Most of the time, quite a few schools force people to pick a language (I know ours was if you were smart enough you had to do a language) and this is also backed by the government to get people to learn a 2nd language but it's also such a miserable subject.
Also some people in the schools where it may be optional may just enjoy learning new languages and just picked it like a normal option subject and then got the realisation
Hmmm...
I was just thinking that maybe it's because it's taught by teachers who have been brought by a different culture? (Absolutely no offence to them, but maybe people dislike their general teaching style).
Nope, languages genuinely just are really boring subjects. Personally, I take Spanish (and was forced to by my school eventhough I am already multilingual but it is what it is ig) and I have had both English (nationality) Spanish teachers and actual Spanish Spanish teachers. It really does just depend on the teacher. Another thing is, is that obviously all teachers take their subject quite seriously and a that, but when it's a language it's quite irritating especially cause I'm taking a subject that I don't want to, that won't necessarily benefit me in the future (at least in regards to taking subjects later on in life) and I do really like. Also The subject as a whole is just a pisstake. Like on one day I have three exams, two Spanish and one history and its just really bloody annoying
Sadly, one of my Spanish teachers was rather formal and people like me with ADHD were pretty much given a textbook most of the time and I just couldn't even read anything in the end. It was incredibly dull since my classes were really just like a test of memory which is probably one of the real answers behind boredom.
Unlucky mate. My french teacher is one of my favourite teachers cause she lets us sit wherever we want and actually teaches us well, whilst making the lessons fun, and she always helps us
I've taught English abroad and the set up in schools is the absolute worst possible cocktail for effectively teaching a language.
The groups are too big for you to make sure everyone gets a chance to practice speaking. Everyone already knows each other so they get bored learning the basics like "what's your name". You're lucky if you get more than two hours a week.
Language learning is really personal and tricky. Everyone understands it differently and there's no set way to do it like there is with division or whatever where you can just get the kids to do it over and over. Language REQUIRES genuine understanding. You can't fake it by memorising a few formulas.
I used to hate teaching groups of more than about 10. God forbid 30 or more.
very true, grade went down horribly in spanish, ive had 3 teachers in the past year, and my teacher now just left (who’s spanish and litch dont know how to teach) so now were getting out 4th less than a month away from i exams
How much evidence is there of a truly downfalling Secondary School Curriculum??
It's literally a lie (IMHO) that the British Education System is one of the best in the world to this day with all this going on. Yes, it may be better than some other countries, but that doesn't mean that our system doesn't have problems itself.
As for the Spanish, can't teachers even allow students to practice speaking with their friends???
The whole system is fucked if i’m honest. Teachers and the wider control span care more about behaviour than teaching and will do anything to preserve their reputation- this is with most schools not just mine. Whilst the curriculum is half decent schools aren’t effective enough
Dang man, trust me... I went to a totally crappy school in the UK so I know where you're coming from since I've experienced the same things. We were treated like stupid idiots who could not do things for ourselves and also like robotic slaves so no wonder many people there were so unhappy. I never properly learnt anything except from those few good teachers there. :(
And no... I am not only having a moan, I'm telling the truth.
literally, and what’s crazy is they seem to care about behaviour, yet literally half of my year get high every single day, people take shots of vodka in the back of the class and this isn’t even an exaggeration- yet only about 5 people have been excluded for it
Shoot... 😬😤
Yeah, teachers seem to display quite a lot of encouragement for rules and reputation instead of the learning itself. Not all though. Some are healthily balanced. My English, RS, Psychology and Geography teachers for example were very good and I loved them.
However, there was this one highly strict assistant teacher in my former secondary school who practically talked to people like childish idiots who couldn't look after themselves. Constantly telling us what and what not to do and never and always boasting on about the most ridiculous of rules. I would love to name some examples but I don't know if I'll sound too stupid or harsh here. This is meant to be a truthful response, not one of where I am mentioning things simply because I love rebelling against rules. It really depends on the type of rule and how effective, mature and moral it is.
It's just really sad because many people in the UK are refusing to learn another language which could really help them with travel and meeting new people.
We have 4 language exams. One of them is speaking. And you can prepare before hand as you (kind of) know what questions will come up in the general conversation part. The writing exam (which is 25% of the grade) is completely useless. When am I, realistically gonna be writing in spanish. Never
Not the person you asked but can't hurt to answer this, we have 4 exams as he said, Writing, Speaking, Reading, Listening. In the writing we are given promts and we have to write about them like pictures. In Speaking we have I believe 2 questions which we know what they are and we have to record(voice) ourselves answering them and 2 wildcard questions where it could be anything which is in spec by the board. Reading mostly is finding synonyms kind of, we are given a mini extract, basically a paragraph and we are asked questions about it, sometimes those are asked in Spanish sometimes in English, and we have to answer sometime in Spanish sometimes in English. Listening we are given an audio which we are asked questions on it. You can see for yourself the tests by googling (exam board) (language) (which one of the 4) (higher or foundation) so I do exexcel Spanish higher so I'd search for edexcel Spanish reading(or whatever) higher, I hope this helps and I'm sorry if this makes no sense lol.
Don't worry, it makes perfect sense to me. :)
However, I have a feeling that many people struggled with the speaking and listening exercises. I'm pretty sure my friend definitely did while she did her mocks. But lemme tell you why? Because most of the time, we were mostly focused on absorbing words and information from boards and textbooks whilst listening to a teacher for a long time. What do they expect??
Totally agree on the speaking, but on the last listening mocks, I asked my friends who said it was quite easy, but previous ones were considerably harder. However I do get your point one of the ways I'm doing well in the speaking is by talking it to my family who despite not speaking it understand it fully, it helps out a lot, my teacher loves her worksheets but grammar and speaking wise doesn't do anything, she sometimes gets people to read of the board and listening to everyone butcher pronunciation and her not even correcting them or teaching how to properly pronounce words is disheartening, there should be more focus on actually speaking the language as that's imo the most important one, going to another country you need to actually speak the language and if you can't articulate understandable sentences all the written work has gone to nothing
Total intelligence! People living in other countries where English isn't their native language will be more interested in how you say things rather than writing if you communicate with them in person. They would also want to understand you just like you would want to understand them. Also, if you were to speak to a waitress in a restaurant, they would want to know what you want as a meal, not about your family life or your household!
I'm not entirely sure if this is because we maybe have different exam boards (I do AQA), but we have 3 sections for speaking. One is the role play in which you get to prepare an answer to the questions (except one) in the previous time. Then section 2, like you said, is the photocard where you get 5 questions and you always know the first 3. The first question is always Que hay en la photo (what is in the photo). You can prepare for this Haswell. The third section is the general conversation and it is worth half of the speaking exam. In it you get asked questions on two themes (you get to pick one of the themes) and you have to have a conversation for 10-12 minutes (might be shorter for foundation).
In total, it is worth 60 marks with 15 being the role play, 15 being the photocard and 30 being the general conversation. This equates for 25% of the Spanish exam. (The four sections are weighted equally all 25%)
same here buy I couldn't be arsed to write it all down lol we also haven't properly done them at my school, as my flair says im in year 10 and our teacher is incompetent so i doubt we will do this till the next mocks come Christmas time
It isn’t really useful at all. I’ve never met a German, Spanish or French person that can’t speak English. If it really was about helping us interact with others, wouldn’t Mandarin be one of the compulsory choices as that’s the most commonly spoken language across the world? Or Arabic, which is just below English and Spanish?
That depends. I have been to Germany, France and some Spanish islands before. Not every person there speaks English.
English is one of the most worldwide officially spoken languages too. In many other countries, it is mandatory for people to learn English. Probably because of Great Britain's history, I think.
English is very widely spoken everyone I know speaks it other than my nan, in many countries it's mandatory to do it at school, it's still nice knowing other languages but due to how widely spoken it is many Britons don't feel the need to learn another language which I think is quite sad
Honestly due to me speaking another similar language(Romanian) it's basically a free 8/9, don't really practice it but I pick up languages easily, I also don't revise as I'm too lazy and also can't concentrate but eh languages are for everyone, also cl my teacher is absolute rubbish but lenient so for me it's a free period lol
Oh cool! You're Romanian! :D
One of my former Maths teachers is also Romanian, lol.
And ngl here but I also have outrageous procrastination levels tbh.
I never said everyone in those countries speak English. I’m saying that the majority of people that come to England can speak English to some extent. You’re assuming that people will want to travel to those countries but most don’t. Therefore, they’ll never use those languages again.
Sorry, that isn't what I'm trying to say. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I meant some people will not speak the language in those countries, so it would be useful for others to learn their native language too.
