The standard of MFL teaching in the state system varies so wildly from school to school, it's a genuine lottery.
My brother never had any natural aptitude for it but when he showed me what he'd been "taught" as he prepared for his French GCSE I (at 18, taking my A-Levels, we didn't go to the same school) was shocked. More or less a series of stock phrases to be reeled off, no technique, no vocabulary, no grammar underpinning it, nothing beyond parroting Ladybird book crap. So I chipped in and helped him out with a piece of coursework and he was subsequently described as "our star pupil" when my parents went to the next parents' evening
He still owes me for that 25 years on I reckon.
We don't pay it anything like the heed that we should, even allowing for my obvious bias.