Has it all been a big horrendous mistake?

 I need more space than a tweet to explain why I think the new GCSE that we may end up with is just a big horrendous mistake. So here goes:

The reforms in the GCSE (alongside Ofsted and NCELP) seem to want an end to random vocabulary items, and an overall accumulation of language rather than topics. I have said in previous posts that the current GCSE is an excellent fit for this. The Speaking and Writing exams are best taught with a core repertoire of language rather than by topics. And the Listening and Reading exams are largely built out of high frequency non topic language. And it's the non topic language which is vital for the questions and the markscheme.

My contention in a previous post was that the GCSE panel may have been familiar with the current GCSE in the specification, but not with how it has worked out in practice. I would say in 2019, I hadn't fully fathomed it either. For example, on paper, there is a very long list of random topic vocabulary. Which it turns out teachers can ignore because the key to the Listening and Reading exams is the non topic vocabulary.

I have said all this before, but today I tried to explain this to a member of the GCSE panel on twitter. I couldn't understand how it could be decided in 2019 to scrap the then brand new GCSE. Which had been presented as a generational shift reintroducing translation and the rigour of written exams. His answer was that in 2019 it was clear that the recently introduced GCSE was not working. He said that there was clamour on facebook from teachers, and he said that no-one could defend it.

Is this why we've been through all this? Because of clamour on facebook from teachers struggling with what was then the new specification?

I would say that we were daunted. We were daunted by the long vocabulary list. And the amount of content we thought you would have to get through. And how to prepare pupils to talk on so many topics. But teachers and the exam boards have found solutions to these issues. 

We are not daunted anymore by the long vocabulary list. We know to focus on the non topic section at the start of the list.  AQA do drop in one or two of the more random words into the exam each year ("hake", "hooligan"...) but otherwise the key is to learn the non topic words. And the overload of topics? This is precisely what has made the current GCSE such a good fit for what the GCSE panel say they want. It's the number of topics which has pushed teachers away from rote learning and towards a core of language that works across topics.

I was always baffled that the new GCSE should be based on the 2016 review into teaching in the landscape of the old Controlled Assessment GCSE which destroyed language learning. But if it was because of the "clamour" from teachers adapting to the first cohorts taking the new GCSE, then this is such a tragic mistake. Because those adaptations, moving away from rote learning and towards accumulating a core of language, are exactly what the new GCSE panel ended up prescribing.

And because the current GCSE is such a good fit for these aims, there is the distinct possibility that the new one actually ends up as a retreat from this. The new vocabulary list may have fewer random topic items. But it will still have them. And this time, instead of being an irrelevant half-forgotten list in the spec, it will be central to how the exam is built. The boards will need to construct their texts and tasks from these vocabulary items, making sure they are all tested in rotation. And if the focus switches to testing pupils' knowledge of items rather than how well they can use their language to express themselves, then the focus on a core repertoire will be diminished, with a topic approach strengthened. And if the Speaking tasks are to require short accurate answers phrasebook style, then rote learning will again score higher than where pupils accumulate a repertoire they can deploy. Think of how the current Role Play works, where pupils who try to extend or express themselves score worse than someone with a ready answer. This is the sort of task the panel's brief to the boards calls for.

So the new GCSE panel may not have realised just what a good fit the current GCSE is for their declared aims. And they may have created something that actually works out worse. We are in the hands of the exam boards. We don't know what they are going to propose. Will they be able to keep a Conversation in the exam? Where there can be interaction and follow up questions? And the pupil is rewarded for extending and developing answers spontaneously drawing on a core of language they can use to express themselves? We can only hope the exam boards are wiser and better listeners compared to what we have seen in the political decision making.