This is the third of three posts based on the findings of Rober Sakhrani's PhD thesis about why uptake in MFL has declined in schools in England. Major sections of his thesis centred on interviews carried out with pupils and teachers in four schools in Norfolk, a rural part of eastern England. Have a look at the previous two posts for concise summaries of his findings. Aftre putting those posts together with help from ChatGPT my next thought was: so what can schools and departments do about uptake where it is poor? Of course, in many schools, particularly independent schools, MFL is compusory up to GCSE — then the question is more about A-level uptake, which is also very problematic. Where MFL is optional, and uptake is perceived as too low, what can be done? Below is a list of possible strategies: Firstly, the pupil and teacher interviews suggest that increasing take-up is not mainly about telling pupils that languages are useful . I agree with this, even if it may help at ...
In my last post, I wrote that I would give you a summary of what Robert Sakhrani found out from his interviews with teachers in the four schools studied. I asked ChatGPT to do a bullet point summary for me of the relevant extract from the PhD. As a reminder the PhD thesis can be found here if you want to follow it up further. Recall that the title of the PhD thesis is: Exploring the decline in uptake of modern foreign languages at GCSE in England through Positoning Theory: reflecting on the perspectives of pupils and teachers in secondary schools. See whether the findings accord your own thinking. I imagine perceptions will vary enormously depending on your school and background experience. In a third post I'll explore what practical steps departments and schools might take to encourage positive attitudes and uptake. Here is what teachers aid (via ChatGPT): Teachers frequently felt that MFL had been progressively deprioritised within the school curriculum , particularly ...