PGCE Secondary Education with QTS: Modern Foreign Languages (11-16 years)

We’ve designed our highly-rated PGCE Secondary in Modern Foreign Languages so that you will graduate knowing how to confidently devise and deliver engaging lessons in the target language that widen learners’ linguistic and cultural horizons.

You will be supported by our expert tutors and visiting MFL teachers to teach learners of all secondary ages and abilities, to assess their progress in a range of linguistic skills and to develop their confidence in using the target language to fulfil their own communicative needs.

Our PGCE course includes QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) and we will also help you apply for a position as a secondary school teacher during the course.

Course summary

This course will enable you to teach foreign languages to the 11-18 age group with Primary Languages and Post-16 input, including students with special needs. You will learn how to develop the main skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) along with cultural awareness.

The course will begin with an immersive experience (learning Serbian) as a vehicle for the exploration of what it means to learn a language from a beginner’s viewpoint. This immersive experience will also serve as a methodological springboard for the examination of a target language approach. This approach has been adopted by various local schools, where we will travel to in order to observe MFL lessons taught by expert Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 teachers.

We believe that observation and experience are not enough – it is also vital to be able to unpack and reflect on these experiences. You will deconstruct classroom learning activities into their constituent parts, examine their underpinning theoretical principles, and then build them up again so that you can implement them effectively in the classroom. Your personal tutor at university will regularly meet with you to discuss your progress and you will also be visited in school by placement tutor. In school, both your subject and professional mentors, who offer a range of support and guidance, will support your ongoing development.

Your observation and teaching experience will straddle Primary and post-GCSE: a short placement in a 6th form college will complete your understanding of the teaching of your subject matter before and after your chosen age range.

You will continue to refresh your own linguistic skills through structured tasks in collaboration with the native speakers that traditionally make up half of our PGCE MFL cohort. A distinctive feature of our course is that, thanks to our partnership agreement with a number of French and Spanish universities, we attract a number of native speakers from France and from the Spanish-speaking world but also from other European countries.

Your Career with a PGCE Teaching Qualification

You'll have qualified teacher status which will allow you to immediately apply for an exciting career as a French, Spanish or German teacher at secondary school. The Master FLE and ELE will qualify you to teach in a range of international contexts, including university.

Our former students have found rewarding careers in the UK and around the globe, teaching languages in a range of international contexts. The PGCE is highly valued in the Commonwealth and beyond.