Guest Post: A turning point...

In a major Camarón de la Isla / Bob Dylan / Judas Iscariot / Keith Jarrett adopts electric amplified music turn of events, I interviewed Gemini AI on a turning point in Language Teaching in English schools. Here is its summary of our conversation.

 The Bauckham Report: Why MFL is Finally Ready to Turn the Page

For nearly a decade, the 2016 Bauckham Report (the Modern Foreign Languages Pedagogy Review) has acted as the "north star" for language education in England. Led by Ian Bauckham and heavily championed by the Department for Education, it promised to rescue a "fragile" subject by returning to basics: Phonics, Vocabulary, and Grammar.

However, as we enter 2026, the cracks in this "knowledge-rich" foundation have become impossible to ignore. From its failure to understand the trauma of the "Controlled Assessment" years to its silence on the grading crisis, the report is increasingly seen not as a cure, but as a misdiagnosis.

Here is why it is time for the MFL community to move on.

1. Fighting a War That Had Already Ended

The report’s most significant flaw was its historical timing. It spent much of its energy attacking the "rote-learning" and "memorized chunks" that defined the Controlled Assessment (CA) era (2009–2016).

What the report failed to acknowledge was that teachers didn't choose rote learning because they hated grammar; they chose it because the assessment system punished anything else. By the time the report’s recommendations were being implemented, CAs had already been abolished. Teachers were already pivoting toward spontaneity for the new linear exams. The Bauckham report was essentially providing a map for a territory that had already changed.

2. The "Three Pillars" vs. The Human Element

The report introduced the "Three Pillars" model:

Phonics: Sound-symbol correspondence.

Vocabulary: High-frequency word lists.

Grammar: Systematic structural progression.

While these are essential building blocks, the report treated them as the entire building. By narrowing the focus to these mechanics, the curriculum often stripped away culture, identity, and real communication. Students might know the 1,700 most common words, but if they can’t use them to talk about their own lives or understand a different culture, the "why" of language learning disappears.

3. The Silence on Severe Grading

Perhaps the report’s greatest "blind spot" was grading severity. For years, data has shown that it is significantly harder to get a top grade in a language than in History or Geography.

By focusing purely on pedagogy (how we teach), the Bauckham report implicitly blamed teachers for the decline in student numbers. It ignored the fact that many students drop languages not because the lessons are "bad," but because they are "strategic." They know a language GCSE is a higher risk to their grade average. It wasn't until 2024 and 2025 that we saw adjustments from Ofqual to address this—an intervention the 2016 report should have championed from the start.

4. A "Prescriptive" Future?

The 2024 GCSE reforms (being examined for the first time this year, 2026) are the ultimate legacy of the Bauckham report. They feature:

Strict Vocabulary Lists: 1,200 to 1,700 "word families."

No Unfamiliar Material: A permanent removal of "abstract" or "unseen" language.

Dictation and Reading Aloud: A heavy focus on phonics.

While these changes aim for "accessibility," critics argue they make the subject "dry" and "mechanical." Instead of opening doors to a global world, the curriculum has become a closed loop of pre-defined words.

Conclusion: Time for a New Narrative

The 2016 Bauckham report was a product of its time—an attempt to bring "rigor" to a subject in crisis. But "rigor" without relevance is a recipe for further decline.

To save MFL, we must move beyond the "Three Pillars" and embrace a model that values the multilingualism of our students, the cultural depth of our subjects, and—above all—the simple joy of being understood in another language.

You can read more of my original interview with Gemini here, including its views on how an obscure, flawed report came to have such political influence. And in Gemini's words, become "weaponised" against the profession.

Let's enjoy and celebrate!

 This post is to start the year with some absolutely delightful examples of pupils' work. Have a look and see if it brightens your day the same way it did mine!

Year 9 French Written Assessment October

Year 9 French Written Assessment October

These are done in test conditions without special warning or preparation. You can see from the tickbox criteria at the bottom that the pupils understand that writing spontaneously from French they know, will score at a different level than pre-planning and learning. In fact, I shouldn't have used the words "score" or "level", because the statements are descriptive and informative rather than linked to ranking or judgements.

You can see that the pupils have also commented on their work, starting with specifying that they challenged themselves to write this using their own repertoire of French. They may also have volunteered a comment on the quality of the work, or further information on their experience of the process of creating it. 

Here are some more.

Year 9 Writing Assessment October

Perhaps the most important thing for me here, is that this writing assessment is not an exercise in demonstrating that they can correctly use certain items of language. In all cases, the pupils are driven by wanting to say things. True things, fun things, silly things, imaginary things, sad things, vindictive things, and sometimes run out of things and not really know what to put things. Their comments at the end show that sometimes they know that things weren't quite "right" or that they took risks. They are doing this in the confidence that both they and the reader understand they are on a journey with language learning, where their ability to express themselves is central and being developed.

There are aspects of this work that I can follow up in another post: How does this written work correspond to their ability to speak with increasing fluency? What feedback should I give on the work? What does it show about chunking of language versus manipulation of atomised language? I have plenty to say on all of these, both to them and also on here. But for now, let's start the year by just enjoying and celebrating this!

Year 9 Written Assessment October