Teaching A-Level modern languages

Late in 2023, I started a series of four blog posts written for the benefit of teachers starting out in their teaching of A-level French. they may also be of use to more experienced teachers. I have put them all together in this post, as they were originally written - simply copied and pasted. I hope you find them useful. 

1.  General principles

This is the first of first of four posts on the subject of teaching A-Level languages. Because the focus is the A-Level syllabus in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the posts are aimed primarily at teachers in those countries or working in international schools. A good deal will be relevenat to teachers working with other syllabuses, notably IB.

The posts are also mainly for teachers who are new or inexperienced with teaching A-level, although more experienced teachers may find useful reflections or new ideas to enhance practice.

In writing these posts, I am drawing on over 30 years of experience teaching French A-level in three different schools. My students achieved highly and enjoyed their lessons very much (on the whole!). My experience is also founded on having done work with the AQA exam board, both writing and presenting on A-level for them, as well as the skill I have acquired through writing hundreds of resources, both during my classroom career and for frenchteacher.net. In addition, I have studied a good deal of research about language learning in general.

The four posts will look at the following:

1. General principles underpinning your teaching.
2. Working with aural and written texts.
3. Teaching film and literature.
4. Preparing for assessment.

I shall link out to other posts from time to time and include examples of resources.

So here we go...

Input and interaction

At A-Level, as at every level of teaching a language, the general principles of language acquisition apply. Firstly, students need large amounts of interesting comprehensible input (language they understand at or just above their current level). Secondly, they also need the opportunity to interact with that input through communication. Thirdly, they need to have their attention foused on the form of the language (the grammar), though explanation and practice of grammatical structures. 

There is, of course, a lot of debate among researchers about the extent to which explicit instruction about grammar is useful, but my conclusion after much reflection over the years, and having studied a lot of research, is that, especially in the school setting, we need to teach some grammatical rules and practise them. However - and this is a major caveat - if you spend too much time on this, it is at the expense of other activties involving input and communication, so never asume that students can easily apply grammatical patterns you have taught them. 

A great advantage of teaching A-Level through comprehensible input is that students already have a good store of language knowledge at their disposal. This means we can use more complex texts which may be more stimulating. Prior knowledge varies hugely, of course, though in general terms the ability profile of A-level linguists is higher than average, so we are often dealing with higher aptitude learners.

When planning resources and lessons, therefore, we always need to keep in mind how much comprehensible input we are providing and how we can stimulate them to interact with it in enjoyable ways. Put very simply, if lessons are largely in the target language and students understand and communicate, nature takes its course and proficiency develops.

For posts about comprehensible input see here and here. That second post is a lengthy one about the long-standing debate about formal learning and natural acquisition. To what extent is learning a new language as a teenager like learning one's first language(s)? That's always a good question to ponder!

Don't overdo the grammar!

We know from research that learners are developmentally ready to actually acquire structures at certain stages and that they cannot easily turn their explicit or declarative knowledge ('knowing that') into procedural knowledge ('knowing how'). For more about so-called natural orders see here. It's the 'knowing how' which we need to help them develop and this occurs largely through actually using the language - interacting with input. Teaching some rules is thought to help to some extent.

I'm pretty sure that teachers tend to overestimate how useful teaching rules is. That said, if you practise grammatical forms through input (drills, questions-answer, gap-fill, etc), then you can argue you are killing two birds with one stone. Students are interacting with input and focusing on the form of the language. It's about keeping things in proportion, I think. In general, maintain the emphasis on communication and the brain will do its language learning thing.

For more about research on grammar see my posts here and here. For a discussion of why grammar teaching often fails, see here.

Content

What form should the input take? Well, this is largely dictated by the exam specification, so if topics include education, heritage, equality, diversity, the world of work and cinema, then inevitably you will source a lot of material based on those topics. Students will build their topic-specific vocabulary and their ability to understand, talk and write about those subjects.

The film and literature elements of the course will naturally dictate a good deal of the content, and we'll come to those in Part 3. But let me just tease that a bit by saying that it's unwise to view the film and literature parts of the course as somehow entirely separate from the rest. Think of those sources as just other sources of language for input and interaction. If you have that mindset, you'll get more ideas about how to exploit the film and lit.

