GCSE options - is DS making a mistake not doing a language

[Guest55]

Mathematician here but shouldn't it be 'mes amis'?

[Surferfish]

Mathematician here but shouldn't it be 'mes amis'?

Probablement. C'est trente annees ago so donner mois 'un break'!

[Amber]

So on that basis Poisson-Surfer, would you advocate that those who know they will never want to analyse a book should not be made to study English literature, or those who can do basic arithmetic enough to know if their broadband provider is fleecing them* ought not to be made to do Maths as they know they don't want to study it further?

Personally I don't see why anyone should be allowed to drop anything in Y10 - there ought to in my view be a broad curriculum until 16 which as well as the usual suspects would involve Music, Drama, Technology, Computing, a language, Political Science (so we don't sleepwalk into another flipping referendum), Economics, lots of stuff - and no GCSEs at all. I am not sure why languages regularly get singled out as things which DC ought to be allowed to stop studying as they either don't like them or can't do them. No one makes the same suggestion about any other subject but languages seem to have special status as both not useful and too hard. This attitude does not prevail in any other country that I know of **, where children regularly speak several languages and where mastering them is seen as both necessary and desirable.

*they are

** oh, I just thought of one. Hmm.

[Guest55]

I agree with you Amber - Technology used to be complusory in KS4 as well as MFL. That was dispensed with as 'too expensive' ... ' a waste of time' ....

Now options are chosen at the end of Year 8 in many schools it is even worse ...

[Surferfish]

So on that basis Poisson-Surfer, would you advocate that those who know they will never want to analyse a book should not be made to study English literature, or those who can do basic arithmetic enough to know if their broadband provider is fleecing them* ought not to be made to do Maths as they know they don't want to study it further?

Personally I don't see why anyone should be allowed to drop anything in Y10 - there ought to in my view be a broad curriculum until 16 which as well as the usual suspects would involve Music, Drama, Technology, Computing, a language, Political Science (so we don't sleepwalk into another flipping referendum), Economics, lots of stuff - and no GCSEs at all. I am not sure why languages regularly get singled out as things which DC ought to be allowed to stop studying as they either don't like them or can't do them. No one makes the same suggestion about any other subject but languages seem to have special status as both not useful and too hard. This attitude does not prevail in any other country that I know of **, where children regularly speak several languages and where mastering them is seen as both necessary and desirable.

*they are

** oh, I just thought of one. Hmm.

Yes, I agree with you in principle that it would be better to have a broader curriculum until 16 including all the subjects that you mentioned plus others.

Regardless of that though, the system is what it is, and when they get to end of Y9 pupils are required to continue with maths, English, science (and sometimes RS) and have to make a choice between the rest. (Personally I can’t see a logical reason why Eng Lit should be compulsory, but for some reason it is)

I think that the reason languages sometimes get ‘singled out’ in these GCSE options discussions is that while in most schools they are optional, many people still seem to regard them with higher importance and status than most of the other options.

With MFL, people quite often still advise doing at least one regardless of any interest or talent in the subject. If a child loves languages then of course they should pursue them, but if they don’t, that’s when people question the importance of the subject. Its not really an issue with most of the other options, because if they don’t like them they’d simply never consider them in the first place. If someone came on here questioning whether their DC should take a music or computer science GCSE, when they didn’t enjoy it, weren’t any good at it and had no interest in the subject we’d all advise against them doing it surely?

BTW I can think of at least three other countries which probably have a similar, or even worse, attitude to learning languages than we do. A quick google search would seem to support my hunches.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/a ... es/392876/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.smh.com.au/national/educatio ... pg6ek.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=11438943" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I don’t think its any coincidence that all 3 countries share something important with us, and no, it isn’t just arrogance and a superiority complex (well not for ALL of them anyway… )

[PettswoodFiona]

Just one minor element to consider, the IB. Will your DC be doing A Levels or the IB? In our area a number of grammars offer the IB and this does have a language element. For those who don’t want specialism too early the IB can help with this. So no answer to the question but another thing to consider. You can do an ‘ab initio’ language for IB, it doesn’t have to be something someone has previously studied, but it can depend on what the options and choices are at specific schools that offer the IB.

[Amber]

I don’t think its any coincidence that all 3 countries share something important with us, and no, it isn’t just arrogance and a superiority complex (well not for ALL of them anyway… )

That is the trouble when English is the lingua franca of basically half the world.

One of those countries though (you can decide which one) is responsible for changing our own language too much for my liking. Fine if they want to do it, and why not? But I do so wish that we could reclaim some of our spellings and words before we lose them altogether. What is wrong with aeroplane, theatre, queue, biscuits, aubergines and fairy cakes? We let our language go too easily!

[Surferfish]

Its the nature of languages to change and evolve though due to various influences isn't it rather than remain stagnant? With possible the exception of aeroplane and fairy cakes most British people I know still use the 'proper' words and spellings for the others. Other nations who speak English as a second language are more likely to use the Americanisms though.

[Amber]

Its the nature of languages to change and evolve though due to various influences isn't it rather than remain stagnant?

Absolutely and totally yes, which is why I said that it is fine for this other nation to use the words they want to. And of course English is evolving - and so it should. But I do object to the rampant americanisation of our own language and culture - sometimes it feels as if it isn't so much an evolution as a takeover! Though I confess that some of that is rooted in a personal dislike of Hollywood and its values.

I suppose Brexit is going to make it all so much more acute, anyway, so I had better get used to it.


This looks interesting.
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1113357 ... k-english/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Tinkers]

I don’t think its any coincidence that all 3 countries share something important with us, and no, it isn’t just arrogance and a superiority complex (well not for ALL of them anyway… )

That is the trouble when English is the lingua franca of basically half the world.

One of those countries though (you can decide which one) is responsible for changing our own language too much for my liking. Fine if they want to do it, and why not? But I do so wish that we could reclaim some of our spellings and words before we lose them altogether. What is wrong with aeroplane, theatre, queue, biscuits, aubergines and fairy cakes? We let our language go too easily!

On some projects at work we are required to wrote our documents in American English (and not necessarily for American clients either). It is a bit of a pain, especially for someone dyslexic as well.
On one project (with American clients) one of them asked what we had against ‘z’ as in the ise/ize ending, to which I answered ‘what do you have against ‘u’?

Weirdly the American clients are happy to use SI units, whereas the non Amercian client that insists on US spelling also insists on imperial units.