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. (Worth noting that the range of student vocabulary will be very high, given the huge disparity in aptitude, motivation and proficiency between students in English schools.) To communicate students need, above all, vocabulary.
Let's remind ourselves that the reason for limiting the vocabulary at GCSE was to put the focus on high-frequency words (generally a good thing) and to make listening tests more accessible — these have long been criticised as too taxing and unfair for many students. By specifying the vocab students will hear and read, this should help students achieve greater success. Would that it were that simple! (Comprehension is much more than just knowing high-frequency words. Plus, the nature of grading and accountability measures is such that many students have to get low scores anyway.)
Now, one effect of limiting the content of exams to a limited number of high-frequency words is so-called backwash (aka washback). The backwash effect is where the exam can affect the way teachers teach. This can be negative or positive, depending on what the results of the backwash are. In this case there is a serious risk of negative backwash. I am already seeing evidence of this in resource creation — indeed, when Gianfranco and I wrote our GCSE workbooks for French, we had to seriously limit the vocabulary used, to make the books more marketable and better suited to the new exam papers. The result can be anaemic resources, devoid of specialised, topic-relevant vocabulary which may in fact be very useful for students. High-frequency does not necessarily mean useful for individual students. Imagine, for instance, a student who likes talking about sport but who doesn't possess topic-related words like pass, tackle, league, defender, goal and kit. These are all low-frequency words in GCSE terms.
So, back to my portrait d'enfant videos which are culturally rich, eye-openers for students, with clear commentaries but featuring quite a bit of vocabulary outside the scope of GCSE specifications. Should teachers avoid these and focus on blander materials of less interest, but featuring just high-frequency words? I would strongly argue that teachers should not be lead only by vocab frequency, but should keep the focus on what interests classes and what has cultural value. Students will, in any case, be exposed to the high-frequency words since, by definition, they are high-frequency.
As a slight aside, an added risk with these word lists is that teachers spend too much time just getting students to learn words from the lists in the hope that this isolated word knowledge will transfer to comprehension within longer stretches of language. This is not how it works. Students need both breadth of vocab knowledge and depth — knowing how words sound, how they vary and the company they keep. For this skill to develop students need constant exposure to listening and reading texts — words in context.
In conclusion, therefore, I would urge teachers not to be led too strictly by the words in the syllabus. I rarely looked at such lists, preferring to keep my fous on interesting texts and activities, but with an eye on usefulness of vocabulary — including frequency. Beware the backwash effect!
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