(I have fixed some typos in the original draft)
Introduction
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the current GCSE in modern foreign languages (MFL) is an improvement on the old O-Level in some important ways. In 1987 it moved beyond the elitist, grammar-translation-heavy approach that once dominated language teaching, placing greater emphasis on communication and offering an exam that was, in theory, accessible to a broader range of students. But despite that step change, the GCSE is still failing to meet the needs of many learners. It is no longer fit for purpose — and the model could do with a major rethink. Just don't expect it any time soon.
A System That Bakes in Failure
Now, first of all, the system works pretty well for higher-achieving students, the ones I often taught over the years. It allows the teacher enough freedom to work in communicative ways, certain in the knowledge that pupils will be well-prepared for the assessment and achieve high grades. In my own contexts, I didn't feel the exam was a brake on motivation or achievement. But that was just my context, working in schools with highlly motivated, high-attaining learners.
But the system fails for the bulk of students. Let’s start with the grading system. The 9–1 scale guarantees a large proportion of low grades. In the current system of school accountability and the requirement for 'comparable outcomes', Ofqual reaquires, statistically, that many students get low raw scores to ensure a reliable ranking of grades. In 2023, around 30% of students who took GCSE French or German did not achieve a standard 'pass' (grade 4) (Recall that theoretically there is no pass or fail, but we know in reality was a pass is. This isn’t just demoralising for many students and teachers — it actively discourages language learning. If students work hard for five years only to be told they’ve “failed,” we cannot be surprised when they (and their peers) give up on languages entirely.
Low motivation
Studies, including this one, show that motivation is often low in MFL classrooms because of the perception that languages are hard. many students get bored too. Well, yes they are not easy, but the assessment system tries to force students to a level they cannot attain. In addition, the feeling that there is no practical utility to language learning in school remains embedded, and the type of assessment GCSE offers does little to help dispel this feeling among many students. (Let's conveniently put aside that the lack of practical utility applies to other school subjects, but on the whole, it is easier to persuade students that maths is useful, even those quadratic equations.)
The necessities of the grading system have already been mentioned, but let's not forget that the system is even meaner on MFL than other subjects because of the iniquity of severe grading. GCSE MFL remains roughly half a grade harder than most other subjects.
Too Much Writing, Too Little Practical Use
When it comes to the nitty-gritty of the exams, one of the biggest imbalances in the current GCSE is the overemphasis on writing. This is the least useful of the four skills for most learners and the least transferable to real-life contexts. It is also the most challenging for many students with weak literacy skills. Even the students I taught, who were on the whole good at comprehension, could fall flat on their face when having to write a short essay in exam conditions.
Ask most people want they would want from a language course and they would say they want to speak and understand a new language, not write essays in the past tense about a school trip or translate sentences. In any case, AI and Google can do these things. Writing remains disproportionately weighted, pushing teachers and learners toward grammatical accuracy over communicative ability.
Self-Efficacy
A successful language curriculum should be based on a needs analysis (Nation and Macalister, 2010) and should help students believe they can use a language. It should build their sense of capability — what psychologists call self-efficacy (Bandura) or competence (Deci and Ryan). But, for many, the GCSE does the opposite. The content is often dry and uninspiring, filled with traditional themes like school, holidays, and health - often with somewhat middle-class assumptions about students' experience. These topics are treated in formulaic ways that do little to spark interest or reflect the diverse identities and interests of today’s teenagers. As a result, many learners complete their GCSEs feeling disengaged.
Artificial Skill Separation and Washback Effects
The strict separation of the four skills at GCSE (listening, reading, speaking, writing) leads to teaching practices that can fragment what should be an integrated experience. Real communication rarely happens in neat compartments, yet that’s how students are sometimes trained — with “listening lessons,” “reading lessons,” and so on. This approach has a washback effect on curriculum and lesson planning, negatively influencing classroom practice.
Certain assessment features also create perverse incentives. Translation and dictation, reintroduced in recent years, may appear rigorous, but they often bear little resemblance to meaningful communication. Their prominence encourages memorisation and mechanical practice over genuine interaction, which again reinforces the message that language is about precision, not connection. If you put dictation into an exam you can be certain teachers will devote a good deal of time to it, inevitably neglecting more enjoyable communicative tasks.
Still in the Shadow of A-Level
Another major flaw is the underlying assumption that GCSE is a stepping stone to A-level, itself influenced by the requirements of universities. This belief influences content choices, grammar coverage, and assessment style — yet the reality is that only a small fraction of GCSE students continue beyond 16. The qualification should stand alone as a meaningful endpoint, not merely a filter for further study. For most students, GCSE is the last time they’ll formally study a language, and it should be designed to give them the confidence and competence to use that language in the real world.
A Better Way: Language Exams Based on Readiness, Not Age
It's not going to happen and tradition and inertia are powerful, but it would be great to rethink how we assess language learning. One alternative, which we saw with Graded Objectives in the 1980s and the Asset Languages scheme, is a system more like graded music exams — based not on age or school year, but on readiness and level. Imagine a model where students progress through levels of language certification (e.g. based on CEFR levels like A1, A2, B1) when they are ready, with optional exams in integrated communication tasks. This would:
- Remove the high-stakes “all-or-nothing” pressure at age 16
- Allow learners to experience success at an appropriate level
- Encourage a broader range of students to continue language learning
- Reflect real-world competence, not artificial assessment constructs
Assessment could be built around real communication: speaking with others, understanding audio, reacting in real time, and using language in purposeful ways. Grammar and accuracy would still matter to a degree — but they would serve communication, not dominate it. The role of writing would be diminished, the idea of the grammatical syllabus would be largely abandoned and teachers could be freed up to choose content and activities suitable for their settings. Assessments would be designed encourage positive washback - so no dictation, no translation, less 'discrete skill' testing (e.g. no separate listening paper with questions in English).
Lessons could be more situational and topical in nature, with a greater emphasis on dialogue, role play, conversation, interesting cultural content. Students could work at their level, experiencing a greater sense of success, doing assessments when they feel ready.
Teachers would not seek out 'a lesson on the perfect tense', as they do now, but lessons based on input and conversation about their interests, where they live, their friends and families, what they want to do, what worries them about the world, a famous French/German/Spanish person, making up stories, a song, etc etc. Aspects of grammar could be taught and practised as they fit. (And if you are thinking, but you can't have conversations without building up grammar knowledge bit by bit, ask whether a grammatical syllabus has worked for most pupils up to now.)
Conclusion
The GCSE in modern languages has made progress since the days of the O-Level. But in its current form, it demotivates learners, distorts teaching, and falls short of preparing students to use language in the real world. We need an assessment system built on readiness, relevance, and real communication. Until we get there, we’ll continue to ask too much of too many — and wonder why so many young people turn away from language learning altogether. It's not the highly motivated, successful linguists who are the problem - they have always done well. It's the majority who end up saying "I hated languages at school."
In the meantime, teachers still have some freedom to teach in ways which motivate more students, while helping them achieve good grades. They don't have to spend too much time being a total slave to the syllabus. There is room for communicative tasks and topics beyond the syllabus, bearing in mind that most language in a text is transferable to any topic. You don't have to spend too long on dictation, translation and role-play/photocard practice. To a large degree these things will take care of themselves by doing other work based on the fundamentals of comprehensible input and communication.
None of my suggestions will likely see the light of day, but it's fun to ponder, isn't it?
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