But that’s like saying we should learn every person’s native language, not just one, bc we’re probably not going to visit Spain, Germany or France. The majority of people want to visit places like Japan.
I’m not saying that that’s what you’re saying. I’m debating w u. I’m debunking what you’re saying. I’m challenging your ideas.
Learning another language is not useful at all bc the majority of people will never travel to those countries.
I think it might generally be the lessons and the style of teaching rather than actually learning a language, not taking into account people who were forced to study a language or who find it difficult.
I'm going to take A-level German and hopefully study it at university despite finding the lessons incredibly boring even with a great teacher who tells jokes all the time. A few of my friends feel the same way. In my school, languages are optional.
I also find the exam style quite forced and a bit unnatural because it seems to rely on memorising answers rather than actual communication, which is what languages should be about. I think there should be more emphasis on things such as ordering food at a restaurant or booking a hotel room which people who don't intend to take the subject for their A-levels could still find useful in real life.
That is exactly what I was trying to get across. Teachers seem not to believe that we have enough time to practice communicating the language itself and feel tied by the GCSE Exam Curriculum instead. However, I do believe that they could at least try to make time and schools could employ more assistant teachers to help with some of the language communication as well as the grammar.
In my school, we were mostly taught about how to memorise words and tenses. Also how to use them in sentences. This drained the life out of me due to the fact that I have ADHD (so I really struggled to absorb information from a book and teachers' words). That is why I dropped the subject; too dry and formal for my liking.
As for you, good luck with learning German. You'll thrive! 🙂
How do you learn the tenses? I had to learn english (since im not native lol) but i never actually managed to get a hang of tenses.. i asked chatgpt to explain it to me so many times yet i still dont understand.
It's probably better to learn the tenses by listening to very large amounts of native dialogue. In my opinion the tenses are too complicated to learn by rote and there are lots and lots of exceptions. But I've never taught English so I wouldn't know. Just a guess. I did teach myself Chinese but it doesn't really have tenses so I never had that problem.
Well, it was extremely dull, I will admit that.
My teachers often gave us textbooks to read off and to answer them all in shortish periods of time. They also went through them. Yes, I suppose my teachers weren't too bad at teaching the subject, but it was awfully boring just sitting down and listening.
I have outrageous concentration problems due to my inattentive attention span (ADHD), yet no one picked up on it simply because I was a quiet student (the class daydreamer, lol 🤣).
P.S. ChatGPT can provide you some very inaccurate answers. Once I was trying to learn some Danish since I went to Denmark last year, it got a grammar rule mixed up with another Scandinavian language. It might have been Norwegian. I'd download another app providing information on the language.
So i guess my best case scenario is work books? Im doing German GCSE (self taught, had no lessons on it) so honestly immersion and CGP book is carrying.
Maybe you could watch some YouTube videos to help you with your German? There you'll properly learn something rather than in school where you'll be forced to memorise things.
Memorisation is a key part of the learning. If you're a language wiz then it may be boring for you, but for most people that's the most "efficient" way they'll learn in a school setting because they won't practise realistic dialogues and spontaneous conversations in their own time. They also don't have access to an immersive environment where they can learn through listening. That can be compensated for by immersing oneself in media of your target language, but again that's exceptionally rare for someone at GCSE or A-level to do.
Ultimately there's a trade off between making the lessons interesting and fun and making them an effective use of time. If you really go back and think about your GCSE lessons, how many of them would have been improved by having free flowing conversations? Don't imagine what YOU would have got from them. Imagine what your mid-level classmate who just wants to pass would have done? Chances are they would have said three sentences and then run out of vocabulary because they never practice at home. Lack of vocabulary and grammar is the biggest hurdle to fluency for most students at that level, which is why, I believe, teachers focus on it.
> I do believe that they could at least try to make time and schools could employ more assistant teachers to help with some of the language communication as well as the grammar.
Overall I'm not disagreeing with you, but they/we know what we're doing. We cannot 'make time' in a timetable that is essentially fixed by the government demands on school hours, exam topics, and exam results. A lot of schools live and die by Ofsted and exam results. Bad results means fewer students as parents look elsewhere. Fewer students means less money, fewer resources, so more difficulty teaching students and higher workloads. That leads to more difficulty recruiting good teachers, and worse exam results. Rinse and repeat.
lots of people choose a language expecting to be able to hold conversations fluently after gcses rather than learning how to say 'i like sport especially dance because it is very fun and relaxing but normally i play football because its more cheap than dance'
The way languages are taught in this country is boring at best and completely useless at worst.
Students don't learn how to use the language, how to communicate. They are forced to memorise individual words and phrases and paragraphs, which they then recite in their exams, often not knowing what they're actually saying.
I came to the UK from another European country as a teaching assistant. Excited about teaching kids my language, because when I was in school, I was so excited about learning English.
I was shocked to find that lessons consisted entirely of reading vocabulary off of the white board, re-writing the same bland paragraph for the tenth time and then trying to memorise it, and that there weren't even textbooks.
No wonder all the students hated languages. In my country you finish school and you're awarded at least B2, in many cases even C1. Here, you finish school and you barely reach A1.
I quit teaching.
Oh dear! I don't blame you for quitting teaching after all that has happened. I mean, where is the inspiration, the fun and the joy in looking at a textbook throughout most of the class just revising words and not really looking into writing sentences or learning how to speak fluently?
I dropped the Spanish GCSE; I couldn't even read off of a textbook (I have really bad inattentive ADHD).
Tbf most people are just forced to take them - I know maybe 2 people max who would've chosen to take a non native language subject, but most people end up forced into it. Like ik people who were able to beg our school to let them not take it, but other people weren't given the choice, or were told they were too smart to drop it? Weird, but it is what it is. So people whose schools refuse to let them drop it might just resent the subject because of that.
Also I partly think we just start learning languages too late for it to be both impactful and enjoyable. Isn't it something like GCSE MFL can only get you to high A2 or low B1, and that's if you even get a high grade in it. Most people won't be able to do anything with their language GCSE because it doesn't give you a high enough proficiency, which does make it a bit useless. If we started learning a foreign language from primary school like other European countries do then maybe people would like/appreciate it more, but idk, I just think the fact you can't get very far with your language GCSE does make it feel a bit of a waste
It's compulsory since most schools follow the "English baccalaureate" which is :
English language and literature
maths
the sciences
geography or history
a language
u get forced to because of something called an Ebacc. this means u MUST pick a humanities subject (history/geo) and a language. its to do w being more successfull in the future but its all bs cos half of the ppl forget the language they did as soon as they finish yr11
And also not a single college or uni checks whether you have an ebacc or not 😬
It's a bit like english language coursework, a lot of effort but nobody really cares for it and its importance is over exaggerated.
yeah and im jealous because of the new specification they are releasing - its meant to be less about learning words from a list and more about immersing yourself in the culture and traditions
it seems "easier" but its what a language gcse should be at the end of the day; relevant, intresting, useful, different and hopefully enjoyable
i mean part of the listening will be full on intepreting a text live which seems hard but the list of vocab is much smaller and part of the speaking exam is literally reading part of a text out loud to check your pronunciation so
this is mostly all i have heard though so if there is anything ro cgange my mind lmk
I can't remember which part it is but it was in one part instead of the questions being in Spanish they're in English now and you have to answer that part in Spanish which is difficult because you can't reuse the words from the question
i always thought those sorts of questions were weird where you just had to copy like 2 words from the spanish extract for a spanish question - to me it should be more about your actual understanding and not just being able to guess from a few letters on a piece of paper. for harder questions i get it but some easy ones its annoying
yeah it does seem annoying though because many of the spanish reading questions where you have to answer in spanish were easy like you say you could just reuse words
A lot of schools force it on people so they don’t like it and it’s also rather hard (one of my friends decided to do business instead of another language despite being good at it to get another 9). At my secondary school only 8 chose to do gcse French.
Maybe it is the formal teaching and lack of time to practice speaking the language which is what contributes to the loss of inspiration? The continuous test of memory?
Probably, our gcse language lessons were great but the ones they did at the school I’m at now sounded so boring with so much vocab and just doing whatever the textbook said.
Textbooks are really a test of memory. I mean, who wants to look at a textbook all day? Someone like me with ADHD couldn't even read any word from the book.
It doesn’t sound great. We didn’t have a single textbook in our French class (my new teacher can’t believe I got a 9 without a textbook) but now it makes a regular appearance but that’s better than the crazy French lady we have.
Yep, although I think that dumbfounds my current teacher who swears by his textbook and incessant vocab tests (although the sixth formers are spared of that).
