It is interesting to learn that both Andrew Hunt and Anna-Vibeke are considering moving back to GCSE.

Andrew and others have also expressed their disappointment about Controlled Assessment. The paradox is that it was actually suggested by the teachers that the old GCSE wasn’t fair and more freedom and flexibility should be given to the teachers to assess their students. Despite the aim of externally marked writing being not to increase the assessment burden on teachers, it seems teachers still find there is too much paper work involved with Controlled Assessment. Apart from this, we need to make it clear what the distinction is between normal teaching and learning and assessment and hope that we are getting used to this new approach. Hence we may find it workable after first year practice, but perhaps constructive debate and suggestions are also needed in order to find a better path for GCSE MFL, or alternatively, is a U-turn preferred?

Alice Webb

Teacher of Chinese
Calday Grange Grammar School



Recall some background info:

The Dearing Languages Review (2007) was published just before the development of the GCSE subject criteria. That report described the present arrangement for assessing speaking and listening skills as “very short and highly stressful, and not therefore a reliable way of assessing what all the candidates can do”. The review recommended that the assessment of GCSE MFL speaking should be spread over a period of time, be undertaken by teachers and moderated externally. The spirit of this proposal was incorporated into controlled assessment regulations for MFL speaking, which provide the opportunity for teachers to conduct all assessment of speaking over time and customise the tasks to suit their preferred course focus. Teachers may assess candidates on a number of occasions and submit the best two results, with only one assessment needing to be recorded for each candidate for moderation purposes.

The intention was that this would give freedom and flexibility to teachers and it would benefit candidates as they would have more than one opportunity to demonstrate their speaking skills in different contexts and for different purposes. However, it would appear that some teachers have misconstrued what they are required to do and have found controlled assessment constraining because they are trying to assess candidates formally far more often than is actually needed. They are then complaining that they cannot develop students’ speaking skills because they cannot, for example, correct students’ pronunciation and grammar during these assessments.

It was also greed that controlled assessment for MFL writing, would be set by centres and externally marked in order not to increase the assessment burden on teachers.