But this doesn't mean that all your lessons have to be focused on the exam topics alone. You don't have to be a complete slave to the syllabus. When you bear in mind that texts on pretty much any non-technical subjects consists mainly of common, shared vocabulary, then a text on any subject will be useful for acquisition. So if something comes up in the news that you want to discuss, then you can do it. If you want to do a fun task-based activity, then you can do it. If you want to do a storytelling lesson, you can do it. The point being that all these activities include input, interaction and high-frequency language which can be transferred to other topics, including your exam-related ones.

For more on task-based lessons see here . For a favourite task-based lesson of mine see here.

Integrating skills

Another general principle to keep in mind is that each of the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing supports the others. This means that sensible lesson planning is likely to involve elements of all the skills. We'll see this in the next post when we talk about working with texts. It is unlikely to make sense, therefore, to plan a course based on 'listening lessons', 'grammar lessons', 'speaking lessons' or 'translation lessons'. Far more advisable is to build lessons around all four skills. This has the added bonus, of course, of allowing for variety and changes of focus in lessons, making them more enjoyable for students.

In cognitive science terms, memory is likley to be strengthened when processing is more 'elaborate' and, in this context, memory traces may be stronger when they are fromed from aural and reading input, along with oral and written production.

The idea of integrating the four skills is one of the 10 principles Gianfranco Conti and I included in The language teacher Toolkit (2nd ed.).

Don't assume too much knowledge

I just want to throw in one little point here, based on experience. Because our schooling system makes the sixth form seem rather distinct from earlier years (courses change, GCSE is done, class sizes are usually smaller, uniforms may be different and students have all opted to take your subject), it may be tempting to think that suddenly students are more grown-up, sophisticated and skilled. This is not really the case, so we need to keep strongly in mind that a period of adaptation is needed. It's also important to assess any new students who may have joined the school. But make no mistake, because of the greater contact time you now have, and because students are usually highly motivated, the progress they make at A-Level is enormous. I was always very gratified by the level of comprehension and fluency students showed after just a year of A-Level.

Translation

Finally, a word about translation since this has been another area of debate in our field. We have (for now) moved on from the idea that lessons need to be 100% in the target language. There are good reasons for using translation from time to time, and since it is part of the A-level exam, you need to practise it based on the principle that you get better at what you practise). But I would caution against spending too much time doing translation. This is about what's called 'opportunity cost'. If you do lots of translation, this is bound to be at the expense of other tasks which involved input and interaction, our two main priorities.

Gianfranco Conti wrote an interesting blog post about translation here.

In the next post, I'll apply these general principles to the nuts and bolts of working with texts.

2. Working with texts.

This is the second post in a series of four about teaching A-level MFL. The first post considered some general principles to bear in mind. This second post gets into the nitty-gritty of pedagogy by considering how we can exploit written and aural texts.

Exploiting texts is such a fundamental skill in language teaching and this is no less the case at A-Level. I'm going to split this into two parts, the first looking at written texts, the second aural (listening) texts. In general terms, however, all texts are a fabulous source of input, both linguistic and cultural, which can be exploited in multiple ways. For both written and aural texts, a first point to make is that the texts should not be too long. If a text is very long, so much time is needed deciphering the language, that there is not enough time for interacting with the text. The risk is that you end up analysing language at the expense of communicating with it. 

Secondly, when a text becomes too long, it is likely to contain more new vocabulary which has less chance of being recycled. We know that repetition and deep processing is vital for learning and memory, so in general it's better to exploit shorter texts intensively, than longet texts superficially.

So when I produce text-based resources for my website I keep written texts down to no more than a page of A4 (often less) and aural texts limietd to roughly 2-3 minutes. This means that the language and content can be interacted with more intensively for better retention and language development.

Written texts

Choosing texts

You may stick largely to texts and exercises provided by a textbook, but this would most likely be a mistake. Text book writers do not have the space to produce the full range of exercises needed to exploit a text thoroughly. Reading a text and answering some comprehension questions about it is inadequate. You need to milk the text much more thoroughly.

