So, with the new GCSE proposals proceeding to the next stage, with Ofqual preparing the technical brief for the exam boards to work with, where are we up to with the triple pronged drive (from Ofsted, GCSE and NCELP) for a paradigm shift in languages teaching?
The OFSTED Research Review
The OFSTED prong of the offensive has run into some trouble. A special edition of the Language Learning Journal (open access until 30th May 2022) has picked apart much of the detail of the simplistic assertions in the OFSTED Research Review. But more importantly, it has discredited its claim to be a "research review" at all. Revealing it to be partial, political and prescriptive. It sets out a political point of view about learning, and then adduces some purported evidence.
This LLJ edition contains articles by leading figures in language-teaching research, including some whose work is referenced by the OFSTED report. To say it is scathing, is an understatement. The "research review" is savaged in the specific detail of its assertions, for example in the key areas of pupil self-efficacy or high frequency vocabulary. It is torn apart for its lack of rigour, with Professor Milton taking to twitter to point out that on the key topic of vocabulary, the "research review" does not reference a single book.
A real research review would not have an over-simplistic politically orthodox single point of view. This leaves us in a situation where we have to be familiar with the ideas favoured by OFSTED, but able to see them as "contestable and contested" (in OFSTED's own words).
The new GCSE proposals
The new GCSE prong pushes on regardless. It moves from the nebulous panel of political appointees to the experts of OFQUAL and the exam boards who will try to make the proposals work.
The exam boards will try to make the exam as similar as possible to what we are used to. And in many areas this won't be hard. The Listening and Reading exams are already too focused on testing specific language features instead of meaning. They already test high frequency vocabulary much more than topic vocabulary (unless the 2020 hake signals a change in the nature of the AQA Spanish exams). The new exams will be very similar, but perhaps slightly worse. The focus on testing recognition of items of language, rather than comprehension of the text, will now be explicit. And with the reduced and defined vocabulary, the exams will need to be even more tricksy in order to get the spread of marks required.
The Speaking exam will have very familiar Role Plays and Photo Cards. They will test pupils' knowledge of items of language in short undeveloped responses. There will be a new reading aloud task, followed by questions on the text or on the topic of the text. The big difference will be in once again removing any idea of teaching pupils to develop spontaneous responses. The Writing may continue in a similar form but with even more focus on translation in order to test specific language features. So a damage limitation exercise for the exam boards, but in terms of teaching pupils to develop ideas in spontaneous speech and unrehearsed writing, the damage is already done.
NCELP
NCELP is the third prong of this push for us to change our values and aims. It would be nice to see NCELP as trusted expert body producing quality materials we can use to improve our teaching and the profile of languages. And help us deal with the introduction of a new paradigm. And even better if it had set out to work with schools in areas with low take-up or low achievement in languages and shown how a different approach can transform progress and attitudes.
Unfortunately poor political choices have not helped. Firstly, NCELP has been too closely associated with the controversy around the new GCSE and the OFSTED research review. Secondly, the hub schools were invited based on already having good take-up and results at GCSE. This meant it felt like a reward for a select bunch and a kick in the teeth for other schools. Obviously no slight intended for the teachers working in these schools or the people developing the NCELP materials!
It is worth bearing in mind that good take-up is usually linked to the school's intake of pupils and primarily linked to the way GCSE options are structured, with some schools making languages compulsory for all or for some of their pupils. Good results may be linked to the school's intake or be a feature of the whole school's results, rather than indicating that the languages department is doing something extraordinary. Especially as we are talking about their results under the old highly problematic Controlled Assessment GCSE.
But more important is the fact that they have made it almost impossible to show the effect of their approach in the pilot schools. They needed to have trialed the materials in geographically well-distributed schools with low or average up-take in order to show improvement and to engage with schools looking to increase up-take. When the KS3 Framework of Objectives for Modern Languages came out, it was the result of transformative work in schools over several years. By comparison we are being asked to switch to something untried, untested and as yet unevaluated.
I have spoken with teachers who have used the NCELP materials and they like the planning of recycling of language. It's too soon to say if it has been transformative. Partly due to disruption caused by COVID, of course. I would love to read an honest warts and all research write-up of the NCELP project. But at the moment we have little snippet testimonials designed to off-set their negative association with the OFSTED / GCSE debacle.
Paradigm shift
Of course, in the face of this triple pronged push, we have to make up our own minds what to do. And consider the issues raised. This blog has documented my attempts to understand and engage with the thinking behind the paradigm shift.