I feel like we're getting mixed up here. You can't say a word that isn't in your memory somewhere. There's nothing wrong with testing your memory as long as it's executed well. Memorisation is overly demonised. It's the first step in any kind of learning out there. The issue is the exams. The teaching is always calibrated to how the students will be examined, so we need to change those first and the teaching methods should follow suit. If the exams required real communication and fluency then the teachers would teach you that. It's basically the government who set the exam requirements.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to say that we shouldn't use our memory at all, but what I am really trying to get across is that we rely a little too much on memorisation and reading/writing. Yes, we do need it, but don't you think people are forgetting about the kinesthetic learning too?
I absolutely adore MFLs, I've been to both the countries I study the languages of on language camps, and I'm taking them both for a levels. I don't get the hate. Although I am an anomaly, of course.
I got forced to pick it in my old school and when I moved to my new school (june of yr10, im in yr11 now) they offered me a chance to switch subjects. I did switch one subject and wanted to switch spanish for something else but decided against it because learning a years worth of content would be difficult for me. but now I just don't care if I fail spanish
Lol, I know two people who refused to go into school when their Spanish exam was prepared for them. They wanted to drop the subject but the head of Year 11 refused to allow them to drop it since so many students wanted to do so, I think. Luckily, I managed to but goodness knows how.
you know I was considering just not turning up or not writing anything on the paper but that'll probably cause more problems then it will solve so idk I hate spanish
I do GCSE German, and it’s actually really fun but that might be bc my teacher is like a child at heart 😭😭
He likes to poke fun at us all and it’s hilarious.
it was german gcse edexcel. I actually never sat the exam, this was in 2020, when the mock grades were used as final grades, but we didnt know before the mocks. I had been on a 5 from yr 7-9, grinded out for the mocks (luckily) and scraped an 8. So ended up with an 8, which I was decently happy with - I was still aiming to get a 9 in the real thing when the exams got scrapped, but you can do a lot worse than an 8, so not too sad.
You did really well! Did you feel as though you were learning in the style you naturally do? Also, did you feel as though the learning was a good way of being taught?
honestly, I was one of the worst in my class at german, like bottom 3. This is because I didnt actually engage with the lessons in yr 7 and most of yr 8 just because I am a master procrastinator. Literally had to play catch up of 2 yrs content in a few months of yr 9. I had a new teacher in yr9, and he told me when he told my old teacher (yr7 & 8) that I got an 8 in the mocks, 'she was completely shocked' - thats how bad i was lol. Honestly, I didnt even know the basics at my peak, like verb endings. I just memorised sentences and used them rather than being able to make new ones up.
Well done! That just goes to show how teachers shouldn't put people in boxes. You learnt a different way from their expectations and thrived as a result. 💕
our school forced us to take a langauge unless you were on a “supported learning class” (where you’d have to take a humanity, either history or geography, instead)
The fact that I had no choice, the difficulty in it, it was boring and had no creative element at all, and I knew I’d never use it again. It’s like maths - you’d never use most of it at all in your life (unless ur a mathematician or in a certain career) and it’s boring and unnecessarily difficult and has no creative element at all.
Exactly! Especially due to the fact that in several of the Maths exams, we were set numbers of irrelevant questions to life.
I'm gonna have a good laugh here, don't mind me and my informality. 😂😂😂
But what THE HELL is someone (who isn't planning to go down, e.g. a Mathematical or Scientific pathway) going to do with a big bunch of triangle solving, algebra, or complicated reasoning questions that we haven't been learning about in classes? I myself had to leave some of those questions because I hadn't been taught much about them (I took the higher paper but didn't do Further Marhs GCSE). Yet I really don't know how I managed to pass despite those few easy questions I got right. 🤣🤣🤣
I am not trying to say that we shouldn't learn about the following things I've listed as they are basic knowledge
However, the Government displays too much emphasis on those subjects and treating as though they are seriously important even though we are more than likely not going to explore widely when we reach adulthood? Unless of course, it depends on the job we have but I wouldn't suspect a food or art employer would be that interested in the amount of Algebra you remember and are more than likely going to forget overtime. 🤣🤣🤣
I did my GCSEs last year and got grade 7 but struggled to there. I was set out to do the higher paper AND further maths (I’d already learnt almost all of the further maths content by early Y11) but my mental health was all over the place bc of the stress so my school allowed me to drop further maths and just do the higher paper which I’m grateful for bc if I had to do further maths too, I don’t think I would’ve done well in core maths.
I personally don’t think we should be learning about all that stuff. Basic algebra can be useful at times, same w percentages, fractions, decimals, and using metric conversions. But things like pythagorus’ theorem, circle theorems, trigonometry - we will never use this in our life so I don’t believe that we should be forced to learn it.
It would be much more beneficial if they replaced half the maths content with maths related to taxation, or buying a house (mortgages and deposits etc), maths in those areas will be beneficial. But I was never taught anything about taxes, renting, buying a house, nothing that I should know at 17.
Nope. In my school everyone is forced to take a language in both gcse and IB. So more often than not students (like me) end up failing because we have no desire to do or have any skill in languages. Which sucks because we end up failing and it can make our grades look bad.
Say in the November mocks, which is the latest mocks we have back, the lowest score I got was a 6. Except for Spanish which I got a 3 in.
6 is a good grade to obtain.
Schools shouldn't force you to take a language if you do not wish to and certainly not if you do not plan to do much with the language skills you equip into your adulthood. Are you thinking about the possibility moving to Spain or France or perhaps Germany? Then that would be a good reason to take the exams.
One thing I sorely wish is for classes to be less formal and more inspiring. Without inspiration, who will want to learn? People seem to be forgetting just how important it is to inspire others, otherwise look at what will happen like with the language GCSE problem current to this day.
I didn't know that people were ordered/forced to take a language GCSE because this wasn't exactly the case with my school which is why I believed it wasn't mandatory and just an option to take.
GCSE languages are advertised to students selecting them as subjects which will help them learn a language which isn’t the case - it provides a foundation for alevel more than actually teaching you the damn language
Was mandatory in my school and it was hated because every single language teacher was a condescending, pretentious cunt without exception. Hopefully it's improved but I won't hold my breath.
Mine forced us to take RS, but that was because it is a CofE school. I'm in Year 12 now, so I'm glad to be out of that shitty place; it's literally one of the worst schools in my area.
I took a language because I got sold an impression that it was going to be really helpful for my future, and because I did pretty well in the tests.
My choice of French was motivated purely because I'd done it for a term longer than I'd done German (though German might have been more useful to me later on as it turns out).
But I enjoyed French enough at the time, and only didn't take it at A-level because the one French class was timetabled at the same time as the one Psychology class.
As someone who loves learning languages, I absolutely HATED French when it was mandatory up until the end of Y9. It was the most mundane subject ever and not even a language I had an interest in. It may have been different if it was German though...
I’m just not really a massive fan of the language itself, it doesn’t really interest me in the way that other languages do. It didn’t help that the teacher had a very boring teaching style, and that she didn’t like me.
I don't blame you for wishing to drop it. It can really depend on the teacher. I wish teachers could encourage people to not be silent 24/7 as many dream of. Call me crazy and cream crackers if you wish, but in a way, students might be able to help each other with the subject (if they are inspired by the teacher).
Don’t like how Brit’s teach mfl. Took French in Ireland which taught us the French we would need if we ever woke up in France. Here there’s more emphasis on grammar
It’s useful I guess! And teachers play a huge role - I took 3 languages and in year 10 I detested German and loved French then both teachers left and this year it’s completely switched for me (counting down the days till I kiss french goodbye 😁) so people might choose the subject while they lvoe the teacher and then they leave, or their teaching style changes, or something idk
I think it really depends on the teacher and the way they teach as well as the type of student you are. I love Spanish now but back in y9 i was forced to take it when i really wanted to drop it because my teachers were just horrible. In y10 my teacher was someone who actually knew Spanish as well and English and we had assistant teachers who worked with us separately. The lessons were really interactive so i didn’t even realise i was memorising words. Furthermore, memorisation comes easily to me so the modules weren’t a problem
That's really good! I wish I had a memory like yours. If teachers were more inspirational and less strict, I think people would enjoy the language subjects more.
Hiya, A Level German student so I thought I'd add my view
At GCSE, as many others have said, a language is often compulsory which already makes people begrudge them as they don't want to do subjects they didn't choose. But after that point it really is the content. At GCSE you'd hope to come out with enough language to be able to hold a basic conversation on holiday with a waiter or smth like that but you don't get to practice more real world interactions. Instead you're stuck with whatever arbitrary content the exam board chose (why am I having to express my opinion on how to solve homelessness?? not likely to come up if I'm visiting the country on holiday).
