Dear Katherine,
Thank you for all you and others are doing to address this important issue.
Here are a few points which I hope may be useful.
The level of a GCSE in Mandarin should represent the same level of
difficulty as a GCSE in any other language and should be based on the
assumption that the language is being learnt from scratch. It should be
possible for an average pupil in a normal teaching situation (mainstream
school /class size 25+ / teaching time 100-120 minutes per week over 4-5
years) and with a competent teacher to achieve as well in Mandarin as in
French. The fact that a high proportion of pupils entered for the exam are
from bilingual backgrounds and achieve at very high level should not be
allowed to skew the expected level of performance to obtain a particular
grade for other pupils.
In deciding on level of difficulty, particular account should be taken of
the considerable challenge represented by the need to learn a very difficult
non-Latin script. The fact that a coursework option is not available for
Chinese writing as in other language GCSEs serves to accentuate differences
in performance in this area.
Discussions I have had with senior managers in a number of schools keen to
develop teaching of Mandarin reflect a serious concern about the difficulty
of the GCSE. It is clear that most schools will not commit to introducing it
on the main timetable until they are satisfied that exam performance scores
will match those achieved with other languages. It is worth noting that,
until recently, a similar situation pertained with regard to Japanese. Here
steps were taken to bring the exam into line with other language GCSEs and
results achieved by non-native speakers are now comparable.
Jim Anderson
Department of Educational Studies
Goldsmiths College
----- Original Message -----
From: "Katharine Carruthers" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 11:41 AM
Subject: [MANDARIN-CHINESE-TEACHING] GCSE Chinese
> Dear All
>
> Since my original email to you about the Chinese GCSE, there has been some
> discussion on the forum and I have had a number of emails from people
> off-forum aswell.
>
> There seems to be a prevailing view that whilst results have been good
> this year, it is still an enormous effort to get students through the
> GCSE - a much greater effort for both teacher and student than for other
> foreign language GCSEs.
>
> It has been suggested that representations should be made by teachers to
> Edexcel, QCA etc to address this. However, in order to put together a
> document to give weight to your views, we do need to use the forum to
> collate exactly what we think about the examination. I have agreed to put
> together your responses via the forum.
>
> The questions seem to be:
> a) Is the exam set at the right level or is it still too difficult?
> b) Should the level of difficulty of the Chinese GCSE be a matter of
> looking at contact hours per GCSE and saying it takes a given number of
> hours to get the average child a C in GCSE French or German, therefore
> whatever level of Chinese the average child reaches after the same number
> of contact hours of Chinese, then that should be the level at which the
> GCSE is set?
> c) Is the problem more to do with how the exam is marked and grade
> boundaries than the actual exam itself?
>
> It would be really helpful if as many of you as possible could respond to
> the above questions and add any other comments you think are relevant and
> then once this information is collated, we can take things forward as a
> group.
>
> Best wishes
> Katharine
> --
>
> Katharine Carruthers
> Brooke House
> Ashdon Road, Saffron Walden
> Essex, CB10 2AA
>
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