A Cardiff University-led initiative to increase uptake of international languages at GCSE is marking a decade of inspiring learners.
Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) Mentoring is a Welsh Government-funded project, based at Cardiff University, which trains university students to work with secondary school language learners in Wales to promote the benefits of continuing their language journey at GCSE. MFL Mentoring is a shared venture across all nine Welsh Higher Education Institutions which was created as a response to the decline in learners studying an international language (French, German and Spanish) at GCSE.
During events held at the Senedd, sector leaders, policymakers, politicians, teachers and international partners heard about the success of the initiative as well as the challenges that lie ahead as the team reported initial findings from a 'deep dive' report on the project.
To date, the project has trained approximately 1,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students, giving them the chance to mentor year eight and nine secondary students and share their love of languages. Since 2015, thousands of 14- and 15-year-olds have benefitted from the scheme in 172 secondary schools across Wales. Teachers have praised the initiative as a transformative intervention with learners saying the project had increased their confidence with languages and boosted their awareness of languages as a transferable skill.
Academic lead Professor Claire Gorrara, based at the University's School of Modern Languages, said: "Cymraeg, English, home, heritage, community and international languages connect us and how we relate to each other. Recognising and valuing the rich language eco-system in which we live is vital to the social and economic prosperity of a globally connected Wales.
"Initial findings from the external evaluation of MFL Mentoring demonstrate that the mentoring model has been highly effective in enriching schools, boosting language uptake, and addressing systemic challenges in language education in Wales. Its success has inspired other disciplines, such as physics, to replicate its outreach model, demonstrating its scalability and broader applicability.
"While it is encouraging to see statistics which show MFL Mentoring has successfully slowed the decline in language uptake at GCSE, numbers of learners choosing languages is still in decline overall. Initiatives such as these are therefore vital in our efforts to reverse this worrying trend and offer a critical stabilising intervention for learners in schools."