Texts, as mentioned above, should not be too long. They may be authentic (in the sense of written by 'native speakers' for 'native speakers', but this is not important. Indeed authentic texts are often too difficult, since ideally, for a text to be suitable for learning, it ought to contain at least 90% of words which are already known to students. (The figure of 95-98% known words is often quoted by researchers, notably Paul Nation, but at A-level, where students are highly motivated and often of higher aptitude, I think you can go lower than 95%. As an exercise, take a written text and underline how many words you think the class will not know or be able to easily guess (cognates). If the figure is over 10% I'd suggest simplifying the text or rejecting it altogether. For more on the topic of how many new words to include, see this post.

The term adapted authentic is often used to describe suitable texts at this level.

As for the content of the text, this is partly dictated by the syllabus, but, as I wrote in my first post, any text can be useful since it will contain langage that is transferable to other topics. So take advantage of current affairs, the students' interests and your own.

If you use an AI tool such as Bing AI or ChatGPT to produce a text, you can ask it to do so at a certain CEFR level. For A-level this would be around B1. Texts produced by AI are linguistically accurate, but may contain factual inaccuracies and suffer from other issues (implicit sexism or racism, for exanple), so expect to have to do some editing.

How to exploit texts

This is the most important bit pedagogically speaking! Let me send you to another post without copying and pasting it here.

Let me add that a good text is a real gift to a language teacher, since it provides the basis for a whole lesson or series of lessons which provide input and interaction, the two prerequisites for acquisition. At A-level, the texts provided by text books can be a bit on the dry side, since they have been written to provide the cultural information needed for students to score well at AO4 (Assessment Objective 4) - the one about cultural knowledge. we shall come back back to this in the fourth post in this series. Such texts can lack personal storytelling and be difficult to exploit in creative ways. They can also be hard to link to students' personal experience, which can be a powerful factor in lesson design.

Let me share with you, however, a good way to make a potentially dry, information-heavy text the basis for a communicative lesson. I referred to this also in the first post. It's the task-based activity called Ask the Experts (based on a task described by Newton and Nation called 'Ask and Move'.) I have described how this works in posts here and here. Those two links include examples of French texts, but you'll be able to easily apply the principle to other languages.

Finally in this section, I referred in the first post to the importance of integrating the four skills. A text lets you do this so easily. Students listen to it being read, they do interpersonal listening (listening during communication) as you engage in discussion and exercises, they read (of course), they speak  and they write. A well-designed text-based lesson or lessons buildss up the challenge, moving from first deciphering and comprehending the text, to interacting with it in structured ways, then moving away from it for general discussion or other resources on the same topic. Once you have arepertoire of activities to use with a text, the text becomes your lesson plan.

Aural texts

Choosing texts

Texts may be read aloud, from audio or from video. If you are concerned about your own oral accuracy and fluency, you may depend relatively more on audio and video. When choosing audio and video sources, keep them relatively short (see above), choose sources where the language is clear and and a moderate pace. If captions are available (they usually are on YouTube), consider using them, especially for harder texts. Make sure that the language load is not too heavy. Always keep comprehensibility in mind. Not too many new words and not too fast.

Text book recordings may be very suitable, but lack authenticity, so it's wise to mix them up with different voices and more authentic sources. The latter may be more interesting and maybe up to date.

Video texts are often preferable to audio since they are likely to be more attention-grabbing and stimulating. Students may also be exposed to a wider variety of accents and cultural settings.

It's worth mentioning songs at this point since they are a great source of listening and, potentially, intercultruarl understanding. You'll find some ideas for exploiting songs here. Gianfranco Conti wrote a foresnic blog on songs here.

As with written texts, choose topics related to the syllabus or ones which will interest the students in general, or which relate to current affairs. Remember - you don't have to be a total slave to the syllabus. A Chief Examiner once told me when I was a young teacher that A-Level is like teaching General Studies in another language. Any subject matter can be good because it will contain high-freqquency language. Kep thinking: what will the students find stimulating? What will get them thinking? What will get them talking? What will open their eyes to the world?

How to exploit listening texts

Here are some of the exercises you can do with an aural text, once gain with the emphasis on intenstive exploitation to generate repetition and deep processing. When working with aural texts replay short portions of the text as many timess as you need. Keep in mind the heavy cognitive load which listening places on students. Consider using a written transcript as students listen.

