Setting for Latin and or French

[LostInEducation]

Very interesting question.
I was wondering the same thing after reading the MFL curriculum on the website. However, I remember asking about this during the open day (2 years ago) and I believe to be told that if the child was a native speaker, he/she would be offered an alternative language. Maybe I got confused (not an English Native Speaker myself), so worth confirming again during New Entrants Day.

[lippizaner]

My DS is not exactly what you would call a native speaker. He is bilingual with the emphasis on English being his native tongue, but is fluent in French. Us being English, he is inclined to make mistakes from time to time, which, in spoken French, really don't matter, as the French themselves, by their own admission, make as many grammatical errors as some English people do in their own language. So, obviously these errors show up in his written work where they are much more glaringly obvious. He has, for example, a quite amusing inclination to turn an English word into a French one by changing the spelling a little, or just pronouncing it with a French accent. Innovative, but not always the thing to do! His vocabulary is fine for a school boy in France, involves a lot of words about tractors as he loves them, but some words are definitely missing.
One funny example is the staple of French learning - going to a café or restaurant and ordering a drink or food. He's never had to do this, so yesterday he really didn't know what "l'addition" was. Obviously never listened to us either, not that we go out much!
The topics taught for GCSE are not always terribly relevant to every day life - I remember helping my daughter speak about ecology and pollution for her GCSE oral!
It would be nice if he could do another language as well rather than spend five years doing French, I guess, but he needs emotional maturity to do some of the required GCSE work that at present he doesn't have. So he still needs to study French as it is taught in the UK, just probably not with a class of beginners I think.

[Fjgrogan]

Oh how I agree with your comments about cafe/restaurant vocabulary! The first thing my daughter learned in German was how to order a beer, at a time when she was far too young legally to do so!