Can my year 11 DS drop a subject?

Caroline_a

I understand that your son is going through a tough time with this - I did German at school too and it's not the easiest of languages but sometimes dropping out of something is giving our children the easy option. Yes, we all want our children to not do stuff they dont like, but it's so good for them to have to finish what they started.

Personally I would help him to deal with it, maybe ask for extra help at school or find someone local who speaks German and do some casual conversation sessions. There are also some excellent online resources, some of which are free.

But the only lesson that he will learn unfortunately if you let him drop the subject is that if he finds things difficult then it's ok to stop doing it. Life really isnt like that...

mountainofdebt

concentrate on the others and just turn up for the exam......you may have to take the subject but there's no law that says you have to revise for it

moromir

Ok great (bear with me), I was hoping you were going to say German.

This is a really rough and ready approach to German and I don't promise anything but it might give him somewhere to start?

I don't know if you speak it but its a ridiculously logical language at that level (I don't mean that detrimentally to your son, I mean that if you can get him to understand some of the 'rules' then he can build on it)

Get him to look through his German dictionary, there will be example sentances, get him to memorise some, this will give him basic 'starter' sentances which will give him confidence and may remind him of other words he knows.

Try and get him to understand the tenses - I will go, I am going, I have gone - if he can use a sentence more than one tense it ramps up his score massively without being a lot of new things to learn.

Then move on to 'doing' words, to play, to eat, to drink and the like. Once you know those, you can pretty much apply it to any scenario the examiner will throw at him (I think I got asked to talk about my 'holiday' for example, apparently I played tennis and drank orange juice).

If he is really struggling I think you aim is to teach him 'key words' rather than worrying about being totally grammatically correct.

For example - very broadly speaking, adding ge- in front of your doing word will make it past tense. For example Ich spiele (I play) becomes Ich gespielt (I played), there are some exceptions i.e. trinke (drink?) becomes something like getrunken I think but you get the idea.

Other things that are quite useful to know:
- directions
- a handful of food items
- room names in a house, ie bedroom, bathroom (useful if the examiner asks you to book a hotel room for example, you can ask for a bedroom with a bathroom and a balcony)
- numbers and times very useful - use them to 'ramp up' marks, you drank two orange juices on your holiday :P
- handful of pets/animals (You went to the petting zoo on holiday!)

I managed to come out of mine with a C with no affinity for languages (I'm a chemist) using basically the above information

Is there any chance of getting him a tutor? It really falls in to place once you can get the rules understood.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

is this affecting his ability to concerntrate on his other subjects?
then if it is then its detrimental to him and school that they understand that this subject is doing more harm than good to his grades in all subjects not just this one.

when i dropped subjects in school i was told to go to the library and concerntrate and study for my GCSE's there in my chosen subjects, the extra time gave me a head start over the rest.

MX5huggy

I was your son 17 years ago, please fight to drop it. I did't and wasted time getting an F in French, when I needed to be insuring I got that C in English.

I never ever mentioned my F ever again on a UCAS form, job application etc.

SnowWhiterThanWhite

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

is this affecting his ability to concerntrate on his other subjects?
then if it is then its detrimental to him and school that they understand that this subject is doing more harm than good to his grades in all subjects not just this one.

when i dropped subjects in school i was told to go to the library and concerntrate and study for my GCSE's there in my chosen subjects, the extra time gave me a head start over the rest.

This is exactly what I want for him too.

Thank you all for taking the time to comment - it isn't an easy decision to make.

I just feel that there isn't enough time to try and make up enough ground in order to make any sort of difference to the end result.
The German teacher has given a lot of support, extra classes, he even called me late one evening to discuss progress.
His teacher has practically written out the text in german which my son has to memorise for his oral exam, but, in order to even attempt this, it means less time spent on English/Maths which is my main concern.

It is not a case of simply giving up because it's too hard, I would just rather him come out with grade c's in the main subjects, than struggle with a subject which will affect these grades.

It used to be so simple when I was at school, I can't remember ever getting this stressed or worried about my exams!

Will think about what to do over the holiday.

Thanks again

meritaten

Whatever your decision - I wish your son all the best in his exams! just remember its not the Be all and end all of life!
I too, think its better to excel in a few subjects than be mediocre in all!

moromir

Ok I didn't realise was struggling at this to the expense of maths and english, basically ignore my earlier post, he needs those C's in the core subjects more.

daisiegg

Out of interest, does he have mock exams in January? If so, the school may well change their minds about him dropping German after seeing those results.

Also, you should definitely express your concerns about the effect this is having on his English and maths. After the English fiasco last summer schools are very twitchy about making sure they get their targets for English grades. I know my school is currently looking at removing Y11 students from subjects where they are not going to get a C in order for them to focus on their English and maths. Maybe if you expressed it to the school in terms of 'if he carries on with German not only will he fail German, but he won't get a C in English and maths' that might be something they would respond to!

Good luck to you and your son.

Mankysteve

If they won't let him drop the subject , and there no way you can help him getget a decent grade. Just ignore the subject, I did it for my German Gcse, im dyslexic doing German was pointless but they wouldn't let me drop so it just got ignored. Better loose that one Gcse then loose a load of grades on other s