A pre-listening task

This may be focused on linguistic issues, e.g. gues which words from this list you will hear. Or, better in my view, it could be about whetting students' appetite to the content of the text - sensitising them to the issue being talked about, ot relating it to their personal experience. This typeof task applies to reading as well, of course/

'While-listening' tasks

• True/false
• True/false/not mentioned
• Tick the correct statements
• Correct the false statements 
• Correct the faulty transcript (where students underline where they hear a discrepancy between the aural text and a faulty written transcript, then mark in what what actually said). For an example see this post.
• Answer questions in the L1 or L2 (the latter is usually harder since it requires both processing input and producing output)
• Writing bullet point notes (an comparing with a partner)
• Using the bullet point notes to do an oral or written summary
• Finding vocabulary (words and chunks)
• Gap-fill (with or without options provided)
• Completing sentences
• Re-ordering sentences (or lines in a song)
• Transcription of the audio (dictation)
• Taking notes from a lecture on a topic (in L1 or L2)
• Finding vocabulary (e.g. by completinga bilingual list or matching words in the text with definitions/synonyms)
• Produce a written transcript of the audio/video, to use as a written text, reinforcing work done previously.

In the next post, we'll consider how to work with films and literary texts. This forms a major component of the A-level course and may seem like a major challenge to new teachers.

3. Film and literature

This is the third post in the Teaching A-Level MFL series of four. This time we are talking about the teaching of film and literature. Since working through a film and a book occupies at least a third of a department's time during parts of the course, it's worthwhile looking at this carefully. I'm going to divide this post into two parts: film, then literature. Some of the same principles will apply to both.

In terms of assessment, which we shall come to in the final blog, A-Level teachers must teach either a book and a film, or two books. (This reveals a certain bias, by the way, suggesting that the DfE value literature more highky than film.) Although practice varies from school to school, departments usually teach a film first, then a book. They often tackle the film in Y12 and the book in Y13, the perception being that the book will be more linguistically challenging.

Film

Which film?

Exam boards choose films based on previous teachers and student feedback, so they can all be successful. What YOU are most passionate about? If you are keen on the film and the director it's likely your enthusiasm will come across. If you don't know any of the films, watch them on DVD, YouTube or a streaming platform. Keep in mind how your students will watch in class and in their own time. Facebook groups will help you determine where and how students can watch. The choice may be partly dictated by which DVDs or other resources you already have. Make sure your film has English captions (watching with no captions makes comprehension too hard).

When choosing a film, don't just consider its themes or dramatic qualities. Is the language easy to understand? The film will be a source of masses of input, so you want it to be as comprehensible as possible.

Does the film need to tie in with other sub-themes in the course? There are two ways of looking at this. On the one hand, matching the film to anothet topic will deepen knowledge; on the other it will reduce the range of cultural areas you cover in the course. I never felt the need to match a film to other topics. I went with enjoyable movies I was personally interested in that had language which was as clear as possible.

Lastly, as with books, think about how much scope the film offers for exploration of ideas. Is there a lot to talk about? For example, on the AQA list for French, you have Les 400 Coups by Truffaut, which allows you to talk about a lot of issues, inlcuding the whole area of the new wave filming techniques.The nature of your class may influence your choice of film. I they are highly able, you may take on a more themtaically challenging movie.

Organisation

In general you need to allocate between 10-12 weeks to working though a movie and developing the skill of essay writing. I'm assuming that this involves roughly two hours classroom contact time per week, plus about two hours of homework. Keep in mind that students will also be working through their other sub-themes at the same time.

The detailed preparation for teaching would have been done the previous year, possibly during the 'gained time' teachers get in the summer exam season. The preparation would include:

• Watching the film at least twice.
• Writing a scene-by-scene summary (including timings, place, characters on screen, musical score). I did these as an A4 printed booklet.
• Reading about film-making techniques and the language of film such as close-ups, subjective camera, jump cuts, aerial shots, angles of shooting and much more.
• Reading around some of background, e.g. what critics wrote, the director's other films, historical context, themes raised, etc.
• I would plan any pre-reading work based on the above.
• Preparing a set of worksheets. I would divide the film into about 8 sections and produce one worksheet per section. 
• I would plan how to build up the skills needed for assessment (see the next post).