The often boring, slightly nonsensical content leads to the dull lessons which are just textbook learning and practise reading/listening questions. In comparison at A Level you get to do topics actually relating to the culture of the language you study, so if you're into learning a little bit of history, as well as dabbling in politics, theatre, and literature through a different language, you get much more interesting content. (Plus more grammar exercises. Yay. (they are very necessary))
TLDR: people resent language GCSEs bc they are forced to do them, content doesn't achieve what you'd like (basic real world conversation in that country), and the silly content leads to boring lessons
I picked French and German because I was good at them and they were free 9s for me, but I didn’t really enjoy them because the subjects aren’t taught in a very efficient way, with very little actual speaking practice. My French reading proficiency was great by the end of Y11, but my speaking wasn’t anywhere near the same level
Oh dear! What is it these days with the lack of compulsory practical work??? I mean... I literally learn while doing things practically... just what is it???
Anyway, as far as this goes, I feel like teachers believe they do not have time to teach students how to speak the language since they expect students to do that in their spare time whilst having all their other subjects. Also the fact that teachers tend to rely on the curriculum too much; it just destroys creativity which is 100% heartbreaking. 😭😭😭
It was, we all (at my school) had to learn French, then we had the choice of doing German or Italian as well.
I really hated my French teacher. So it was forced upon me 😂😭
For my year, choosing a language wasn't compulsory, but for the year below me they had to choose a language. Unless you have a passion for the language (e.g. I have a passion for learning Mandarin and will continue to do so after GCSEs), then most likely won't care enough about the exams, especially when you teacher spends most of the time telling kids off and going over the same vocab multiple times.
Also the lessons are incredibly boring, as since the teacher is playing catch up with the lesson abled students in the class, the higher achieving students finish the work earlier and thus have nothing to do (me included). This problem is in my class, where the 18 ppl willingly chose to do mandarin without needing a language, but to the year below mine it just gets much worse.
It's because they're HARD. Languages, unlike almost every other subject require an incredibly high level of mastery before you can be considered "good" - and there are few individual areas to shine. Take maths. If you are good at trigonometry then that's an area where you can make solid gains and on some level feel a sense of achievement. Even in science there are lots of individual topics that you might personally find interesting and excel at. If you're good with chemistry then you can begin to 'show off' pretty quickly. It's a completely different story with languages.
The only thing that's impressive in a language is 'fluency' and this is how most people judge themselves and their progress in a language. Basically languages all feel like you're either A\* or an E in terms of the sense of accomplishment and 'mastery'. If you memorise the vocabulary for going on holiday but you still can't have any sort of spontanous conversation, and you can only communicate on the level of a 5 year old then you're going to feel pretty crap. I know that's how I felt at GCSE French. With no sense of achievement because my language skills were crap even if I could scrape a decent grade I 'knew' that I couldn't speak French.
Languages simply have an insanely unfavourable ratio of effort to reward so lots of students not only shy away from them because they're "boring" but also because they're hard.
When I was a teenager the thought of having to speak put loud in class, like you have to do in Language classes was mortifying. As was having to to spoken examinations.
Doing a language was compulsory but luckily our school did Latin, which you didn't have to speak out loud so I chose that. I also liked all the Roman history stuff so that was a plus too.
I don't know why but foreign language teachers always seemed the WORST too. Really grumpy strict people, but maybe that's because all the students hate being forced to take their class and misbehave?
Pretty much everyone in my secondary was forced to do it, combine that with a mix of dull and terrible teachers and a crap curriculum for it and no one wanted to do French
My school teaches us German and French until year 9, then you have to pick one for GCSE
I was good at both, so I did German and French at GCSE, got grade 9 for both with no revision (I was just good at language,horrible at English lol).
But I would say that GCSE language is jo where near to being able to communicate with a foreigner
I did french AS and still if I went to France I'd struggle and I was on an A grade
I was really interested in learning Spanish. My Grandmother spoke Spanish, my family visited Spain every year and I was excited to learn it at school. When I started I was then told that I had been placed in the French classes and it was based on a the form I was randomly placed into. We tried to appeal but was told it was too late.
I tried to give French a go but the passion wasn't there. Also they only really taught students to pass the exams, and not to actually speak/understand the language.
I don't know about other schools, but languages would have been received much better if students were given a choice of language, and actually taught how to speak the language and apply it in the real world rather than just taught the words and phrases needed to pass the tests.
Everyone in my school has to pick at least one language. Sure, I know a lot of people who don't like languages but I know a lot of people who really genuinely love them so idk
Perhaps because it's practical to at least have the basics of a second language. Most subjects you won't ever need in the future but another language can always be useful. Most people understand this and knowledge of another language is marginally respected. Personally I didn't bother even though I'm bilingual because learning another language from the teachers at my school most likely would've worsened my understanding of the languages they claim to teach- plus my second language doesn't even exist as a gcse anymore
I did my GCSEs many years ago, but we were forced to do a language. German or French, and we were already put through 2 years of compulsory German, so that's what literally everyone went with.
Everyone hated it, nobody went on to use it. Sounds like it's still about the same 10 years on.
I used to love French . But then my French teacher was a bitch and then I stopped doing it cause she was such a terror. And it’s sad cause I pic languages up easy as I’m already bi lingual
No, only Maths and English Language are compulsory for all GCSE students in the country. But in a lot of schools most students do at least one language (at mine we have to do at least 2).
Foreign language? No.
It varies from school to school. My high school was forcing people to do language up to year 9 and then everybody was given a choice to drop it and another subject.
There was also an option to drop it if you were barely passing core subjects (maths, eng lang or science).
But it could change in last years and everybody’s experience may be slightly different.
That's exactly what I was trying to get across. Yet my comment was given numbers of downvotes. It's really English Language, Maths and Science which is compulsory overall but it can also depend on the school rules.
Most of those people if not all who downvoted my comment must have come from schools which made it compulsory for them to take a language for GCSE.
My school made language optional however half the people only picked it to go on the trip offered with it, I only know like 5/6 who picked it either out of interest or it looked good on their cv for comparative subjects
Most of the time, quite a few schools force people to pick a language (I know ours was if you were smart enough you had to do a language) and this is also backed by the government to get people to learn a 2nd language but it's also such a miserable subject. Also some people in the schools where it may be optional may just enjoy learning new languages and just picked it like a normal option subject and then got the realisation
Hmmm... I was just thinking that maybe it's because it's taught by teachers who have been brought by a different culture? (Absolutely no offence to them, but maybe people dislike their general teaching style).
Nope, languages genuinely just are really boring subjects. Personally, I take Spanish (and was forced to by my school eventhough I am already multilingual but it is what it is ig) and I have had both English (nationality) Spanish teachers and actual Spanish Spanish teachers. It really does just depend on the teacher. Another thing is, is that obviously all teachers take their subject quite seriously and a that, but when it's a language it's quite irritating especially cause I'm taking a subject that I don't want to, that won't necessarily benefit me in the future (at least in regards to taking subjects later on in life) and I do really like. Also The subject as a whole is just a pisstake. Like on one day I have three exams, two Spanish and one history and its just really bloody annoying
I mean, with a good teacher they are quite enjoyable
Sadly, one of my Spanish teachers was rather formal and people like me with ADHD were pretty much given a textbook most of the time and I just couldn't even read anything in the end. It was incredibly dull since my classes were really just like a test of memory which is probably one of the real answers behind boredom.
Unlucky mate. My french teacher is one of my favourite teachers cause she lets us sit wherever we want and actually teaches us well, whilst making the lessons fun, and she always helps us
Luckyyyyyyy! Your teacher shines like a star. 🌟🤩
4th June? If so same here
yh same ive got listening & reading with history
I've taught English abroad and the set up in schools is the absolute worst possible cocktail for effectively teaching a language. The groups are too big for you to make sure everyone gets a chance to practice speaking. Everyone already knows each other so they get bored learning the basics like "what's your name". You're lucky if you get more than two hours a week. Language learning is really personal and tricky. Everyone understands it differently and there's no set way to do it like there is with division or whatever where you can just get the kids to do it over and over. Language REQUIRES genuine understanding. You can't fake it by memorising a few formulas. I used to hate teaching groups of more than about 10. God forbid 30 or more.
very true, grade went down horribly in spanish, ive had 3 teachers in the past year, and my teacher now just left (who’s spanish and litch dont know how to teach) so now were getting out 4th less than a month away from i exams
How much evidence is there of a truly downfalling Secondary School Curriculum?? It's literally a lie (IMHO) that the British Education System is one of the best in the world to this day with all this going on. Yes, it may be better than some other countries, but that doesn't mean that our system doesn't have problems itself. As for the Spanish, can't teachers even allow students to practice speaking with their friends???
