I've had at least two goes already at tackling the implications of the High Frequency Vocabulary List for the new GCSE. Wouldn't it be nice if we could put it to bed for ever? And even better if I could conclude that this means we need to change NOTHING for the new GCSE. An opportunity to change things we want to change. But NEED to change...? Maybe not!
The Vocabulary List was a promise and a threat.
The promise was that it would give a defined list of words for pupils to learn. Then they would be tested on whether they had learned what they were supposed to be learning. It would get rid of the situation where the exam contained unknown words that pupils were meant to deduce. Or bizarre words that were on the vocabulary list but no-one taught. And more fundamentally, it was part of a push away from a topic based approach where words were seen in one context and then never met again.
It promised to solve the perceived problem of the current GCSE, where there is a big discrepancy between the words learned for the speaking and writing exam (opinions, reasons, tenses and topic words), and the words learned for the listening and reading exam. This promise was always bogus. Because we don't in fact make pupils learn the whole list of words from the specification. If merluza or gamberro come up in the exam, we take that hit for a couple of marks. What we do ask pupils to learn is the list of non-topic words such as few, often, some, early, more, worst which the exam boards love to test. This kind of high frequency non-topic words is nothing new.
And of course, it does nothing to get rid of the real problems of the listening and reading exams: the tricks and traps. In fact, with a defined vocabulary list to learn, there may have to be more of these, because the same number of pupils will still have to get the questions wrong, even if they have learned the words.
The promise was bogus because while it offered the hope of reducing (or defining) the vocabulary demands, and unifying the words learned for speaking/writing and listening/reading, it has done no such thing. The word list basically does not apply for speaking and writing. There is no way that teachers are going to say to pupils, "You might like skating, but we're not learning that word because it's not in the exam, say football instead." Or in a French restaurant in 2040, a father says to his child, "I can't order chicken, it wasn't on the exam vocabulary list. You'll HAVE to have the rabbit instead."
If the GCSE panel wanted us to have speaking and writing tasks where pupils didn't want to say skating or chicken, then they should have gone with the calls from @MFLTransform and others for a curriculum based not around pupils' multifarious and trivial interests, but based on the study of culture. This would also have given a push to move away from the 1st person domination of the course and the language.
And a High Frequency Vocabulary approach should have been compatible with use of authentic (or modified) cultural materials. If these are the words that appear in all texts, then a switch to a focus on high frequency vocabulary should have been the key to properly unlocking real texts. Somehow the Ofsted Research Review managed to conclude that authentic texts were unsuitable at the "novice" stage. Because they hold the view that meaning is arrived at by word by word parsing of known words and grammar, and that reading texts should be for modelling the language pupils are learning to speak and write.
It seems perverse that we ended up with a High Frequency Vocabulary approach, matched to a specification which presents itself as being based around individual inclusive first person lifestyles. The diversity and individuality don't seem to fit at all with the approach that we should stop teaching all the words for every pupil's pet or hobbies or nationality.
And given the nature of the tasks, this approach is not going to prevail. We will not be cutting out the words that pupils need in order to talk about themselves and their lives.
So that was the promise. Not going to happen.
What about the threat?
The threat is that even if we don't want to follow this approach, the new GCSE is going to push us in that direction. Our old texts and resources will be full of words pupils don't need. And missing the words they now need. And if we try to write our own new texts, they will be full of the wrong words. We'll be tearing our hair out to write texts and tasks that only use words that are on the list.
Can we put that threat to bed? Certainly for the speaking and writing, we can continue to teach exactly as we always have. The pupils are going to have to answer the same sorts of questions, perform the same sorts of tasks, and tick the same boxes as always.
And for listening and reading? Well, nothing's changed. We've exchanged one vocabulary list in the spec that no-one looks at, for another. Look at the new vocabulary list. Do any of the words on there actually scare us? Not really. Pupils might meet them during the course or they might not. They might just meet them on some cards or a list of words to be learned. Are they going to meet them throughout the course in different contexts, carefully tracking and meticulously planning how many times and at what intervals they meet each word? For 1750 words? Not going to happen. Time to relax and stop pretending it's going to.
And like that, in a puff of smoke, all the issues of the new GCSE disappeared into thin air. Empty promises. But also empty threats. If we stop believing in the good (or bad) vocabulary fairy, then you can do exactly what you want for the new GCSE. So stop worrying and start looking at it as an opportunity.
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