Sara Davidson
Secondary Languages Associate Consultant, NASBTT
This month, our SCITT was very fortunate to be able to host Jonathan Mumford to talk at the annual dinner that we put on to thank our brilliant mentors. As well as teaching and leading the German department at school, and acting as NASBTT’s associate consultant for Secondary Languages, I run a local hub for the National Modern Languages SCITT. Every year we ask a speaker to come and speak about something close to our mentors’ hearts at the start of the dinner.
Previous speakers include Emma Hollis (CEO of NASBTT), Gemma Marks (Director of Northamptonshire Teaching School Hub), Dr Rachel Lofthouse (Professor of Teacher Education) and Dr James Burch (Professor of Practice in Initial Teacher Education). Jonathan Mumford is a languages teacher, trainer and consultant, lecturer at Liverpool Hope University (on their SCITT programme) and examiner.
He started his talk by giving an overview of what it means to be an MFL teacher today: how it can sometimes feel like we are chasing our tails and fire-fighting on a daily basis in a climate where learning languages is not valued as much as it was perhaps in the past. Over the last few years we have seen headlines in the press claiming that school language departments are in meltdown, numbers have fallen by almost half in the last decade, university language departments closing down is becoming the norm, Brexit has put pupils off learning a language, the rise of AI-powered tech is a threat to the existence of MFL, language learning is becoming increasingly elitist and teacher recruitment in MFL is failing. Not a pretty picture and it often feels like MFL teachers have the hardest job in the school.
Jonathan also reminded us of the report produced by Ofsted back in 2015 entitled “Key Stage 3: The Wasted Years?”. It can be found in full here Microsoft Word – Key_Stage_3_the_wasted_years but, in essence, MFL did not come well out of this. The report found significant weaknesses in MFL teaching at Key Stage 3. Achievement was judged inadequate in just under half of the MFL classes observed — the worst performance of the three subjects examined (history and geography fared better). Low-level disruption was a particular problem in MFL lessons, negatively affecting pupils’ learning. Inspectors frequently found teaching that failed to challenge or engage pupils.
The report made the point that the consequences were evident in pupils’ GCSE choices: some explicitly linked their decision not to continue with MFL to poor experiences at Key Stage 3, citing the subject as difficult or dull. While some pupils recognised the value of a foreign language for university applications, enjoyment took precedence over that consideration. This was identified as a serious concern given the government’s ambition for all pupils to take EBacc subjects, which includes a modern foreign language, by 2020.
We were, however, reminded of what keeps us teaching MFL, when everything suggests we probably shouldn’t stay… those moments we experience on trips abroad when we show our pupils something new, those special moments in lessons when the grammar clicks or some unprompted target language is produced. He reminded us of the dedication that ITT mentors show to the subject and the profession day in and day out. It is these colleagues who you might say are ‘saving’ the subject as, in their position as experts, they are helping to train the next generation of student teachers and help them to become the confident and inspirational practitioners we need. I see this all the time in my role and notice the development in our trainees every time I see them. When I reflect back to our current cohort in September and how far they have come now, the difference is staggering. This is all down to the patience, support and expertise of our mentors who find the time on top of everything else they do in school to nurture, mentor and coach our new recruits.