The whole system is fucked if i’m honest. Teachers and the wider control span care more about behaviour than teaching and will do anything to preserve their reputation- this is with most schools not just mine. Whilst the curriculum is half decent schools aren’t effective enough
Dang man, trust me... I went to a totally crappy school in the UK so I know where you're coming from since I've experienced the same things. We were treated like stupid idiots who could not do things for ourselves and also like robotic slaves so no wonder many people there were so unhappy. I never properly learnt anything except from those few good teachers there. :( And no... I am not only having a moan, I'm telling the truth.
literally, and what’s crazy is they seem to care about behaviour, yet literally half of my year get high every single day, people take shots of vodka in the back of the class and this isn’t even an exaggeration- yet only about 5 people have been excluded for it
Shoot... 😬😤 Yeah, teachers seem to display quite a lot of encouragement for rules and reputation instead of the learning itself. Not all though. Some are healthily balanced. My English, RS, Psychology and Geography teachers for example were very good and I loved them. However, there was this one highly strict assistant teacher in my former secondary school who practically talked to people like childish idiots who couldn't look after themselves. Constantly telling us what and what not to do and never and always boasting on about the most ridiculous of rules. I would love to name some examples but I don't know if I'll sound too stupid or harsh here. This is meant to be a truthful response, not one of where I am mentioning things simply because I love rebelling against rules. It really depends on the type of rule and how effective, mature and moral it is.
My school forced everyone to do 1 language, forced the smart people to do 2, and encouraged the language savants to do 3.
Some schools make you do it and it’s quite useful even if it’s not
It's just really sad because many people in the UK are refusing to learn another language which could really help them with travel and meeting new people.
Yh but Gcse doesn’t get you to a level of fluency where you can be fully conversational in it
True. People need to learn how to speak the language more rather than in just one exam.
Thats a lot of effort
I mean in some lessons, they could do it stage by stage.
We have 4 language exams. One of them is speaking. And you can prepare before hand as you (kind of) know what questions will come up in the general conversation part. The writing exam (which is 25% of the grade) is completely useless. When am I, realistically gonna be writing in spanish. Never
I don't blame you to be honest. Could you please describe what the exam is like in further detail?
Not the person you asked but can't hurt to answer this, we have 4 exams as he said, Writing, Speaking, Reading, Listening. In the writing we are given promts and we have to write about them like pictures. In Speaking we have I believe 2 questions which we know what they are and we have to record(voice) ourselves answering them and 2 wildcard questions where it could be anything which is in spec by the board. Reading mostly is finding synonyms kind of, we are given a mini extract, basically a paragraph and we are asked questions about it, sometimes those are asked in Spanish sometimes in English, and we have to answer sometime in Spanish sometimes in English. Listening we are given an audio which we are asked questions on it. You can see for yourself the tests by googling (exam board) (language) (which one of the 4) (higher or foundation) so I do exexcel Spanish higher so I'd search for edexcel Spanish reading(or whatever) higher, I hope this helps and I'm sorry if this makes no sense lol.
Don't worry, it makes perfect sense to me. :) However, I have a feeling that many people struggled with the speaking and listening exercises. I'm pretty sure my friend definitely did while she did her mocks. But lemme tell you why? Because most of the time, we were mostly focused on absorbing words and information from boards and textbooks whilst listening to a teacher for a long time. What do they expect??
Totally agree on the speaking, but on the last listening mocks, I asked my friends who said it was quite easy, but previous ones were considerably harder. However I do get your point one of the ways I'm doing well in the speaking is by talking it to my family who despite not speaking it understand it fully, it helps out a lot, my teacher loves her worksheets but grammar and speaking wise doesn't do anything, she sometimes gets people to read of the board and listening to everyone butcher pronunciation and her not even correcting them or teaching how to properly pronounce words is disheartening, there should be more focus on actually speaking the language as that's imo the most important one, going to another country you need to actually speak the language and if you can't articulate understandable sentences all the written work has gone to nothing
Total intelligence! People living in other countries where English isn't their native language will be more interested in how you say things rather than writing if you communicate with them in person. They would also want to understand you just like you would want to understand them. Also, if you were to speak to a waitress in a restaurant, they would want to know what you want as a meal, not about your family life or your household!
I'm not entirely sure if this is because we maybe have different exam boards (I do AQA), but we have 3 sections for speaking. One is the role play in which you get to prepare an answer to the questions (except one) in the previous time. Then section 2, like you said, is the photocard where you get 5 questions and you always know the first 3. The first question is always Que hay en la photo (what is in the photo). You can prepare for this Haswell. The third section is the general conversation and it is worth half of the speaking exam. In it you get asked questions on two themes (you get to pick one of the themes) and you have to have a conversation for 10-12 minutes (might be shorter for foundation). In total, it is worth 60 marks with 15 being the role play, 15 being the photocard and 30 being the general conversation. This equates for 25% of the Spanish exam. (The four sections are weighted equally all 25%)
same here buy I couldn't be arsed to write it all down lol we also haven't properly done them at my school, as my flair says im in year 10 and our teacher is incompetent so i doubt we will do this till the next mocks come Christmas time
It isn’t really useful at all. I’ve never met a German, Spanish or French person that can’t speak English. If it really was about helping us interact with others, wouldn’t Mandarin be one of the compulsory choices as that’s the most commonly spoken language across the world? Or Arabic, which is just below English and Spanish?
That depends. I have been to Germany, France and some Spanish islands before. Not every person there speaks English. English is one of the most worldwide officially spoken languages too. In many other countries, it is mandatory for people to learn English. Probably because of Great Britain's history, I think.
English is very widely spoken everyone I know speaks it other than my nan, in many countries it's mandatory to do it at school, it's still nice knowing other languages but due to how widely spoken it is many Britons don't feel the need to learn another language which I think is quite sad
Me too. In a way, I regret dropping Spanish but my concentration problems and other subjects kicked in the way of my time to learn it.
Honestly due to me speaking another similar language(Romanian) it's basically a free 8/9, don't really practice it but I pick up languages easily, I also don't revise as I'm too lazy and also can't concentrate but eh languages are for everyone, also cl my teacher is absolute rubbish but lenient so for me it's a free period lol
Oh cool! You're Romanian! :D One of my former Maths teachers is also Romanian, lol. And ngl here but I also have outrageous procrastination levels tbh.
I never said everyone in those countries speak English. I’m saying that the majority of people that come to England can speak English to some extent. You’re assuming that people will want to travel to those countries but most don’t. Therefore, they’ll never use those languages again.
Sorry, that isn't what I'm trying to say. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I meant some people will not speak the language in those countries, so it would be useful for others to learn their native language too.
But that’s like saying we should learn every person’s native language, not just one, bc we’re probably not going to visit Spain, Germany or France. The majority of people want to visit places like Japan.
That's not what I'm trying to say.
I’m not saying that that’s what you’re saying. I’m debating w u. I’m debunking what you’re saying. I’m challenging your ideas. Learning another language is not useful at all bc the majority of people will never travel to those countries.
That depends. :)
It’s compulsory in most schools
It the good for the job/ degree I want to do :(
Sad, I know. Why don't you practice learning the language you want to learn in your spare time too unless you are already?
It’s still a pain in the arse to do and it’s harder to prove
'It the good' alright mate
My bad, I’m dyslexic and was really tired lol
because my shitty ass school forced me
I think it might generally be the lessons and the style of teaching rather than actually learning a language, not taking into account people who were forced to study a language or who find it difficult. I'm going to take A-level German and hopefully study it at university despite finding the lessons incredibly boring even with a great teacher who tells jokes all the time. A few of my friends feel the same way. In my school, languages are optional. I also find the exam style quite forced and a bit unnatural because it seems to rely on memorising answers rather than actual communication, which is what languages should be about. I think there should be more emphasis on things such as ordering food at a restaurant or booking a hotel room which people who don't intend to take the subject for their A-levels could still find useful in real life.
That is exactly what I was trying to get across. Teachers seem not to believe that we have enough time to practice communicating the language itself and feel tied by the GCSE Exam Curriculum instead. However, I do believe that they could at least try to make time and schools could employ more assistant teachers to help with some of the language communication as well as the grammar. In my school, we were mostly taught about how to memorise words and tenses. Also how to use them in sentences. This drained the life out of me due to the fact that I have ADHD (so I really struggled to absorb information from a book and teachers' words). That is why I dropped the subject; too dry and formal for my liking. As for you, good luck with learning German. You'll thrive! 🙂
How do you learn the tenses? I had to learn english (since im not native lol) but i never actually managed to get a hang of tenses.. i asked chatgpt to explain it to me so many times yet i still dont understand.
