[forest3261]

Hi there. Thanks for reading the post.
I'm an 18 year old sixth former who has applied to study a BA in french and japanese at university. I have been researching possible career choices for after my degree and have looked into becoming a secondary school language teacher. Teaching had never occured to me before, but recently I have had some truly inspirational male teachers (i'm male) who have encouraged me to look into the profession.
I would ideally like to teach french and in particular japanese, but I've found out that very few schools/colleges offer japanese at any level, and subsequently there are few PGCE japanese specialisms available. I have however noticed that Mandarin Chinese is offered at a number of institutions across the country I thought because they offered it in a PGCE alongside the main taught languages of french, spanish and german, it is becoming more widely offered by schools? Is that true?
I truly love both chinese and japanese language and culture, and the only reason I am not doing Chinese in my degree in because I prefer (only marginally) Japanese. I am hoping to do GCSE Chinese alongside my main degree at university though (I have almost no knowledge of Chinese). So basically, my questions are these:
1. If I didn't have any qualifications or knowedge of Chinese, would I be able to apply for the MFL PCGE with a specialism in french and chinese? Do they offer intensive courses in your second language while on the PGCE? If so, what level of fluency does it offer- KS3 level, GCSE, A-level standard? Has anyone applied to a dual language PGCE with knowledge of only one of their chosen languages?

2. If the oppurtunity to teach Japanese arose, assuming I do the French and Chinese PGCE, could I still teach japanese, or would I need a PGCE with a japanese specialism to do that?

I'm not sure if the number of schools offering japanese or chinese is or will increase in the future.
Would love to hear from people who teach Japanese or who learnt a new language from scratch as part of their PGCE. Sorry it's so long.
Thanks again

[Mini-Cooper]

(Original post by forest3261)
2. If the oppurtunity to teach Japanese arose, assuming I do the French and Chinese PGCE, could I still teach japanese, or would I need a PGCE with a japanese specialism to do that?

1. Not sure about your first question. Although I think it is unlikely that you will be learning the language as you are learning to teach it. You need to know the language inside out to be able to teach it. There may be a course before the PGCE, although not sure if Chinese is widespread enough for this.

2. Once you qualify as a teacher you can (in theory) teach any subject. So you would not need to do any more teacher training to teach a different language.

[forest3261]

thanks for your answer, its really helped. Your perspective is really valuable

[noodles!]

(Original post by Mini-Cooper)
1. Not sure about your first question. Although I think it is unlikely that you will be learning the language as you are learning to teach it. You need to know the language inside out to be able to teach it. There may be a course before the PGCE, although not sure if Chinese is widespread enough for this.

2. Once you qualify as a teacher you can (in theory) teach any subject. So you would not need to do any more teacher training to teach a different language.

Indeed that's preferable, but not strictly necessary. I'm just finishing a PGCE in German (which I have a degree in, no issues there) and French (which I only have a GCSE in, so I teach KS3, mainly year 7). And I have a job for September teaching those two, during the interview they made me speak French- I spoke very basic year 7/8 phrases (badly, might I add) and got the job.

Of course you need to know enough to be ahead of the kids, but I think some schools would be happy to take on a Chinese teacher who was willing to start with one group in year 7 and work their way up as that's how languages get phased in anyway. This would give plenty of time to keep learning the language while still being able to teach it.