What Role Will Role Plays Play in deciding between exam boards?

 Looking at the new GCSE specifications from AQA and Edexcel, it's the Speaking Exam that draws most of my attention. Because I feel this is the one that will have the most impact on what happens in the classroom.

Perhaps I am wrong here. Dr Rachel Hawkes warns against over-preparing pupils for the speaking exam, resulting in the Listening and the Reading grade boundaries having to work overtime to discriminate between pupils of different grades. But it always seems the case that pupils are either prepared for the speaking exam or not. And looking at the array of tasks they will face - reading aloud, role play, photo description, compulsory questions, conversation - it's going to take quite a lot of preparation just to negotiate the ins and outs of the tasks: 

Keeping track of whether to give a short answer or a long answer; if you are talking about the photo; if you are in character; if you are being yourself; if you are talking about the topic of the photo; if you've moved to a different topic now; if you are reading a text without worrying about meaning; if you are reading your notes; if you are listening and responding; if you are against the clock... I had to use semi-colons in that sentence which is always a sign that something is too long, convoluted and getting out of control.

In a previous post, I already looked at where the new exam gives scope for responding spontaneously to questions. Next, I want to look at the Role Plays and see how they fit in with the obstacle course of demands on pupils.

Both exam boards have Role Plays which pupils can look at in their preparation time. They can write out their answers and read them out. For both exam boards the Role Play is worth 10 marks. For short full-sentence answers. There are no marks for extending or developing, and no marks for the quality of language used.

AQA Role Play Marks

Edexcel Role Play Marks

Ostensibly these are marked solely for communication of the message. But the word "ambiguity" is a slightly ambiguous way of bringing in accuracy marks. By pretending that the message hasn't been fully understood because of some error or omission. For example Edexcel, which is selling their spec on the grounds of containing "real life communication", has the following guidance for a role play in a tourist information office:

Edexcel "partially communicated"

Asking for a plan of the town without a verb, is deemed to be only partial communication. Odd, I know. Especially as phrasebook learning of things like je voudrais is the opposite of what this exam was meant to be about.

This is at the heart of the difference between the two exam boards when it comes to Role Plays. Edexcel have ignored the new focus on teaching well sequenced grammar and vocabulary in that they have gone for situational role plays. Which smacks of pre-learned phrases.

The Edexcel Role Play will always be in one of the following formal transactional situations: 

Café / restaurant, shop / market / shopping centre, hotel, railway station, tourist information office, cinema / theatre / concert hall, campsite, leisure centre, doctor's surgery / hospital, in town.

Confusingly perhaps, it says the pupils won't have to use the formal register. At Foundation Tier answers are in the present tense or in familiar set phrases (!) such as je voudrais. And the pupil will have to ask the examiner one question. At Higher Tier, one of the bullet points will always be in a future time frame. And the pupil will have to ask the examiner two questions.

Personally, I am absolutely gobsmacked by the decision to go for transactional Role Plays. It seems almost to be going back to the teaching of phrasebook functions for a series of situations that we used to teach in the 1990s. The exact opposite of where the new GCSE was supposed to be taking us.

And it also seems potentially incompatible with the defined vocabulary list. The Sample Assessment Materials seem to draw very heavily on the 15% of words the exam boards were allowed from beyond the 2000 highest frequency words. They have to design tasks that can be carried out only using words on the list. The transactional words are very restricted - they have had to include a few items of food or clothing to work with. But this could quickly become unsustainable, as the exam must not repeat the same items year after year. Which means that the "transactional" role plays may not be as transactional as you are expecting. And Edexcel have form on this. In the current GCSE, the Edexcel "in a restaurant" Role Plays can take a sudden and disturbing turn, where you ask for the menu, and the waiter asks if you are alone and new in town and if you have any plans for later.

Sure enough, here is an example Role Play from the new Edexcel GCSE Sample Assessment Materials.

Edexcel sample role play

It's in a transactional situation. The first bullet is a je voudrais set phrase with one of the drink items from the vocab list. At a quick glance I have spotted coffee, tea, milk and water as the options. The second is a set phrase for asking how much something costs. With a choice of chocolate, cheese, French stick, ice cream, pasta, rice, fish, fruit, egg, cake, sugar or rabbit. The third bullet point is an opinion, with one of the aforementioned food items. Then the fourth is the future reference, answering one of the nosy waiter's impertinent questions. And finally the second question to be asked by the pupil, which is a mixture of a set phrase to ask "at what hour" and maybe a set phrase about closing, or perhaps testing the grammar/vocabulary knowledge to concoct a sentence.

Can't help wondering about the turn this has taken, with the pupil responding to the waiter enquiring about whether they have any plans for later, by asking what time they finish work...

Here's another example from Edexcel:

Edexcel sample role play

Again, it's a mish-mash. Some situational language learned phrasebook style. Some opinion/tense questions. Having the cues in English was meant to make the Role Play clearer, but even so, there are some questions on these sample role plays that leave me scratching my head. "Say why you are in France." Or "Say why your friend is paying." Taken in the high stakes exam context of constant chopping and changing between being yourself, being in character, talking about a photo, this topic, that topic, short answers, long answers... there is still the potential for pupils to be bamboozled and just not knowing what to say. I don't want my pupils to be bamboozled.

And I don't really want my teaching to be a mish-mash. I will have to have planned a grammar progression that covers the spec, building in each new item as part of the pupils' growing conceptualisation and repertoire. I will want to make sure they can express themselves on any topic, using opinions and reasons and tenses to develop an answer where required. I will need to be covering a huge vocabulary list of adverbs and adjectives. In addition to all this, do I really also want to have to fit in phrasebook learning for situational role plays that may or may not turn out to be situational transactional role plays? It seems like a whole extra dimension to the course for just 10 marks. Some people may love this idea. But I don't think I do.

So what do AQA role plays look like? Here's some.

AQA sample role play

AQA sample role play

In terms of the exam, these AQA Role Plays don't require the pupil to suddenly imagine they are in character ("Say why your friend is paying."?!?!?!) or in a bizarre conversation with a creepy waiter. 

And in terms of planning and teaching, they don't need me to teach set phrases in addition to the repertoire of vocabulary and grammar pupils are learning for the rest of the exam. In fact these AQA "Role Play" questions seem entirely in-line with the type of compulsory questions that follow the Read Aloud and Photo Card tasks (see previous post) and the Conversation questions I will be asking. I won't have to teach pupils a separate set of rote-learned language just for the Role Plays if we go with AQA.

I don't know if Role Plays will be the deciding factor for me in choosing between the specifications. There is a clear difference here between the boards which could make it easy to decide. There may be other features which could push me in the other direction. And of course I could be wrong or you may love the real life dimension or even the learning of useful phrases. This may be a really important feature for you. We will have to keep up the debate and sharing insights as we come to our own conclusions.