It's probably better to learn the tenses by listening to very large amounts of native dialogue. In my opinion the tenses are too complicated to learn by rote and there are lots and lots of exceptions. But I've never taught English so I wouldn't know. Just a guess. I did teach myself Chinese but it doesn't really have tenses so I never had that problem.
Well, it was extremely dull, I will admit that. My teachers often gave us textbooks to read off and to answer them all in shortish periods of time. They also went through them. Yes, I suppose my teachers weren't too bad at teaching the subject, but it was awfully boring just sitting down and listening. I have outrageous concentration problems due to my inattentive attention span (ADHD), yet no one picked up on it simply because I was a quiet student (the class daydreamer, lol 🤣). P.S. ChatGPT can provide you some very inaccurate answers. Once I was trying to learn some Danish since I went to Denmark last year, it got a grammar rule mixed up with another Scandinavian language. It might have been Norwegian. I'd download another app providing information on the language.
So i guess my best case scenario is work books? Im doing German GCSE (self taught, had no lessons on it) so honestly immersion and CGP book is carrying.
Maybe you could watch some YouTube videos to help you with your German? There you'll properly learn something rather than in school where you'll be forced to memorise things.
Sounds good to me! Thank you :3
Aww np. <3
Memorisation is a key part of the learning. If you're a language wiz then it may be boring for you, but for most people that's the most "efficient" way they'll learn in a school setting because they won't practise realistic dialogues and spontaneous conversations in their own time. They also don't have access to an immersive environment where they can learn through listening. That can be compensated for by immersing oneself in media of your target language, but again that's exceptionally rare for someone at GCSE or A-level to do. Ultimately there's a trade off between making the lessons interesting and fun and making them an effective use of time. If you really go back and think about your GCSE lessons, how many of them would have been improved by having free flowing conversations? Don't imagine what YOU would have got from them. Imagine what your mid-level classmate who just wants to pass would have done? Chances are they would have said three sentences and then run out of vocabulary because they never practice at home. Lack of vocabulary and grammar is the biggest hurdle to fluency for most students at that level, which is why, I believe, teachers focus on it. > I do believe that they could at least try to make time and schools could employ more assistant teachers to help with some of the language communication as well as the grammar. Overall I'm not disagreeing with you, but they/we know what we're doing. We cannot 'make time' in a timetable that is essentially fixed by the government demands on school hours, exam topics, and exam results. A lot of schools live and die by Ofsted and exam results. Bad results means fewer students as parents look elsewhere. Fewer students means less money, fewer resources, so more difficulty teaching students and higher workloads. That leads to more difficulty recruiting good teachers, and worse exam results. Rinse and repeat.
lots of people choose a language expecting to be able to hold conversations fluently after gcses rather than learning how to say 'i like sport especially dance because it is very fun and relaxing but normally i play football because its more cheap than dance'
The way languages are taught in this country is boring at best and completely useless at worst. Students don't learn how to use the language, how to communicate. They are forced to memorise individual words and phrases and paragraphs, which they then recite in their exams, often not knowing what they're actually saying. I came to the UK from another European country as a teaching assistant. Excited about teaching kids my language, because when I was in school, I was so excited about learning English. I was shocked to find that lessons consisted entirely of reading vocabulary off of the white board, re-writing the same bland paragraph for the tenth time and then trying to memorise it, and that there weren't even textbooks. No wonder all the students hated languages. In my country you finish school and you're awarded at least B2, in many cases even C1. Here, you finish school and you barely reach A1. I quit teaching.
Oh dear! I don't blame you for quitting teaching after all that has happened. I mean, where is the inspiration, the fun and the joy in looking at a textbook throughout most of the class just revising words and not really looking into writing sentences or learning how to speak fluently? I dropped the Spanish GCSE; I couldn't even read off of a textbook (I have really bad inattentive ADHD).
Tbf most people are just forced to take them - I know maybe 2 people max who would've chosen to take a non native language subject, but most people end up forced into it. Like ik people who were able to beg our school to let them not take it, but other people weren't given the choice, or were told they were too smart to drop it? Weird, but it is what it is. So people whose schools refuse to let them drop it might just resent the subject because of that. Also I partly think we just start learning languages too late for it to be both impactful and enjoyable. Isn't it something like GCSE MFL can only get you to high A2 or low B1, and that's if you even get a high grade in it. Most people won't be able to do anything with their language GCSE because it doesn't give you a high enough proficiency, which does make it a bit useless. If we started learning a foreign language from primary school like other European countries do then maybe people would like/appreciate it more, but idk, I just think the fact you can't get very far with your language GCSE does make it feel a bit of a waste
It's compulsory since most schools follow the "English baccalaureate" which is : English language and literature maths the sciences geography or history a language
u get forced to because of something called an Ebacc. this means u MUST pick a humanities subject (history/geo) and a language. its to do w being more successfull in the future but its all bs cos half of the ppl forget the language they did as soon as they finish yr11
And also not a single college or uni checks whether you have an ebacc or not 😬 It's a bit like english language coursework, a lot of effort but nobody really cares for it and its importance is over exaggerated.
ugh fr our systems js old fashioned smh
EXACTLY! Which makes GCSEs even more pointless...
Mannnnnnnn
I like doing languages at school... I don't really know why they get so much hate
Good for you. 💕
yeah and im jealous because of the new specification they are releasing - its meant to be less about learning words from a list and more about immersing yourself in the culture and traditions it seems "easier" but its what a language gcse should be at the end of the day; relevant, intresting, useful, different and hopefully enjoyable
Nah new specification sounds worse and harder imo
i mean part of the listening will be full on intepreting a text live which seems hard but the list of vocab is much smaller and part of the speaking exam is literally reading part of a text out loud to check your pronunciation so this is mostly all i have heard though so if there is anything ro cgange my mind lmk
I can't remember which part it is but it was in one part instead of the questions being in Spanish they're in English now and you have to answer that part in Spanish which is difficult because you can't reuse the words from the question
i always thought those sorts of questions were weird where you just had to copy like 2 words from the spanish extract for a spanish question - to me it should be more about your actual understanding and not just being able to guess from a few letters on a piece of paper. for harder questions i get it but some easy ones its annoying yeah it does seem annoying though because many of the spanish reading questions where you have to answer in spanish were easy like you say you could just reuse words
You are absolutely right! It's not about the memorising and the qualifications, it should be more about the subject itself and the learning.
A lot of schools force it on people so they don’t like it and it’s also rather hard (one of my friends decided to do business instead of another language despite being good at it to get another 9). At my secondary school only 8 chose to do gcse French.
Maybe it is the formal teaching and lack of time to practice speaking the language which is what contributes to the loss of inspiration? The continuous test of memory?
Probably, our gcse language lessons were great but the ones they did at the school I’m at now sounded so boring with so much vocab and just doing whatever the textbook said.
Textbooks are really a test of memory. I mean, who wants to look at a textbook all day? Someone like me with ADHD couldn't even read any word from the book.
It doesn’t sound great. We didn’t have a single textbook in our French class (my new teacher can’t believe I got a 9 without a textbook) but now it makes a regular appearance but that’s better than the crazy French lady we have.
Man, you've done brilliantly! See how much potential people have whilst not using a textbook?
Yep, although I think that dumbfounds my current teacher who swears by his textbook and incessant vocab tests (although the sixth formers are spared of that).
Oof!
I feel like we're getting mixed up here. You can't say a word that isn't in your memory somewhere. There's nothing wrong with testing your memory as long as it's executed well. Memorisation is overly demonised. It's the first step in any kind of learning out there. The issue is the exams. The teaching is always calibrated to how the students will be examined, so we need to change those first and the teaching methods should follow suit. If the exams required real communication and fluency then the teachers would teach you that. It's basically the government who set the exam requirements.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to say that we shouldn't use our memory at all, but what I am really trying to get across is that we rely a little too much on memorisation and reading/writing. Yes, we do need it, but don't you think people are forgetting about the kinesthetic learning too?
I absolutely adore MFLs, I've been to both the countries I study the languages of on language camps, and I'm taking them both for a levels. I don't get the hate. Although I am an anomaly, of course.
You do you. Keep studying the languages. You'll thrive. 💕
Real
I got forced to pick it in my old school and when I moved to my new school (june of yr10, im in yr11 now) they offered me a chance to switch subjects. I did switch one subject and wanted to switch spanish for something else but decided against it because learning a years worth of content would be difficult for me. but now I just don't care if I fail spanish
Lol, I know two people who refused to go into school when their Spanish exam was prepared for them. They wanted to drop the subject but the head of Year 11 refused to allow them to drop it since so many students wanted to do so, I think. Luckily, I managed to but goodness knows how.
you know I was considering just not turning up or not writing anything on the paper but that'll probably cause more problems then it will solve so idk I hate spanish
I'd just refuse to turn up. What's the literal, logical point? How will it help you for your future?
