Skip to main content

DfE intrusion has gone too far

This post is for teachers in England.

Do you remember when, not too long ago, Ofsted were at pains to tell schools that they had no preferred teaching style?

In our subject area we’ve had the TSC review of MFL pedagogy (2016), the establishment of NCELP and a revised GCSE for first examination in 2026. All of these have involved the hand of government in various forms (notably the choice of authors and panel members). Meanwhile Ofsted decided it wished to place an emphasis on curriculum, arguing that this is the cornerstone for a school’s success. Its series of research reviews (selective and flawed) have reinforced the notion that learning is about turning declarative knowledge into automatised skill. This is tied up with a view of language learning based on the idea of building blocks (phonics, vocab and grammar - the ‘three pillars’). 

This is a one-sided view of language learning and curriculum design, frequently criticised in the second language acquisition research literature. But it is the perspective we see in the TSC review and NCELP lessons. It is also where the DfE wanted GCSE to go, though I expect the changes in the new exam to be evolutionary, not revolutionary. Exam boards are experienced and pragmatic rather than ideological.

Viewed in a historical context, language teachers are being edged back towards a very traditional way of teaching, where knowledge takes priority over communication. The pendulum swings. This is a cul de sac, in my view, since experience has taught us that the so-called synthetic, building block syllabus does not work for many students, especially those with less aptitude and motivation. Teach them words, teach them rules and communication will come later. We’ve been there. I anticipate a move back towards practical communication in years to come. NCELP may see its funds taken away (governments have form on this) and as standards and take-up fail to rise, we’ll look for an alternative solution. It was ever, as they say, thus.

Teachers would do well to be very wary of research reviews, Ofsted guidance and DfE-inspired initiatives. Although we always get the caveat that ‘there is no best method for every circumstance’ (e.g. TSC, 2016’),  it is hard not to detect a strong nudge towards a methodology based on dubious, politically inspired research claims. I hope many stick to their guns and avoid slavishly playing to the Ofsted gallery.If I wete still a Head of Languages I would only go so far in ticking the boxes and would happily justify my department’s practice to any inspector.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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).
Post a Comment
Read more

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,
4 comments
Read more

The 2026 GCSE subject content is published!

Two DfE documents were published today. The first was the response to the consultation about the proposed new GCSE (originally due in October 2021) and the second is the subject content document which, ultimately, is of most interest to MFL teachers in England. Here is the link  to the document.  We are talking about an exam to be done from 2026 (current Y7s). There is always a tendency for sceptical teachers to think that consultations are a bit of a sham and that the DfE will just go ahead and do what they want when it comes to exam reform. In this case, the responses to the original proposals were mixed, and most certainly hostile as far as exam boards and professional associations representing the MFL community, universities, head teachers and awarding bodies are concerned. What has emerged does reveal some significant changes which take account of a number of criticisms levelled at the proposals. As I read it, the most important changes relate to vocabulary and the issue of topics
5 comments
Read more