It's Scheiße, merde and mierda from me! 💩 💩 💩

My DGDs' school used to offer French and German at both GCSE and A level; sadly they only offer Spanish at GCSE now, and no language at A level.

My DGD2 who is half Swedish got a grade 8 for Spanish!

My oldest went to university in 1993 and a foreign language at O Grade (Scotland) was still a mandatory requirement then. He wasn’t very good at French and we paid for extra tutoring just to get him through it.

I hear from numerous friends in academia and those with children of university age that MFLs are gradually being sidelined. Universities are cutting back on the courses they offer in languages or even closing courses altogether. Part of the rationale is that the world is using more and more English and that computers and AI mean that anyone can now easily access translations so actual human speaking the languages aren’t required.

I am not skilled in MFL (ancient O Level French) and have no idea of the truth of that, but it seems very sad to sideline languages and their associated cultures.

MartavTaurus

I've only had time for a little read on these extra score points in various countries, so I don't know the full picture.

Regardless of all that, I would have thought that a pupil who has studied a modern foreign language at least to GCSE shows an additional dimension to their skill set? Plus of course a grasp of a different culture.

It does. But one way or another - the US does it differently again - countries are looking for those at the top of their generation to send on to university.

When I marked for various exam boards we were never told what the mark boundaries were for obvious reasons. Admittedly this was many years ago.

Isn't marking all done on percentages? The top so many percent get a grade 9, the next say 10% get grade 8 and so on?

I too love to hear the Welsh language. My DH was Welsh. When I was introduced to his ancient grandmother. She said to me “Do you go to chapel, girl? I said “No I’m afraid I don’t”. She never spoke another word of English in my presence - it was always Welsh. I thought, “perhaps I should learn a few words of Welsh”, so I bought a Teach Yourself book. HA!!🤣. The irony is that the only other person who spoke Welsh in DH’s family at that time was his mother - her daughter, and none of them went to chapel! DH laughingly said she had me marked out as a Godless English heathen from the get-go. I don’t know what was considered worse - the Godless or the English but I was willing to hazard a guess! I still love to hear the language though and I can get my tongue around most place names now.
Pardon the digression!

I've only had time for a little read on these extra score points in various countries, so I don't know the full picture.

Regardless of all that, I would have thought that a pupil who has studied a modern foreign language at least to GCSE shows an additional dimension to their skill set? Plus of course a grasp of a different culture.

MartavTaurus

nanna8

Here you get extra credit for getting a foreign language qualification at VCE ( our version of A level ). It helps get you into uni, extra marks. One of my daughters got an almost perfect score because she had German as one of her subjects.

👍
That's interesting.

It's not extra credit though. An ATAR score of 90 (ATAR is what the universities use) does not mean you got 90%. It roughly means "Your overall academic performance placed you in the top 10% of the relevant population.”

States differ in how they collect this score too. NSW use classwork, the school exam (which precedes the state exam) and 50% comes from the state exam.

I agree it is about bi-lingual pupils at GCSE. Having said that my half Spanish granddaughter is about to start a degree course in English at a Spanish University. Interestingly her choice of compulsory second and third languages was either French and Latin or Arabic and Ancient Greek.

And what a bad knock on effect. It harmed the UK economy, particularly regarding trade with critical European partners like Germany who forged ahead leaving us behind as poor communicators in that language, along with others.

Yes, IIRC it was the Minister called Estelle Morris.

IIRC, it was Tony Blair who made it no longer obligatory to offer a modern language at GCSE. What possessed him I cannot imagine.

We sort of do Greyduster, and it's a great idea. I'm not familiar with the state system, but I'm sure that under the National Curriculum in England, learning a foreign language is compulsory for pupils in Key Stage 2.

However, therein lies several problems. From observing my DGC, language lessons aren't regularly tacked onto the working week, but just delivered when the class teacher has a bit of spare time. And there's another problem. The class teacher is by no means a specialist in languages, and therefore shouldn't be expected to teach a foreign language. So, basically she teaches the children several mistakes which will have to be unlearned later. The children do appear to enjoy singing some French songs occasionally.

It’s a bit of a hobby horse with me, but why do we not start teaching foreign languages at a basic level earlier in this country? Young children are generally more receptive to it than when they reach secondary level and start to get hang ups (especially boys) about the conversational element and can’t wait to drop the subject as soon as possible!

Many years ago we went on our first holiday to France and the one word my very young children (son was just 4) picked up was merde. They repeated it all holiday!! As well as some obscure and strange phrase which they kept repeating.
It didn't help much when they took GCSEs although they both passed.

So that's,

Australia
Sweden
New Zealand
Hungary
Ireland

Quite a wide mix.

nanna8

Here you get extra credit for getting a foreign language qualification at VCE ( our version of A level ). It helps get you into uni, extra marks. One of my daughters got an almost perfect score because she had German as one of her subjects.

Same in Sweden where you get additional points for languages and higher levels of maths and science.

DD2 was technically above maximum grade average because of her language points.

nanna8

I love Welsh, too . I wish I was younger and had a better memory because I would learn it. My great grandma was Welsh.🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 I suppose I wouldn’t ever be able to use it here, though, no one knows it.

I'm learning Welsh with Duòlìngo. I like to think it's keeping my brain active! (Aged 78 3/4)

westendgirl

When I was in the sixth form you had to have a pass at O level in a foreign language to get into uni.

For some reason I had to have O level Latin - I was studying economics.

I agree MawsRosie, that the growth in language entries is looking more and more fragile. There's nothing to celebrate in these subjects with declining numbers year on year.
Learning any language is interesting and exciting, it shows self discipline and perseverance even though a pupil might never use it in their daily lives.
I know I'm biased, but I find it a great shame.
Some schools have now dropped all languages at GCSE.

If only.
Unfortunately when entrance to Sixth Forms (schools or Sixth Form colleges) is dependent on good GCSE grades, and schools and teachers are ranked according to their exam results , not only is the perceived ‘difficulty’ of languages a disincentive to study them but also for schools to offer them.
I have seen schools drop from three languages to two or even one because they wanted to hedge their bets- believe me, sadly I know whereof I speak.

MartavTaurus

76% gets you a grade 9 in English GCSE

78.5% gets you a grade 9 in Physics

But the grade boundary for French GCSE is 89.5%

88% for German

87.5% for Spanish

Where is the bloody incentive for the high ability students to choose modern foreign languages at GCSE?

(Excuse my French in the last paragraph!)

Exam grades are not the be-all and end-all of school.

The "incentive" for education, is to study something interesting/stimulating and acquire new knowledge and life-enhancing skills, enjoyed and valued for their own sake.

How about, learning a new language in order to communicate with strangers in another land? Or even stay home and read books /watch films in another language?

( Hopelessly oldfashioned, I know).

To my utter horror, neither of my grandchildren took a foreign language at GCSE. That doesn’t seem like an education to me. My granddaughter in particular is very good at French, so I don’t know why she hasn’t taken it.

Yes, I remember that. Everyone did French and Latin .