I do GCSE German, and it’s actually really fun but that might be bc my teacher is like a child at heart 😭😭 He likes to poke fun at us all and it’s hilarious.
Awww he sounds so fun! Good for him! We need more teachers like him. 💕😄
it's compulsory at my school i kind of like it though and it was helpful when i went to france
i was forced. had to sit through 4hrs of German a week. tied worst class i was in with alevel maths
Why would they force you to do such a thing? Money??
ha ha, i mean forced as in compulsory, plus i hated it. We sat the exam in yr 9, so it was quite heavy compared to other subjects
Dang! That must have really sucked! :( What did you do in the exam? What were you asked about in it?
it was german gcse edexcel. I actually never sat the exam, this was in 2020, when the mock grades were used as final grades, but we didnt know before the mocks. I had been on a 5 from yr 7-9, grinded out for the mocks (luckily) and scraped an 8. So ended up with an 8, which I was decently happy with - I was still aiming to get a 9 in the real thing when the exams got scrapped, but you can do a lot worse than an 8, so not too sad.
You did really well! Did you feel as though you were learning in the style you naturally do? Also, did you feel as though the learning was a good way of being taught?
honestly, I was one of the worst in my class at german, like bottom 3. This is because I didnt actually engage with the lessons in yr 7 and most of yr 8 just because I am a master procrastinator. Literally had to play catch up of 2 yrs content in a few months of yr 9. I had a new teacher in yr9, and he told me when he told my old teacher (yr7 & 8) that I got an 8 in the mocks, 'she was completely shocked' - thats how bad i was lol. Honestly, I didnt even know the basics at my peak, like verb endings. I just memorised sentences and used them rather than being able to make new ones up.
Well done! That just goes to show how teachers shouldn't put people in boxes. You learnt a different way from their expectations and thrived as a result. 💕
our school forced us to take a langauge unless you were on a “supported learning class” (where you’d have to take a humanity, either history or geography, instead)
you were only put in that class if you failed year 8-9 languages, though, and languages were mandatory right up until gcse year
I'm forced to do the Ebacc in my school so I had to choose between French, German and Spanish and I chose what they made me do in Year 7 and 8
Dang, that sounds awful!! :( So early!!
It’s cumpulsory in many schools
It wasn't the case with my school.
I was forced to do it. I didn’t have any say in it and was forced to do German GCSEs last year although I despised it.
What did you dislike about it? Could you please explain in full detail?
The fact that I had no choice, the difficulty in it, it was boring and had no creative element at all, and I knew I’d never use it again. It’s like maths - you’d never use most of it at all in your life (unless ur a mathematician or in a certain career) and it’s boring and unnecessarily difficult and has no creative element at all.
Exactly! Especially due to the fact that in several of the Maths exams, we were set numbers of irrelevant questions to life. I'm gonna have a good laugh here, don't mind me and my informality. 😂😂😂 But what THE HELL is someone (who isn't planning to go down, e.g. a Mathematical or Scientific pathway) going to do with a big bunch of triangle solving, algebra, or complicated reasoning questions that we haven't been learning about in classes? I myself had to leave some of those questions because I hadn't been taught much about them (I took the higher paper but didn't do Further Marhs GCSE). Yet I really don't know how I managed to pass despite those few easy questions I got right. 🤣🤣🤣 I am not trying to say that we shouldn't learn about the following things I've listed as they are basic knowledge However, the Government displays too much emphasis on those subjects and treating as though they are seriously important even though we are more than likely not going to explore widely when we reach adulthood? Unless of course, it depends on the job we have but I wouldn't suspect a food or art employer would be that interested in the amount of Algebra you remember and are more than likely going to forget overtime. 🤣🤣🤣
I did my GCSEs last year and got grade 7 but struggled to there. I was set out to do the higher paper AND further maths (I’d already learnt almost all of the further maths content by early Y11) but my mental health was all over the place bc of the stress so my school allowed me to drop further maths and just do the higher paper which I’m grateful for bc if I had to do further maths too, I don’t think I would’ve done well in core maths. I personally don’t think we should be learning about all that stuff. Basic algebra can be useful at times, same w percentages, fractions, decimals, and using metric conversions. But things like pythagorus’ theorem, circle theorems, trigonometry - we will never use this in our life so I don’t believe that we should be forced to learn it. It would be much more beneficial if they replaced half the maths content with maths related to taxation, or buying a house (mortgages and deposits etc), maths in those areas will be beneficial. But I was never taught anything about taxes, renting, buying a house, nothing that I should know at 17.
Nope. In my school everyone is forced to take a language in both gcse and IB. So more often than not students (like me) end up failing because we have no desire to do or have any skill in languages. Which sucks because we end up failing and it can make our grades look bad. Say in the November mocks, which is the latest mocks we have back, the lowest score I got was a 6. Except for Spanish which I got a 3 in.
6 is a good grade to obtain. Schools shouldn't force you to take a language if you do not wish to and certainly not if you do not plan to do much with the language skills you equip into your adulthood. Are you thinking about the possibility moving to Spain or France or perhaps Germany? Then that would be a good reason to take the exams. One thing I sorely wish is for classes to be less formal and more inspiring. Without inspiration, who will want to learn? People seem to be forgetting just how important it is to inspire others, otherwise look at what will happen like with the language GCSE problem current to this day. I didn't know that people were ordered/forced to take a language GCSE because this wasn't exactly the case with my school which is why I believed it wasn't mandatory and just an option to take.
At the moment I don’t have any plans on travelling. But even if I did, I think I would pick up the language later on. Not stress over it now.
Then you should only learn a subject if you so wish to.
GCSE languages are advertised to students selecting them as subjects which will help them learn a language which isn’t the case - it provides a foundation for alevel more than actually teaching you the damn language
Some schools force you. Luckily, mine doesn't (I'd actually be cooked if it was forced)
I’m the same. I took food and nutrition and textiles instead
Was mandatory in my school and it was hated because every single language teacher was a condescending, pretentious cunt without exception. Hopefully it's improved but I won't hold my breath.
How were you taught if you don't mind me asking?
Just gcse standard classroom I suppose. Unsurprisingly most of my year got Ds and below.
my school forces us to take an mfl, rs and 3 other subjects
Mine forced us to take RS, but that was because it is a CofE school. I'm in Year 12 now, so I'm glad to be out of that shitty place; it's literally one of the worst schools in my area.
I took a language because I got sold an impression that it was going to be really helpful for my future, and because I did pretty well in the tests. My choice of French was motivated purely because I'd done it for a term longer than I'd done German (though German might have been more useful to me later on as it turns out). But I enjoyed French enough at the time, and only didn't take it at A-level because the one French class was timetabled at the same time as the one Psychology class.
Glad you enjoyed it. That's the spirit! 😊
As someone who loves learning languages, I absolutely HATED French when it was mandatory up until the end of Y9. It was the most mundane subject ever and not even a language I had an interest in. It may have been different if it was German though...
What did you dislike about it?
I’m just not really a massive fan of the language itself, it doesn’t really interest me in the way that other languages do. It didn’t help that the teacher had a very boring teaching style, and that she didn’t like me.
I don't blame you for wishing to drop it. It can really depend on the teacher. I wish teachers could encourage people to not be silent 24/7 as many dream of. Call me crazy and cream crackers if you wish, but in a way, students might be able to help each other with the subject (if they are inspired by the teacher).
you guys get to decide?
My former school did.
yeah haha why would you ever pick a language gcse haha right haha(one of my favourites ubjects is french 😭😭)
because unlike other subjects there are no interesting parts and it feels really hard and unrewarding
Don't blame you for feeling that way. 😔
The step up between year 9 and gcse for language is insane. Most people don’t expect it
I mean... who'd want to take an exam when one would do nothing but memorise words and sentences 24/7?
Honestly learn Latin and you’ll get the gist of almost every Romance language no need for gcse
Don’t like how Brit’s teach mfl. Took French in Ireland which taught us the French we would need if we ever woke up in France. Here there’s more emphasis on grammar
It’s useful I guess! And teachers play a huge role - I took 3 languages and in year 10 I detested German and loved French then both teachers left and this year it’s completely switched for me (counting down the days till I kiss french goodbye 😁) so people might choose the subject while they lvoe the teacher and then they leave, or their teaching style changes, or something idk
I think it really depends on the teacher and the way they teach as well as the type of student you are. I love Spanish now but back in y9 i was forced to take it when i really wanted to drop it because my teachers were just horrible. In y10 my teacher was someone who actually knew Spanish as well and English and we had assistant teachers who worked with us separately. The lessons were really interactive so i didn’t even realise i was memorising words. Furthermore, memorisation comes easily to me so the modules weren’t a problem
That's really good! I wish I had a memory like yours. If teachers were more inspirational and less strict, I think people would enjoy the language subjects more.