Worksheet design

Think of a worksheet like this as any other language worksheet, but with a greatre emphasis on the content of each section of the film. Remember that you want your students to focus less on storytelling and much more on critical analysis (in line with the demands of the specification). Your worksheets might contain the following elements:

• A bilingual vocabulary glossary. 
• True/false
• Questions in L2 about the scenes. Questions could be closed and factual, or more open-ended to invite slightly longer analytical paragraphs. They may also focus on linguistic aspects, e.g. 'Explain what X said'.
• Occasional questions in L1, notably where ideas become very difficult to follow and express in the target language.
• 'Who said?' statements to identify.
• 'Who might have said?' statements to identify.
• Describing an imagined deleted scene.
• Describing the musical score.
• Describing a film technique.
• Gap-fill, e.g. providing a summary paragraph with gaps to complete (with or without options).
• Correcting false statements about the scenes.
• Transcription of short dialogues.
• Written smmary of chosen sections.
• A grammar exercise based on a structure or structures encountered in the text.

By smart worksheet design you can get the students (the novices) to think like you (the expert). Mind you, you'll have some very sophisticated students who will bring their own ideas to the table and make you think.

Resources

You choice of film may be influenced by the availability of support resources. For a guide on film which I wrote for AQA, see here. It offers more ideas on choosing texts, planning and activities you can carry out. Pearson-Edexcel has a useful page here. For some of the best support resources for teaching film, look at this site. You may be able to obtain revision guides or easy books for your school library. The exam boards have useful resources of their own and Facebook groups can be very helpful. Pearson-Edexcek produced this useful resource to support work on film.

Week to week planning

After some pre-film work, students would first wtach the film with captions, uninterrupted, as if they were watching any film for pleasure.

Then my practice was to have students complete a worksheet a week before we discussed it in class. They would bring in their work, perhp have a few minutes to compare their answers with those of a partner, then their answers would become the basis of our lesson. Lessons would there fore involve working though responses, discussing them and giving feedback. I often found that in the early early lessons students needed encouragement to write longer answers. If you ask questions with skill and insist on answers of a certain minumum length you can avoid issues.

When it comes to classroom discussion, here is a little tip: if a particular idea is hard to express in L2, you can rehearse answers in English first, the work on how the same ideas will be expressed in L2. As with all general discussion and analysis, this can be done either with the teacher or in pairs. Given that A-Level classes are often small, working directly with the teaacher may be suitable. 

Note that the process of writing answers to well-chosen questions gradually builds up students' skill in paragraph writing, which will subsequently make them better essay writers. By he end of the 10-12 weeks each student will have a file of worksheets containing answers which can eb the basis for their revision and essay writing.

That's not to say that you would never do read-alouds. There will be certain key sections in the book that you need to focus on in more detail and where you want there to be no misunderstanding. Never be frightened to just explain things to classes. Some students need more ‘spoon-feeding’ than others.

As the weeks proceed, students will get into the habit of thinking like you and becoming expert. Towards the end of the 10-12 week cycle you will be working on the skill of essay writing. Again, more on that in the next post.

Literature

Students taking A-level may start with mixed feelings about studying literature at A-Level. Taking on a novel or play may feel like a daunting challenge and many A-Level students may not be doing the course through a love of literature. Those who are also studying English literature may be at an advantage, while others may need some persuading that analysing literature at all is not worthwhile. In reality, by the end of the course, many students report that the literature (and film) were the parts they enjoyed most. Once a book has been studied, students have learned a lot about the target language culture and how to analyse a literary work. It is very satisfying.

Straight away I want to refer you to an excellent book on this subject, one I wish I had owned as a young teacher. It's called Teaching Literature in the A-Level Modern Languages Classroom (Raithby and Taylor, 2020). I wrote a review of it here. Thye get into the fine detail of activities you can carry out when working with a book.

Which text?

This echoes what I wrote above about film.  Exam boards choose texts based on previous teachers and student feedback, so they can all be successful. Keep in mind most of all what YOU are most passionate about. If you are keen on the text and the author it's likely your enthusiasm will come across. If you don't know any of the set texts, you'll need to read them - they are usually not too long. Seek guidance from colleagues or on relevant Facebook groups. Your choice may be partly dictated by which books you already have in the stock cupboard. Incidentally, most departments still use paper texts, not ebooks.

Preparing for teaching a book is more of a pleasure than a chore. You'll hopefully find the process instructive and rewarding.

