Exams “too hard” for students of modern languages?

There has been an alarming dip in the number of pupils taking modern languages at A level. Research, carried out by the British Council, was based on an online survey completed by teachers in 492 state secondary schools, 556 state primary schools and 132 independent secondary schools across the country.

One of the reasons for the decline is that pupils may be hedging their bets in what they choose to study for A level, perhaps selecting subjects which are felt to be easier to pass. The result of this is that in some schools learning languages is becoming financially unviable, according to the report.

Another reason, widely acknowledged amongst the teaching profession, is harsh and inconsistent marking. This makes sense. How to judge and mark fairly two essays in French, on the same topic, one of which is dull but grammatically correct, the other more imaginative but slightly wayward in grammar? It’s a tough call. Indeed, writing an essay in French in the first place is a tough call. Perhaps it’s considered easier to do an in-depth analysis of EastEnders as part of your media studies course.

The British Council research was complemented by the Language Trends Survey 2016 – now in its fourteenth year – which identified similar challenges currently facing language teaching in England. Often, they reported, schools prioritise maths and science over subjects like French, Spanish and German.

One solution to the problems was the advent of the English Baccalaureate – which includes a language – at GCSE but take-up appears to have levelled off. EBacc subjects – compulsory – are English, a foreign language, maths, science and history or geography. To get the EBacc, pupils have must gained a grade of C or above for all five subjects.

Since 2002, entries for A-level French have declined by about one third, and those for German by nearly half.

Although more pupils are taking A-levels in Spanish and other languages, these increases have not involved enough pupils to make up for the shortfalls in French and German.

The 2015 GCSE entry figures showed an overall drop in the number of modern foreign language exams.

The number of French exams fell by 6.2 per cent compared with 2014, with a 9.8 per cent drop in German.

The number of Spanish exams also declined, falling 2.4 per cent although the number of students opting to take Spanish at GCSE has still more than doubled in the past two decades.

An Ofqual spokesman said: ‘We are committed to ensuring that all GCSEs, AS and A levels, including those in modern foreign languages, are sufficiently valid, produce fair and reliable results and have a positive impact on teaching and learning.

‘Last year’s results in modern foreign languages were very stable, with only small changes in the proportions achieving each grade compared to the previous year.

‘We have looked into concerns that it is harder for students to achieve the highest grades in A level languages.

The Department for Education put a more comforting gloss on the figures: ‘As global communication becomes easier, we know that employers increasingly prize the ability to speak a foreign language. That’s why we made languages a compulsory part of the primary curriculum and since 2014, we have seen an increase in the take up of language A levels.

‘By introducing the Ebacc, we have stopped the decline in modern foreign languages seen in the last decade, where 200,000 fewer GCSE students studied a modern language in 2010 than in 2002.

‘Last year’s results showed 20 per cent more pupils are taking languages at GCSE than in 2010 while A level entries in modern languages have increased by nearly 4 per cent since 2014.’

(Adapted from a Daily Mail report, April 2016)

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