Skip to main content

Opinions

Since GCSE began mark schemes have always rewarded pupils' ability to express opinions. I never really got this.

It is easy to teach pupils a set of phrases to include in their speech and writing - "je pense que, je crois que, à mon avis, à mon sens" etc - but why would we want to particularly reward the learning of a narrow range of set phrases?

When students wrote GCSE coursework essays in the pre controlled assessment era, they could ensure they gained a significantly higher mark by including opinion phrases. If they wrote "je pense que" this was even better because it meant they were creating a subordinate clause and complex sentences were needed to gain the highest marks. The current regime of written controlled assessment awards highest marks for "explaining ideas and points of view" (AQA). The Speaking CA mark scheme descriptors for Communication refer to "points of view" and "opinions" (AQA).

The draft AQA GCSE Speaking mark schemes for first teaching from September 2016 continue to award the highest marks to candidates who offer and explain opinions. A proficient speaker who does not express opinions cannot get a high mark. This seems silly to me.

Now, opinion giving is one function of language among many. Others include expressing agreement, apology, intention, sympathy, blame, desire, persuasion, obligation. Why do we place opinion giving on a pedestal? Why do GCSE mark schemes not reward students who express other functions of language (asking questions springs to mind - a more important function than offering opinion).

My hypothesis on this is that when the communicative approach to language teaching became fashionable, along with some acceptance that language functions were as important as grammar in communicating messages, then syllabuses tried to acknowledge this. Mark schemes, for some reason, found a special place for opinion giving ahead of other functions. Since then tradition has taken over and we continue to see opinions given pride of place because they are there already.

If we really value the functional nature of language we should include reference in mark schemes to a wider range of functions. However, this would become unwieldy, so I would rather we adopted a "cleaner" approach and valued range of grammar and vocabulary and not tie pupils down to churning out pre-learned opinion phrases.

When we assess a linguist we need to know how much of the spoken and written word they understand. In assessing their speaking and writing we should value, above all, their ability to manipulate creatively grammar and vocabulary. We can also reward memorised language, but we should not be placing a high value on the rote learning of a particular set of phrases, taken from one function of language among many.






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad


Comments

  1. Hi Steve - I might be way out on this one, but I suspect that we have the opinions because in most other subject areas you have to express a point of view and support it with evidence from a text or data, so perhaps this is the powers-that-be's way of doing it in MFL? Of course, as we all know, MFL is quite different to other subjects!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had not thought of it that way, but it seems unlikely to me that that would be the reason. Thanks for leaving a comment. Reflecting on this further, I suppose there is not a clear distinction between an opinion and a statement. If you say "My town is superb" - it is a statement but also an opinion.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is the natural order hypothesis?

The natural order hypothesis states that all learners acquire the grammatical structures of a language in roughly the same order. This applies to both first and second language acquisition. This order is not dependent on the ease with which a particular language feature can be taught; in English, some features, such as third-person "-s" ("he runs") are easy to teach in a classroom setting, but are not typically fully acquired until the later stages of language acquisition. The hypothesis was based on morpheme studies by Heidi Dulay and Marina Burt, which found that certain morphemes were predictably learned before others during the course of second language acquisition. The hypothesis was picked up by Stephen Krashen who incorporated it in his very well known input model of second language learning. Furthermore, according to the natural order hypothesis, the order of acquisition remains the same regardless of the teacher's explicit instruction; in other words,

What is skill acquisition theory?

For this post, I am drawing on a section from the excellent book by Rod Ellis and Natsuko Shintani called Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research (Routledge, 2014). Skill acquisition is one of several competing theories of how we learn new languages. It’s a theory based on the idea that skilled behaviour in any area can become routinised and even automatic under certain conditions through repeated pairing of stimuli and responses. When put like that, it looks a bit like the behaviourist view of stimulus-response learning which went out of fashion from the late 1950s. Skill acquisition draws on John Anderson’s ACT theory, which he called a cognitivist stimulus-response theory. ACT stands for Adaptive Control of Thought.  ACT theory distinguishes declarative knowledge (knowledge of facts and concepts, such as the fact that adjectives agree) from procedural knowledge (knowing how to do things in certain situations, such as understand and speak a language).

La retraite à 60 ans

Suite à mon post récent sur les acquis sociaux..... L'âge légal de la retraite est une chose. Je voudrais bien savoir à quel âge les gens prennent leur retraite en pratique - l'âge réel de la retraite, si vous voulez. J'ai entendu prétendre qu'il y a peu de différence à cet égard entre la France et le Royaume-Uni. Manifestation à Marseille en 2008 pour le maintien de la retraite à 60 ans © AFP/Michel Gangne Six Français sur dix sont d’accord avec le PS qui défend la retraite à 60 ans (BVA) Cécile Quéguiner Plus de la moitié des Français jugent que le gouvernement a " tort de vouloir aller vite dans la réforme " et estiment que le PS a " raison de défendre l’âge légal de départ en retraite à 60 ans ". Résultat d’un sondage BVA/Absoluce pour Les Échos et France Info , paru ce matin. Une majorité de Français (58%) estiment que la position du Parti socialiste , qui défend le maintien de l’âge légal de départ à la retraite à 60 ans,