barrister will be the end game for us as well
She quite fancied human rights in China, but I’m not holding my breath for that job

@kittywittyandpretty Too niche! Everyone wants to be Amal Clooney. We don’t have uk trained lawyers doing much in China! For obvious reasons. I’d look at what’s realistically available here. You have to use MFLs as the vehicle to get the gate open to a law career - it’s rarely the career.

Dd has a first in French and Spanish and loved every bit of it. She then qualified as a teacher but has returned to studying - MRes in Spanish literature (with an academic scholarship for her fees) and hopes to go further. Also learning Portuguese.
It def helped get her part time job in a tourist attraction where she gets to chat with French and Spanish guests every day!

One thing that helped her was taking every free slot she could get at school with the native speaking language assistants.

It’s crazy how low the numbers taking A level languages have dropped in her previous school. I don’t think they even have language assistants now.

My DD and her best friend both got 9s in Spanish GCSE, normal state school education. Both now doing A level at 6th form college. DD did find being in the new class with native speakers a bit scary to start with but seems to have got used to it. I’m hoping the college will give extra speaking support to the non native students.

That's great that they are taking A level. Please reassure them that the native speakers are a benefit – I think they should tap into that (as long as the students are happy to help ofc).

Hopefully the college will give whatever support the students need, but again, there is no need at all to be of the speaking standard of a native speaker (and speaking is the skill where the advantage is often greatest, as opposed to writing for example) to access the top grades, even in the speaking assessment. This is explicit in the AQA spec. Many A level classes IME have no native speakers in them. If they learn the topic work well and produce a good IRP and IRP form they will do well I am sure.

Maybe better to be a CHinese speaking solicitor as the big firms do have offices there.

They are doing Eduqas board.

Ah OK that's one spec I don't know well tbh, but having had a swift look at the spec, while I cannot see a reference to native speaker ability, it looks very similar to AQA and Edexcel; the top mark for the AO on manipulating the language asks for "A good range of structures with some idiomatic language" for example, which is not asking for native speaker level at all.

The exam is not aimed at native speakers so that standard of language cannot be expected.

Absolutely loving The Line on ITVX! It's superb. I just finished the second season and each episode was better than the next. The acting, the screenplay, the depth of the characters and stories. The many degrees of horror of that time are conveyed so well. I constantly feel tense watching it.

I love Gustave and I normally don't like child actors, but you can't help but root for him and he's so heartbreaking to watch. Hortense's life choices are indeed highly questionable, as are those of some of the other female characters, but the acting is superb all around.

Thanks so much for recommending the show!

In terms of work, a friend's daughter who did a Chinese degree works in investment banking. They have lots of Chinese clients so sure uses the language. Another friend went into TV with European languages, there's quite a few jobs filming abroad where it's helpful to have production assistants etc on set who speak different languages. I also have an uncle who translates books, but obviously you need to be very fluent for that. Book translation particularly isn't something that can be easily done by AI as it's so nuanced.

@Stowickthevast Translating books is the loneliest job in the world. I vaguely know someone who does it but there are no friends “at work”. It’s all working from home. I’d not recommend it for a young person.

Law firms don’t recruit because of a language. There are many very bright Chinese students here who want to stay and work here. Firms have a pretty big choice. Nothing wrong in trying though but if anyone really wants to be a barrister, they wont find a city law firm is for them.

Law firms don’t recruit because of a language. There are many very bright Chinese students here who want to stay and work here. Firms have a pretty big choice. Nothing wrong in trying though but if anyone really wants to be a barrister, they wont find a city law firm is for them.

I cannot overstate how important for my career as a Solicitor it was to speak three languages fluently. I think you underestimate the importance of languages for many employers, especially large international firms with clients from all over the world.

Barristers are largely self-employed, but clients most certainly will prefer to instruct a barrister who speaks their native tongue.

@XelaM But dc are not doing MFL degrees now! They don’t have a chance of doing this! You may be from abroad so took MFLs seriously, most people here don’t. As you can see! We weren’t talking about three MFLs fluently either. Plus can you tell me at what stage MFLs are judged by employers who use AI to sift dc? Most won’t even ask.

