29th March 2019 9:00
By Blue Tutors
There was a recent study into the number of GCSE and A Level entries for languages in the UK, which showed a continued trend of fewer students choosing to study French and German. Despite the increase in languages such as Spanish, Arabic and Mandarin, overall the number of students taking a foreign language has decreased dramatically in the last 15 years. The message from schools is that languages are seen as the most difficult subjects in which to obtain the top grade.
We’ve all heard about the race to the bottom from examining boards over the last 20 years. The number of top grades led the government to overhaul GCSEs and A Levels in an attempt to make them harder and less spoon-fed. It is during this period that the number of language entries has declined which might give a clue as to why.
It is difficult to make language exams easier than they were 20 years ago. Unless we simply ask students fewer questions so they have to remember less, we will still be asking them to learn a significant amount of vocabulary and grammar. Language exam questions tend to be more linear than with other subjects, so whereas examiners can remove the possibility of someone feeling lost in other exams by taking them through in smaller steps, that’s not really a possibility with languages.
It’s not really fair to blame schools or students for this. Schools are under pressure to do well in league tables, and students want to earn the best place at university as they can. However, this is a fairly short term view because employers have been very vocal about the need for better language skills for graduates. Maybe it’s necessary to make at least one language compulsory up to GCSE, and encourage more students to take an AS Level in a language. The examining boards could also adjust the grade boundaries for languages to ensure a similar number of students achieve the top grade as do for other subjects.