The MFL Rebel !

Doing what it takes to boost MFL uptake

After well over 500 MFL career talks, Sanako UK now has data on the number of students who have opted to take a GCSE language where previously they were reluctant to do so. We know what inspires students to take a language and what puts them off.

Below are a series of emails from busy MFL teachers where they have identified student feedback, who are the people we need to enthuse about MFL, and what they think about languages. Many MFL teachers have now started to refer to our UK Director as The MFL Rebel for both saying and doing the right thing, often against establishment thinking!

We have posted these anonymously, but do have data if required.

2025 - School in Scotland

David,

Thank you so much for today, it was fantastic!! I’ve currently got some of the younger students who you spoke to after break and had some amazing feedback. This is also a lower set who find languages tricky and are often put off.

“The best speaker we’ve ever had in school.”

“He was so funny and cool and made me want to learn languages more.”

“Can you ask him to come back as I want to hear his talk again!”

And a personal favourite “He was the only speaker we’ve had who didn’t make me sleepy.”

Merci mille fois! Muchísimas gracias!

2025 - School in Birmingham

Dear David

I cant thank you enough for your talk to our Year 9 today, amazing! I have never seen them so hyper and enthusiastic about languages. You are a fantastic MFL Rebel who really understands the needs of language teachers in school, not the perceived needs which many of our national languages leaders follow without question or results. You should be placed in an advisory capacity for a national languages lead. I struggle to comprehend why they are not supporting in this endeavour when they should be all over you. Dont stop what you are doing, we need you!

Ellie - " I thought if i took a language at school I had to be a language teacher, but it helps me do anything I want"

Betsy - " I did not like languages, but I am going to ask Miss if it can help me get a job"

Thomas - "Languages can help me be a footballer, but he supports Leeds, I dont want to play for Leeds"

Ryan - " He made me find languages interesting and it will help me get a job in science"

Jake - "The speaker was really old but spoke about languages in a different way, made me realise things"

2025 - School in East Midlands

Hi David,

Many apologies for the delay in getting back to you. First of all, many thanks for making the journey down to our school to give not just one but two great presentations.

Although we will not be know the outcome of the options process for a month or so, the feedback I have received has been so positive from the students who said how engaging the presentation was (including some comments about the 'brilliant' presenter!) to the staff who were in the hall who were just as impressed. Our Head of Careers attended one of the sessions and went out of his way to say how good it was.

As I said when we chatted before the first session, it is brilliant to see you have this positive impact across the country. Long may it continue! Thank you again.

2025 - School in the North West

Hi Michelle and Catherine,

I just wanted to send a quick email to say thank you to you both for today’s awesome Language Hub event. The effort you put into organising it is really appreciated, and it was wonderful to see our students so engaged and inspired.

David Binns was an excellent guest speaker, and the students came away with such positive reflections on the experience. Their feedback has been overwhelmingly positive —they were really motivated by the talk and workshops and gained a fresh perspective on the importance of languages.

We did a 40 minute session with our 26 students after we returned and they were able to clearly articulate all of the benefits of learning a language. I'll also add that these were 26 students I identified as being reluctant linguists.

Thank you both for making this opportunity possible. It was a real success, and I hope it will become an annual thing!

Head of Modern Languages

2025 - School in the South Midlands

Morning David,

Thanks so much, feedback is still coming in from the pupils, but so far has been really positive. I thought you might like to see some of the comments from the feedback form below:

This question asked about their favourite activity in the day:

This question asked: 'do you feel more likely to choose a language after the MFL day?'

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