Oh well, I suppose it was inevitable at some point. I tried in a previous post to be positive about a new new GCSE and wholesale curriculum change. But I have to admit I am struggling with it at the moment. Best to get it out there and then if it all turns out to be a false alarm, then all shall be well and the Nice Man can go back to being nice.
I don't think other subjects are having a new new GCSE. This seems to be just for Modern Languages, somehow based on the 2016 Curriculum Review. This is the first thing I am struggling with. The Review took place in 2016. Which is the same year we started teaching the new GCSE. So how could they recommend that we needed a new new GCSE?
Furthermore, it means the Review was based on looking at MFL teaching in the landscape of the old "Learn Fancy Answers by Rote" GCSE which did so much to destroy the teaching of spontaneous speaking. So the conclusions of the Review and the proposals for a new new GCSE are in danger of responding to the wrong problems.
In addition, since 2016 there has been a sea-change in MFL teaching, with more and more schools starting to teach with chunks of recombinable language. This has been driven by the new GCSE which requires pupils to be able to speak and write in response to unpredictable questions. And the standard of extended writing, for example, is unrecognisable since the days of ofsted MFL reports deploring pupils' inability to write.
In a video in an earlier post, I describe how I move from chunking to manipulation of language as part of developing pupil spontaneity and independence. This popularity of chunking (pupils learning powerful language which can be recombined without manipulation of inflections) has been a strong movement in UK schools in the years since the Review. But the proposed new new GCSE ignores this and concentrates on manipulation, aiming first for grammatical knowledge rather than for growing communication. Wherever you stand on the manipulation-chunking spectrum, the proposals are based on an out of date Review. If they end up forcing teachers to throw away everything they have developed since the Review, we risk coming up with not just an answer to the wrong problem, but with the wrong answer to the wrong problem.
Much has been made of the use of corpora to define the vocabulary for the new new GCSE. I think we must have some misconceptions here that could be easily corrected. There are absurdities such as the fact that the grammatical content stipulates the difference between jouer au / jouer de for to play sport or to play an instrument. Yet apparently no sports or instruments are in the high frequency language list. This has led to confusion as to what topics will be in the syllabus or whether it can in some way be topic free. In some ways, the debate is irrelevant. Primary teachers will continue to use songs, stories and CLIL teaching, rich in vocabulary. And we should do the same at KS3. So what is the point of the vocabulary lists?
It seems to be an attempt to solve some of the problems around the Listening and Reading papers. These were problematic in the old GCSE and continue to be problematic in the new GCSE. But thinking that this can be solved by defining the vocabulary to be learned, seems a naive misconception. There will be no change to grading, so the same numbers of pupils will have to continue to get questions wrong. Making the exam more accessible by limiting the vocabulary to be learned, will reinforce the need for the exam board to make questions "tricky".
We already have questions where there is too much focus on language features rather than meaning. The Reading texts are on deliberately obscure topics to prevent pupils from using context and other reading strategies. The Listening is deliberately stripped of all listening cues, and is basically a Reading you have to do in your head. The new proposals for dictation, rather than responding to this problem, would seem to push it further to the extreme.
The worst aspect of the proposed new new GCSE is the apparent lack of a Conversation element in the Speaking. It is as if they have responded to the old Rote Learning of Fancy Answers GCSE (the Review happened in 2016) by abandoning all hope of pupils learning to extend answers spontaneously, developing their answers in response to further questioning.
I show in the video on a previous post how successful the development of a growing repertoire can be. I believe it is also fundamental to language-learning. It works through a carefully constructed and balanced curriculum, fine-tuned over decades. It ensures that there is progression in pupils' accumulation of language, while at every stage making sure they can use what they are learning to express themselves. And spend time making sure they can use it well. This is more than a "nice thing" to put in place. For any learning to happen, and for language-learning in particular, there has to be a process of systematization in the pupil's mind, a core of learning to which more and more is added.
We know the dangers of piecemeal learning, where what is new pushes out what was learned previously and the learning never adds up to anything. This may be another misconception about the new new GCSE, but I understood Michael Wardle to say in his talk at Language World, that he is happy for the pupil to acquire grammatical knowledge and only be able to use it to communicate at a later stage.
I hope this turns out to be a misunderstanding which can be addressed. But even if it turns out that the idea of a growing core repertoire is one we can hang on to, it seems that the language that makes up that core may have to be scrapped. At the moment, as I show in the video on the earlier post, pupils build proficiency in a repertoire that accumulates: Opinions, reasons (verb + infinitive), tenses, narration, difference of opinion, direct speech, narration combining tenses, disappointment and hope. This is to meet the GCSE criteria based around opinions, reasons, tenses and narration. It seems likely that these criteria will no longer hold sway. So a new core of language for a new purpose will have to be developed.
Ofsted is soon to produce more up to date reports on the MFL teaching landscape. Perhaps these will note the transformation in pupils' writing, a return to spontaneous speaking and the widespread use of chunking. Although, having said that, I suspect that ofsted are also looking through the lens of "phonics, high frequency vocabulary and grammar". Of course language-learning involves phonics, vocabulary and grammar. That doesn't mean that they should be separated out and tested separately. Taking things apart is easy. It's putting them together that matters. And in language-learning, it is how to put the process together that is being fine-tuned and tweaked. Throwing out the babies and the bathwater is never a good idea.
Please do read the previous more positive posts on Curriculum Change and watch the video on developing spontaneous speaking under the post on the One Nice Thing about the New (current) GCSE. And the Nice Man will get back to posting nice thoughts as soon as he can!
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