Organisation

In general you need to allocate between 10-12 weeks to working though a book and developing the skill of essay writing. I'm assuming, as with film, that this involves roughly two hours classroom contact time per week, plus about two hours of homework. A book may take a bit longer than a film. Keep in mind that students will also be working through their other sub-themes at the same time.

The detailed preparation for teaching would have been done the previous year, possibly during the 'gained time' teachers get in the summer exam season. The preparation would include:

• Reading the book thoroughly.
• Familiarising yourself with the language of literary analysis (character, style, metaphor, imagery, etc).
• Noting any vocabulary the students are unlikely to know.
• Reading around some of background, e.g. what critics wrote, historical context, themes raised, etc.
• I would plan any pre-reading work based on the above.
• Preparing a set of worksheets. I would divide the chapters into about 8-10 sections and produce one worksheet per section. 
• I would plan how to build up the skills needed for assessment (see the next post).

If you studied literature at university you have an advantage, so you may need to do less reading around.

Students may like to read the book in an English translation. The exam boards have nothing against this.

Worksheet design

Think of a worksheet like this as any other language worksheet, but with a greater emphasis on the content of each chapter or group of chapters. Remember that you want your students to focus less on storytelling and much more on critical analysis (in line with the demands of the specification). Your worksheets might contain the following elements:

• A bilingual vocabulary glossary. (You don't want students' time taken up too much by looking up words.)
• True/false statements.
• Ticking off correct statements.
• Questions in L2 about the text. Questions could be closed and factual, or more open-ended to invite slightly longer analytical paragraphs. They may also focus on linguistic aspects, e.g. 'Explain what X means'.
• Occasional questions in L1, notably where ideas become very difficult to follow and express in the target language.
• Gap-fill, e.g. providing a summary paragraph with gaps to complete (with or without options).
• Correcting false statements about the text.
• Translation into English of chosen sections.
• Written smmary of chosen sections.
• A grammar exercise based on a structure or structures encountered in the text.

By smart worksheet design you can get the students (the novices) to think like you (the expert). Mind you, you'll have some very sophiticated students who will bring their own ideas to the table and make you think.

Resources

For a guide on literature which I wrote for AQA, see here. It offers more ideas on choosing texts, planning and activities you can carry out. For more good resources on literature look at this site again. Facebook professional groups are a great source of shared ideas and resources. There may be a group for your specific book. Pearson-Edexcel produced this useful resource.

Week to week planning

My practice was to have students complete a worksheet a week before we discussed it in class. They would bring in their work, perhaps have a few minutes to compare their answers with those of a partner, then their answers would become the basis of the lesson. This then avoids you falling into thee trap of spending lessons just reading aloud sections. Lessons would there fore involve working though responses, discussing them and giving feedback. I often found that in the early early lessons students needed encouragement to write longer answers. If you ask questions with skill and insist on answers of a certain minumum length you can avoid issues.

Note that the process of writing answers to well-chosen questions gradually builds up their skill in paragraph writing, which will subsequently make them better essay writers.

That's not to say that you would never do read-alouds. There will be certain key sections in the book that you need to focus on in more detail and where you want there to be no misunderstanding.

As the weeks proceed, students will getinto the habit of thinking like you and becoming expert. Towards the end of the 10-12 week cycle you will be working on the skill of essay writing. Again, more on that in the next post.

4. Preparing for assessment

The pressure on students and teachers to get the best grade is high. Teachers have a duty to prepare students as thoroughly as possible, just as students need to their utmost to succeed. Most students do.

In this fourth and final post on teaching A-Level MFL we shall look at steps we can take to ensure best performance on the day. I’ll take each paper in turn.

Paper 1 Listening, reading and writing

Analyse past papers so you and the students are familiar with question types. Share with students remarks made by examiners in their reports. These are available on the exam board websites in a secure area which you should have access to via your exams officer. If you have taught in a principled way during the course, and students have worked hard, good performance will follow. Apart from ensuring students have done a mock and several past papers (some in timed conditions), there are certain elements that require specific preparation and practice. 

The main one is the summary tasks. For advice on this, see the blog I wrote here. A key takeaway from that blog is that students should mainly focus on getting across the main points of comprehension very clearly. Some students worry so much about paraphrasing the original text that the essential points may not come across clearly. The ability to paraphrase and summarise is developed throughout the course, not just by doing exam-style summaries.

