Two years ago I wrote a post on Year 9 pupils' thoughts about GCSE languages and how they were generally positive. Then, last year a similar survey discovered a high proportion of Year 9 pupils who thought that languages was not a useful GCSE for employment or for university application. So we acted to address this, including supportive messages from the Headteachers. In our school, languages are very much supported, although not over and above other subjects. But in this instance we were addressing a specific misconception, and numbers in the current Year 10 were definitely boosted as a result, compared to what our survey had shown in September.
This year, a similar survey in September didn't ring as many alarm bells, with 80% of pupils at least considering taking a language, before they saw the structure of the options available. Our interest this year wasn't focused so much on overall numbers, so much as on looking into why certain groups are under represented in GCSE languages. We are very successful in attracting learners with lower prior attainment. Often it's the pupils who you know would "excel in French" or be "a natural linguist" who aren't picking it as an option. (Here's a post where you can see exactly why I am resisting those labels.)
Susannah Porsz of the Beeleigh Languages Hub interviewed a panel of eight high flying Year 9 pupils, some of whom had and some of whom hadn't picked a language at GCSE.
Here's some of what they said:
General Attitudes
They were all very confident in their progress and test results in French. This was something we had been deliberately setting out to achieve with our revised KS3 assessments. And I know some of the pupils had also received emails to parents congratulating them on their results and progress.
They were very positive about the usefulness of languages, mentioning travel, careers and meeting people, and the fact that a language is something that it is "nice to know." They included mentions of parents' attitudes as positive, but other pupils' attitudes as negative. Some of them spoke other languages at home or had international family connections, which were seen as important and positive. They were positive about their lessons, although some said, "It's just not for me." And one said, "I don't dread it, but it's not my favourite either."
Picking Options
When it came to talking about Options, most had been considering taking a language, but were in the situation where there were "Too many choices and not enough options." Several had put French down as a second choice. This is interesting because any changes to the options offer structure would ultimately follow pupil numbers. Are a significant number of pupils putting French as a second choice when there is another column where they would have put it as a first choice if it were on offer?
As we had also discovered in previous years, our pupils make very detailed and specific career decisions very early. Before Year 9, they already had clear ambitions, which included scholarships and international study. But a language didn't seem to them to be directly relevant to their specific career choice.
They spoke about how teachers for each subject "hyped" their own subject. They felt Geography, for example, had been particularly well sold, and some were even starting to wonder if they should have chosen French instead. This reinforces the value of the work we do in talking to pupils about the value of languages. And highlights the importance of them hearing it from third parties such as University outreach or careers advice, because their French teacher "would say that, wouldn't they."
Some pupils talked about hearing from older pupils that French GCSE is hard and a big jump. One interesting comment was that if other pupils talk about taking history because they have heard it is "easy", then you might end up in a class with lots of people with the wrong attitude!
Experience of French in KS3
As we regularly find in the feedback we get from pupils as part of their assessments, their overall aim in learning French is "to have a basic real conversation." Most pupils wanted their lessons to be more varied and to have more speaking French. They were very much aware that this depended on having someone to work with who also wanted to practise speaking French. Someone you would be comfortable working with. They greatly valued it when they could be trusted to work with a partner and to take responsibility for working together. It is important to remember that when it seems easier to manage a class if we reduce the demands of interaction and speaking, these pupils wanted (like us) to be developing speaking. It's important we realise this and we can use this knowledge to make sure it happens.
There was discussion around how much repetition was necessary in French. They again compared it to Geography where they felt there was more variety and excitement. Although they were realistic about the need for scaffolding in a language. This was something I was particularly wondering about, in terms of the level of work and the level of interest for these particular pupils.
They did mention that they wanted more cultural input. They could list some things they had done, for example food, places, songs, videos, the Windmill Art Exhibition and letter exchanges with France. But they didn't think it was enough. They talked about CLIL immersion approaches they had seen in the video of the school in France we look at, where they do maths in German. They thought this was a great idea but didn't think it was practicable. And on the other hand, some thought that French should be more transactional rather than doing things like the unit on the Environment. "More trips" was their emphatic answer to what would make the biggest difference.
Listening to them comparing Human Geography and Physical Geography, I wondered also if they could talk about French in the same way. Do we give them metalanguage and categories and labels? Would these pupils enjoy more explicit grammar to learn and terminology to make their learning feel more intellectual and less implicit? They mentioned adjectival agreement and a few other linguistic areas, but otherwise were mainly thinking of French in terms of topic content. Do we have work to do here?
But their understanding of their language-learning did come through very strongly in their comments on the school's "Learning Cycle." They immediately said that this was exactly how their lessons worked. Explanation, modelling, scaffolding, practice and feedback. And dual coding also got an enthusiastic mention from more than one pupil.
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