Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

As I've been working on some resources using the excellent Portrait d'enfant videos from Arte, I've been reminded of an issue affecting teachers of GCSE MFL in England. The latest version of the exam, to be taken from 2026, is based on a syllabus in which words are prescribed at Foundation and Higher Tier — meaning that the listening and reading exams can only use the words from the lists (apart from a few glossed words if needed). The word lists are short — 1200 for Foundation Tier and 1700 for Higher. To give you an idea of how short these lists are, researchers such as Paul Nation have calculated that (for English) 2,000–3,000 word‑families  are needed for  simple, everyday conversations , simple questions/answers, basic needs, greetings and simple descriptions. A researcher in this field James Milton has lamented the limited scope of the GCSE lists, arguing that even before the new lists, students' vocabulary was, on average far too low for communicative needs. (Wor...