Thank you for your post @clary. Currently trying to persuade my year 11 to take Mandarin for a-level but she’s resisting. Couple of tentative degrees she’s looked at with Mandarin and politics/ international relations are okay with GCSE level Mandarin therefore she’s keen to explore other A-levels

She's now studying MFL and Linguistics at university, and interestingly there are no native speakers on her course, so it feels like more of a level playing field than A level did!

So is my DD and the course was specifically not open to native speakers which probably explains it!

Whilst I agree Clary that students wanting to do A level MFL shouldn't be put off, I do still think that native speakers have an advantage over the non native speakers, especially at A level. My DD absolutely fell apart in the speaking part of the A level, she got an E😬and it was only the other two exams that got her up to a C. And the exam board rules meant that the teacher or language assistants couldn't help the students practice their speaking exam. Presumably nothing wrong with a fluent parent testing them though.

The general advice seems to be surround yourself with the language, watch foreign TV shows, listen to foreign music. Students in a bilingual household can practise the language all the time if they choose.

Tbf @Sweetpeasaremadeforbees I have never said that native speakers don’t have an advantage – in fact I have made it clear that I think they do. Well of course they do. Other students of other subjects may also have an advantage for a range of reasons (their parents take them to watch Shakespeare; their mother is a physics teacher etc). But I don’t dispute that point. My point is rather that native speakers or not, a non-native can and will get a high grade if they have the ability and do the work and are successful in the exams. There is clearly no set % or number of students for top grades – the figure varies from year to year and from subject to subject. Gain a mark of 90% and you will get an A star.

I’m sorry your DD had a mare in the speaking assessment. I have seen it myself more times than I like. A big well done her for having the grit and determination to do better in the subsequent written exams and pulling the grade up to a hard-won C. That experience and resilience in itself has a good deal of value for sure. But she didn’t (as I am sure you would agree) fall apart because she is not a native speaker. (I have seen native speakers go badly wrong in speaking assessments as well as I have said.)

I'm surprised btw that school staff did not help with the speaking. Yes the teacher is not supposed to go through the IRP exam with the student (though most IME will suggest or discuss possible questions) but for sure they can practise topic questions – there is no way they will know in advance what questions will come up that year but there is no harm in working on past years’ topic cards. And of course you could practise the IRP questions with them – tho I do see that your ability to feed back would be limited, and clearly not as useful as a fluent parent. Or a parent who was an MFL teacher ...

I would say be wary if anyone who claims fluency in any language will yield mega bucks or loads of job offers. Even if that was the case you would have to be REALLY fluent.

What I can say is that you shouldn’t underestimate the less obvious advantages of an mfl degree with employability. You can get into a great university and do a hugely interesting, well-regarded course with decent but not insanely high grades. You can be chucked into the deep-end into a challenging country as a young person on your year abroad and left to sink or swim. This teaches you resilience, confidence and people skills which can take you far.

While you’re probably not going to he deluged with investment banking offers like an econ or maths grad - I’ve never felt that I’ve had to prove my intelligence to an employer. Businesses recognise it’s a challenging and intellectually taxing degree.

As I mentioned v few of the people
I studied with use their language every day in their jobs - but they all have great careers and I think it is more to do with the factors above than the language skill itself.

University of Nottingham are to suspend MFL degrees for new students.

DD is on her YA in France and she and none of her friends got any Turing funding.

Yes I saw that re nottingham. Very bad news.

And of course you could practise the IRP questions with them – tho I do see that your ability to feed back would be limited, and clearly not as useful as a fluent parent.

Oh she'd have got a U if I'd tried to help her! I did actually help her with GCSE speaking test - I studied Spanish for 2 years over 40 years ago so could vaguely pronounce well enough to read her the questions on the revision cards and tell her if she'd answered the questions correctly but I haven't got a clue what any of it meant.

A couple of parents that I know got tutors for their MFL A level children, I can now understand why although I don't think DD would have wanted that anyway, her college days were so long already.

Having said all that DD feels that the E was fair based on her performance and doesn't care anyway because the C didn't stop her getting into Lancaster. But if you need all As or A stars for the Uni course that you want I can completely see how taking a MFL A level feels like a risk.

That's a shame about Nottingham. I wonder whether all these MFL department closures will mean that it becomes harder to get on the courses and grade requirements will rise for those who apply?