In language-teaching terms, it seems that the changes are a response to out of date reactions to how languages may or may not have been taught in the past. So in the 1990s when Languages for All meant a change to the cohort of learners, maybe teachers opted for an approach which meant:
Not showing the written form, in order to focus on good pronunciation, at the expense of the sound-spelling link.
Teaching whole functional phrases, avoiding translating the individual components into English.
A focus on ticking off what pupils could say and what situations they could deal with, at the expense of recycling and building a repertoire.
A focus on meaning, "authentic" communication rather than on grammatical forms. And a syllabus that expected pupils to pick up grammar implicitly by long term exposure to language.
But that was the 1990s. And we have moved on from all of those things.
The OFSTED - GCSE - NCELP push is a push against things we've all been pushing against for over 20 years. Even more explicitly, it's a response to the 2016 Review of language teaching by something called the Teaching Schools Council. This was looking at teaching in the landscape of the old Controlled Assessment GCSE which actively militated against good language teaching. It rewarded the rote-learning of answers containing lots of "information" and fancy expressions over the ability to use a repertoire of language to express yourself. In a loud warning to the exam boards, this was an unintended consequence of the Dearing Review's wish to make the Speaking exam more accessible.
The current OFSTED - GCSE - NCELP push is explicitly driven by this 2016 review. And they are proud of the fact that they are "evidence based" and "research based". It would be much better then, if they had evidence and research that isn't six years out of date. Things have moved on in language-teaching. The new GCSE does not reward rote-learned answers. We can return to how our teaching was evolving in the 2000s. Many teachers have embraced an approach based on developing fluency through scaffolded use of an expanding core repertoire and pupils' ability to use it more and more independently.
But the new orthodoxy is not ultimately based in language-teaching. It is part of a wider political project: the Knowledge Curriculum. It is true that historically a right-wing orthodoxy has seen language as an intellectual system rather than as a means of communication. But the ideology is wider than language-teaching. It is part of a political project that focuses on conformist memorisation of "important knowledge" rather than developing pupils' skills, voices and creativity. With the aim that schools equip pupils to be inserted into the status quo. But without the idea that they can create their own destinies or shape society.
Originally it claimed that the way to teach skills was to break them down into knowledge. And that this was inclusive and democratic, giving the stepping stones of success to all pupils. But it has completely forgotten this promise. The languages version of this is a great example. You might have thought that they wanted thorough sequencing of learning so that all pupils could master the skills of communicating and interacting with the target language culture. But as in other subjects, this has been truncated to a version based on memorisation and testing in the service of gate-keeping for the elite.
Decisions
The failure of this project to engage and convince, leaves us in an uncomfortable position. There has been a lively debate, and we have tried to consider our own teaching in the light of their ideas. The fact that two of the prongs of their push come with considerable force and enforcement (the new GCSE and OFSTED) makes it unpleasant and high-stakes. Along with the challenge to our core values of communication and culture, the idea that we have been doing it wrong, and that we have failed. This way of managing change is very threatening. And we have to try to take it back and make decisions on our own terms.
The ideas we have to consider are:
Do we believe that language learning is primarily about memorisation, concepts and patterns in an abstract intellectual way, rather than learning to communicate?
Do we believe that our focus on communication has given rise to a focus on a plethora of "things pupils can say" but no clear understanding of the building blocks?
Do we believe that the meticulous logical sequencing of the learning is the basis for the language we select to teach, not the things pupils might want to say?
We can base our answers on our own experience and practice and on the wider reading that is missing from the Ofsted Research Review. Steve Smith posted this link to an article by Scott Thornbury where he looks at the answer to the question of whether language learning is about re-constructing the linguist's grammar in the brain of the pupil. Thornbury is very clear that we are not working with the linguist's grammar - taking apart the whole grammatical system as understood by someone looking at the language - and somehow transferring this to the pupils' brain. Instead, he says we should work with the learner's grammar. He doesn't use the word "interlanguage" but this is the concept. Our job is to curate the growing conceptualisation of a repertoire of language.
Thornbury uses an excellent metaphor for this process. He says that you don't make an omelet by cutting up an omelet and trying to build a new one out of the pieces. You make an omelet by taking raw ingredients and letting them cook.
I'm going to finish with what I wrote when I first began to understand that OFSTED want us to be chopping up and re-forming omelets:
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