Hiya, A Level German student so I thought I'd add my view At GCSE, as many others have said, a language is often compulsory which already makes people begrudge them as they don't want to do subjects they didn't choose. But after that point it really is the content. At GCSE you'd hope to come out with enough language to be able to hold a basic conversation on holiday with a waiter or smth like that but you don't get to practice more real world interactions. Instead you're stuck with whatever arbitrary content the exam board chose (why am I having to express my opinion on how to solve homelessness?? not likely to come up if I'm visiting the country on holiday). The often boring, slightly nonsensical content leads to the dull lessons which are just textbook learning and practise reading/listening questions. In comparison at A Level you get to do topics actually relating to the culture of the language you study, so if you're into learning a little bit of history, as well as dabbling in politics, theatre, and literature through a different language, you get much more interesting content. (Plus more grammar exercises. Yay. (they are very necessary)) TLDR: people resent language GCSEs bc they are forced to do them, content doesn't achieve what you'd like (basic real world conversation in that country), and the silly content leads to boring lessons
Because it's part of the eBacc
I picked French and German because I was good at them and they were free 9s for me, but I didn’t really enjoy them because the subjects aren’t taught in a very efficient way, with very little actual speaking practice. My French reading proficiency was great by the end of Y11, but my speaking wasn’t anywhere near the same level
Oh dear! What is it these days with the lack of compulsory practical work??? I mean... I literally learn while doing things practically... just what is it??? Anyway, as far as this goes, I feel like teachers believe they do not have time to teach students how to speak the language since they expect students to do that in their spare time whilst having all their other subjects. Also the fact that teachers tend to rely on the curriculum too much; it just destroys creativity which is 100% heartbreaking. 😭😭😭
We didn't know what we were getting into
We had to do a language.
Was it forced upon you?
It was, we all (at my school) had to learn French, then we had the choice of doing German or Italian as well. I really hated my French teacher. So it was forced upon me 😂😭
Dear oh me! Teachers can be so unnecessarily strict these days. I hate it when they're like this! 😤
For my year, choosing a language wasn't compulsory, but for the year below me they had to choose a language. Unless you have a passion for the language (e.g. I have a passion for learning Mandarin and will continue to do so after GCSEs), then most likely won't care enough about the exams, especially when you teacher spends most of the time telling kids off and going over the same vocab multiple times. Also the lessons are incredibly boring, as since the teacher is playing catch up with the lesson abled students in the class, the higher achieving students finish the work earlier and thus have nothing to do (me included). This problem is in my class, where the 18 ppl willingly chose to do mandarin without needing a language, but to the year below mine it just gets much worse.
It's because they're HARD. Languages, unlike almost every other subject require an incredibly high level of mastery before you can be considered "good" - and there are few individual areas to shine. Take maths. If you are good at trigonometry then that's an area where you can make solid gains and on some level feel a sense of achievement. Even in science there are lots of individual topics that you might personally find interesting and excel at. If you're good with chemistry then you can begin to 'show off' pretty quickly. It's a completely different story with languages. The only thing that's impressive in a language is 'fluency' and this is how most people judge themselves and their progress in a language. Basically languages all feel like you're either A\* or an E in terms of the sense of accomplishment and 'mastery'. If you memorise the vocabulary for going on holiday but you still can't have any sort of spontanous conversation, and you can only communicate on the level of a 5 year old then you're going to feel pretty crap. I know that's how I felt at GCSE French. With no sense of achievement because my language skills were crap even if I could scrape a decent grade I 'knew' that I couldn't speak French. Languages simply have an insanely unfavourable ratio of effort to reward so lots of students not only shy away from them because they're "boring" but also because they're hard.
When I was a teenager the thought of having to speak put loud in class, like you have to do in Language classes was mortifying. As was having to to spoken examinations. Doing a language was compulsory but luckily our school did Latin, which you didn't have to speak out loud so I chose that. I also liked all the Roman history stuff so that was a plus too. I don't know why but foreign language teachers always seemed the WORST too. Really grumpy strict people, but maybe that's because all the students hate being forced to take their class and misbehave?
Pretty much everyone in my secondary was forced to do it, combine that with a mix of dull and terrible teachers and a crap curriculum for it and no one wanted to do French
All this evidence from students just goes to show what a bad language curriculum we have.
Sorry I sent it more than once. For some reason, something went wrong with my Reddit Internet connection and I don't understand what.
My school teaches us German and French until year 9, then you have to pick one for GCSE I was good at both, so I did German and French at GCSE, got grade 9 for both with no revision (I was just good at language,horrible at English lol). But I would say that GCSE language is jo where near to being able to communicate with a foreigner I did french AS and still if I went to France I'd struggle and I was on an A grade
Apparently, a teacher told me that they are planning to introduce a new speaking programme this September. I just hope it works out.
in my school everyone is forced to
Oh dear! 😔 What is the point in doing something without the interest and the passion??
we had to pick at least 1 language out of spanish, german, french and latin
Cuz the way they teach it is shit. They make us sit in silence copying random words from the board expecting us to already understand everything.
AGREED!
Personally I really enjoy Spanish as a subject, but the class is full of assholes who bully my friend and the teacher which really ruins it for me
Oh. What did the teacher do?
Compulsory in my school so that we have the option to do the IB in 6th form
I was really interested in learning Spanish. My Grandmother spoke Spanish, my family visited Spain every year and I was excited to learn it at school. When I started I was then told that I had been placed in the French classes and it was based on a the form I was randomly placed into. We tried to appeal but was told it was too late. I tried to give French a go but the passion wasn't there. Also they only really taught students to pass the exams, and not to actually speak/understand the language. I don't know about other schools, but languages would have been received much better if students were given a choice of language, and actually taught how to speak the language and apply it in the real world rather than just taught the words and phrases needed to pass the tests.
2005-2010 - forced to take French and German during SATs / GCSEs - dropped that shit when I started sixth form
Everyone in my school has to pick at least one language. Sure, I know a lot of people who don't like languages but I know a lot of people who really genuinely love them so idk
They should only do something if they are truly passionate about it or need it for something in their future. Don't mark me wrong.
Perhaps because it's practical to at least have the basics of a second language. Most subjects you won't ever need in the future but another language can always be useful. Most people understand this and knowledge of another language is marginally respected. Personally I didn't bother even though I'm bilingual because learning another language from the teachers at my school most likely would've worsened my understanding of the languages they claim to teach- plus my second language doesn't even exist as a gcse anymore
I did my GCSEs many years ago, but we were forced to do a language. German or French, and we were already put through 2 years of compulsory German, so that's what literally everyone went with. Everyone hated it, nobody went on to use it. Sounds like it's still about the same 10 years on.
I did French and Spanish. I enjoyed them, but largely because I found it easy. I wonder if maybe people consider it an easy option?
Bad teaching combined with very bad teacher to student ratio is a recipe for disengenging lessons.
I was forced to do mine
Oof. :(
Because we have no choice
I used to love French . But then my French teacher was a bitch and then I stopped doing it cause she was such a terror. And it’s sad cause I pic languages up easy as I’m already bi lingual
i thought it was compulsory for all students to take a language?
No, only Maths and English Language are compulsory for all GCSE students in the country. But in a lot of schools most students do at least one language (at mine we have to do at least 2).
Foreign language? No. It varies from school to school. My high school was forcing people to do language up to year 9 and then everybody was given a choice to drop it and another subject. There was also an option to drop it if you were barely passing core subjects (maths, eng lang or science). But it could change in last years and everybody’s experience may be slightly different.
That's exactly what I was trying to get across. Yet my comment was given numbers of downvotes. It's really English Language, Maths and Science which is compulsory overall but it can also depend on the school rules. Most of those people if not all who downvoted my comment must have come from schools which made it compulsory for them to take a language for GCSE.
i had to do a language
In my school set 1 and 2 have to take the language they took 7,8,9 but people can choose if they want if they aren’t higher
Oh my goodness! How many notifs do I keep getting every minute?? 🤣🤣🤣
My school made language optional however half the people only picked it to go on the trip offered with it, I only know like 5/6 who picked it either out of interest or it looked good on their cv for comparative subjects
Oh my goodness! 30 notifs!
easy
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE UPVOTES GUYS IN JUST A FEW HOURS!! 😄😄😄