Paper 2 Film and literature

We looked at this in part 3, but when it comes to preparing students to write two good essays. I have written about this here. That post was partly based on a presentation I gave many times for AQA.

From that post, a key point is this: build up slowly to full essay writing. Scaffold the process during the course, starting with sentences, then paragraphs, then essays. Model good practice. Incidentally, students do not have to quote directly from literary texts or films, but close reference is expected. Needless to say, the emphasis should not be on storytelling, but on critical evaluation. This emphasis is driven by Ofqual who are the ultimate arbiters on these matters.

Students need practice in doing essays in timed conditions, allocating around 20 minutes of each hour to essay planning. Students need to be taught to plan. You can model the process using a sort of 'think aloud' approach with the class. Many students neglect to plan carefully enough, so train them.

Students should understand how the mark schemes work. Share these and give examples of essays with how they were assessed. Exam board websites have these. Have students play the role of examiner by marking essays, e.g. those written by fellow students.

Speaking

Exam boards refer to this as a non-examined assessment (as opposed to an exam) since they have a strict definition of what constitutes an exam (basically multiple students sitting a paper in a room at the same time).

We’ll look separately at the different elements of the speaking assessment: IRP, stimulus cards and conversation. You should carefully read through the specification and instructions for your awarding body.

IRP (Individual Research Project)

The clue is in the name. This really is the student’s own work and the teacher can only do certain things. These are: (1) helping the student establish the area of study and the precise title; (2) advising the student on general sources of information (NOT providing specific resources such as articles or worksheets); (3) monitoring progress against predetermined deadlines; (4) give general advice  on the type of language they might use across all topics.

The teacher (or any other person) cannot provide or correct language. Exam boards vary slightly on other points so it’s best to look carefully at their regulations. Schools have a contact person at the board who can advise on the suitability of titles. 

For detailed information look at the exam board guides, e.g. the one I wrote for AQA here. It contains detailed guidance and examples of titles.

It’s wise for students to focus on the IRP in the Spring term of Y13 so that the information is fresh in their minds for the speaking assessment in April or May. It’s a good idea to give students independent study time, e.g. a session in the library once a week. During this time you can monitor their progress. You’ll want to help them, but there is not much you can do. It’s their work. 

If you think students have obtained input unfairly you should report it. But you need to be certain this is the case, with evidence. Misconduct is rarely reported.

Before the assessment, give an opportunity for students to have a run-through, as a sort of ‘mock’. But your feedback on this must be very limited indeed. Again: check instructions, as exam board guidelines vary a little. Ensure students  are familiar with the mark scheme, which is focused on both knowledge (AO4) and language (AO3).

If you conduct the assessment yourself, make sure you are well prepared. Thus does NOT mean you have to be an expert on the topic. Just behave as an interested lay person, probing the candidate to get more information and views.

In practice, students rise to the occasion and can converse very well on their topic. It can be an enjoyable experience, though frustrating because you would like more time to explore further.

Stimulus cards

You’ll have no problem finding examples from past papers and other sources. Students will need plenty of practice working in pairs, playing teacher and candidate. You will have modelled the process and shared the mark schemes with students. Students can use these to assess each other.

Similarly, you will gave done large amounts of paired practise talking about sub-themes. Because one of the four Assessment Objectives is about cultural knowledge (AO4), students need to have a wide range of cultural references at their disposal during the converstional parts of the assessment. After nearly two years of study they will have built up a portfolio of useful facts and information. Text books are a good source, if you use them.

A little tip: when students work in pairs, write up language you would like them to work in. Work in short bursts of a few minutes, then add more language. Students like that challenge and it generates fluency and repetition.

Most schools build in formal summative assessment opportunities during the course, for instance by having and end-of-Y12 exam. An exam like this could be partly based on a past paper, but it may be wiser to design a paper founded on the current level of the students. In any case, students will not be ready for an IRP and will only have covered some sub-themes. 

So that concludes the series of four posts. Whatever exam board you use, make sure you know the specification back to front. Teaching A-level is an enormous pleasure. Students are usually highly motivated, you get plenty of time with them and you have a more freedom about what content to use than you may think. You can incorporate task-based activities, storytelling, traditional grammar practice, masses of text-based work, lots of general discussion and much more.