Getting started with the new GCSE

 The first half term with the new GCSE! Wishing maybe I'd brought some books home to illustrate some things in this post. But then again, no thanks. I'll leave it all at school if you don't mind!

For French, I put in place booklets for Module 0 (before starting the textbook) and to accompany Module 1 of the book. This was to make sure teachers and pupils were focusing on the transferable core of language and the high frequency non topic language. And working on what pupils can DO with their language as much as on knowledge of language.

This didn't leave me much time to plan the Spanish Scheme of Work or resources. Our French scheme of work is flexible and will be constantly revised as we discover what the new GCSE is actually like. The Spanish scheme of work is even more flexible. I'm just using the old one and changing things as I go! This is also because they basically start Spanish in Year 10. (Year 9 have one lesson a week after school.) So I'm really concentrating on building what the pupils know and can do. With lots of shortcuts and synergies across topics. An accumulation of language and the ability to deploy it is something that I am not prepared to throw away; because it works!

So I started with the topic of Holidays. Not the topic that comes first in the textbook. I wanted to start with a topic that is really strong on the key aspects of the course. Pupils' repertoire of opinions, reasons and references to past, present and future. Key vocabulary for time reference, qualifiers, description. Holidays is great for this. Plus it allows us to look at places in Spain and tell exciting stories. Rather than obscure navel gazing and invasion of pupils' privacy, trying to construct something on a marginal topic like Your Use of Communications Technology. Once we have the core snowball of language, we can easily scoop up things like Technology later on. But it's not the topic I want to start with when I'm trying to get the snowball to gel.

All of my Year 10 can confidently give opinions and reasons. Including other people's opinions to set up a conflict. They can narrate where they went, what they wanted, what people said, what was happening and what happened. They can do this for an amusing incident at an aquarium. Or a theme park. And transfer it to other topics we've not even done yet, for example talking about a lesson in school. There are plenty of posts on this blog looking at exactly this. If you're not familiar with it, here is a good example. It shows how the old GCSE lent itself to this approach. The requirement to "narrate" is no longer there in the new GCSE criteria. But the Conversation now requires pupils to talk for twice as long on one theme compared to the old GCSE. So I am keeping this approach! Plus it contains all the grammar my Year 10 beginners need to have at their fingertips.

Here they are improvising on the idea of different activities for different weather conditions. And including the class's pet obsession which now appears in every piece of work anyone does: rubber ducks!

Going to Cromer and playing on the arcades

As well as the core repertoire, you can see the high frequency vocabulary for time references and qualifiers shining through!

Again, this is something that I always taught. This non topic language is absolutely vital in the out-going GCSE where AQA will give 0 marks for a Reading/Listening answer that doesn't contain words like almost, part of, most... Again, if you aren't teaching this language for the old GCSE, here's a post that will open your eyes!

So what has changed? One important thing is the apparent reduction in topic-relevant vocabulary. I am hearing this from the French teachers too. Teaching Technology without having all the technology words as central. Or in a future unit, teaching TV habits without having all the types of programmes listed. Of course you can still teach pupils how to say, "I have my own youtube channel" even if channel isn't on the list. But you don't set out with the principal objective being for pupils to learn those topic words. It's no longer central.

What are we teaching instead? Well, from the first part of this post, you can see that I am teaching core powerful cross-topic repertoire plus high frequency non-topic words.

You can see this best if you continue to teach with the old textbook together with the new one. There are exercises which look similar, but which show the key differences. For example in the Holidays unit, the old textbook has a listening/reading exercise on accommodation. It contains youth hostel, cruiser, guest house, luxury hotel, campsite... The new textbook has hotel, flat, campsite.

In speaking and writing, the focus is on what you can say about a hotel or a campsite. Not learning all the types of accommodation. In listening and reading, the focus is on the exact detail of the qualifiers. In fact it always was. But now I don't need to feel guilty for skipping youth hostel because I knew we weren't going to see it again ever and it would be forgotten within days.

Here's the list of words my pupils extracted from the Reading/Listening texts on transport and accommodation:

Not a single transport or accommodation word there! And it's prominently located on the inside cover of their exercise book. Because that vocabulary is going to be useful in every unit. I'm hoping that every sub topic doesn't yield that much key vocabulary, because we're going to run out of room on the yellow covers, and because I've told the pupils that this vocabulary will set them up for the whole course. Unlike youth hostel, I am certain they will see these words again and again in Listenings and Readings. In fact they already have. And have another look at the plastic duck writing above and see how these words mesh with their core repertoire for Speaking and Writing.

Plenty of "topic" words have stuck with pupils. This kind of concrete topic vocabulary is easily lapped up. Chubascos stuck literally by me telling them they didn't need to learn it anymore. But our main focus has been on the non topic words.

One last thing on using the old and the new textbook that brings this out. Having worked on accommodation or transport with the new book, you can do the exercises from the old book. And use this to show them how the vocabulary works. But also to show them how AQA questions tend to work. They are NOT comprehension questions in the sense of giving an answer about the information in the text. They are language testing questions where you have to demonstrate you can show your knowledge of the words and structures.

Use the listenings from the old book. Give the pupils the comprehension question "answers" (he stayed in a youth hostel etc). But show them how for AQA this isn't how they view the exam questions. You can see in this example, I gave them the questions. And I gave them an insufficient answer. You can spot these because they have been marked by a cross. Their job is to listen and give the full AQA compliant answer.

What the pupils have to do is focus on the detail of the language around youth hostel, not the youth hostel itself - this is no longer in the exam. What they are listening for is the detail:  near the beach, quite, very, small, a bit. These are the words AQA have always wanted pupils to identify if they are to get the marks. And there they are, right there in the old textbook. But we were being distracted by guest house and cruise ship.

So far so good. I have some things to share in another post related to unexpected questions and the different requirements for the Role Play, Read Aloud Questions and Conversation Questions. But the biggest difference so far is it allows me to continue to teach exactly how I taught the old GCSE, but without worrying so much about cutting corners on youth hostel and lists of topic vocabulary. Because building what pupils can do with a core repertoire is much more important.