Worried about my degree choice

A few universities offer beginners French (mostly in Scotland), but I suppose it's too late now.

You can certainly go into translation if you learn German and Spanish. I don't think not knowing French will impact your career, after all, German is (along with French and English) one of the three working languages of the EU. That said, there is nothing stopping you from learning French on your own, your university Language Centre will probably offer evening classes, or at the very least, facilities for you to learn the language yourself.

This video might interest you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR4muJrmY2Y

Thank you, that's very reassuring my main concern is that if I decide to go into teaching, not doing French will probably be a problem as that's the language most schools do? I assume that to teach it I'd need a degree in it*

I think you could easily find a job just teaching German and Spanish. But you definitely don't need a degree in French to teach it, speaking it is enough - you don't even need to be fluent to teach 11-16. It is not uncommon for MFL teachers to teach a language they only have an A level in. I remember my French teacher studied Spanish and Italian at uni.

Also, you could do one of these: https://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/explore-my-options/teacher-training-routes/subject-knowledge-enhancement-ske-courses

I think you could easily find a job just teaching German and Spanish. But you definitely don't need a degree in French to teach it, speaking it is enough - you don't even need to be fluent to teach 11-16. It is not uncommon for MFL teachers to teach a language they only have an A level in. I remember my French teacher studied Spanish and Italian at uni.

Also, you could do one of these: https://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/explore-my-options/teacher-training-routes/subject-knowledge-enhancement-ske-courses

I don't think there are as many schools where you could get a job teaching German and Spanish as they are often taught as second languages to French so may be taught at the same time.

French is an asset in teaching for exactly the reasons you gave.

I know there are people teaching French who only have A level but they often struggle with doing oral work and obviously will not be upto teaching A level . This alone will restrict your career prospects. They tend to rely on worksheets. ( A sure sign of the less than confident languages' teacher.) This is usually because unless you have spent quite a long time in a French speaking country ( 1 year?) your fluency will just not be upto scratch.

This is no doubt why the British are not great at languages - they have poorly qualified teachers,( and the school timetable often militates against language teaching - forcing language teaching into 2 or at most 3 lessons of 1+ hours week instead of a shorter lesson a day which is vital for effective languages' teaching.)

You most certainly do need to be fluent to teach 11-16 year olds. You also do need a lot more than just to be able to speak it! French is a very precise, comlex language grammatically and requires a lot of intense study if you are to be qualified to teach it.

You also need to be aware that your promotion prospects may be less if you don't have French as a language. Most Heads of Languages Departments in Secondary Schools will be expected to have French.

I have to disagree.

If the OP was only studying German then they may well have problems getting a teaching job, but they're not - Spanish is an in-demand subject, not quite as useful as French but not far off.

A teacher who speaks another romance language and has a B2 (A level) standard of French could easily teach GCSE and below, they would not struggle with oral work and would not need to rely on worksheets.

And as I say, there is ample opportunity for the OP to learn French at university even if she isn't studying it as part of her degree. That's what language centres are for! The OP could do a British Council teaching placement in France after they've finished their degree if they felt their French needed that extra boost, but I don't think it is necessary.

So are you suggesting that a module a week in a language centre at Uni will be sufficient for teaching French? Without any prolonged residence in France say? Upto GCSE level? Well maybe if your expectations are very low for your teacher. (S)he needs to know that it would seriously limit his/her prospects career wise.

Your suggestion of a placement as a English Language assistant through the British Council is a good one if the OP has considerable resources of resilience and determination. Without a very good level of French already, typically students do this after having done 2 years of a French degree, (s)he is likely to have a very testing year indeed. Teaching foreign teenagers is not easy in a language with which you are not very familiar. Coupled with social isolation and culture shock it requires considerable personal resources.

Of course it is sufficient, more than sufficient. It is possible to become fluent in a language by studying at a language centre, I'm not sure why you think it isn't. Typically students at these centres will have the same number of contact hours with language tutors as students on language degree programmes.

We are not likely to agree so I'm going to copy in @Angeli and @Carnationlilyrose to see what they think.

If the OP is doing a degree in another subject (s)he will have maybe upto 3 hours a week on a beginners' French course, typically for 2 semesters. Manchester Uni eg says,

Learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course, students should be able to:

understand short, simple messages and announcements;
read short simple texts and find specific information;
communicate in simple, routine situations; and
write simple notes, messages and short personal letters. (Of course the next year they will progress but we are just not in the same ball park as a degree student in French).

Does this equate to a student on a languages' degree course who starts with an A level in French and who is not only having maybe 5 hours week tutoring in translation,( theme and version ), explication de texte, essay writing, conversation classes - having spent maybe 12 hours a week preparing for the lessons? Then who is spending the rest of the time reading books and writing essays in French on a range of topics from politics, philosophy, literature, history etc. and will spend a year at least living in France?

Fluency is in the eye of the beholder. There's fluency as in 'I can make a simple comment about the weather and my family and ask the way to the station' and with luck I can understand what a French person says in reply 25-50% of the time, and there is fluency as in 'I can write a complex essay on professional topics or discussing literature and I can hold my own in a proper conversation with a native'.

I have some idea of what is involved in beginners' classes ( I have done them) a languages' degree ( done one) , British Council English exchange ( done it), teaching languages ( done it), teacher training ( that too) organising a languages' department ( done it ), how well / badly 'qualified' languages' teachers can be ( yes I know that).

There isn't a strict divide between studying the language and studying the culture - you are after all studying the culture in the language, reading the books in French. So if you are doing 20 hours studying the culture , you are of course effectively studying 20 hours extra language too, indeed a lot more for you will be reading criticism books etc. in French too. Every essay you write will also be in French too.

As I tried to explain the 2 hours for example written skills doesn't mean people are doing 2 hours on language written skills each week.To do an average translation they will have to spend at least 3 hours. maybe much more. The 1 hour mentioned for the course will be the lecturer discussing different points of translation, the variables etc. Those 3 hours are in fact at least 9 hours hours, could be 12.

If you start with the Intermediate Course Yr1 - you need a good GCSE, Yr 2 Intermediate you need AS level equivalent, Yr 3 Post Intermediate you need an A level equivalent. So at the end of year 3 you have at best the equivalent of what the French degree people have at the end of their 1st year, ( probably a lot less because they will not have been spending only 3 notional hours on language skills but another 20 notional hours, plus, too.) The C1 level is another year, 4th year, for the Post Intermediate student so at best equivalent to what a degree student has at the end of their year 2 ( in reality nothing like as good, see above). This is before a degree student has worked in France for a year and come back to do their final 4th year.

The quality of teaching you get from the degree person is much better. As with many subjects, poorly qualified people just don't know enough to give high quality teaching from the off.

I am more worried that people who do these language school course are told that they could have a good career in teaching when in the real world they will only be able to get the lowest level teaching jobs and be stuck with little career progression.The graduates will get the promotions and heads of Department because only they can teach AS or A level to University entrance .

You would almost certainly be accepted onto a PGCE to teach Spanish, so I wouldn't worry about that.