GCSE French course work - AIBU

[lookingbusy]

DS is doing a French assignment for his GCSE that counts towards the final grade. The task is to write a 250 word letter to his penpal describing his holiday, then memorise it and reproduce it in the exam. He has been given a list of the grammar points etc. it needs to contain to get an A*. He can get any amount of help from us and is also allowed to show it to his teacher for corrections. He is also allowed to take his dictionary (which has verb conjugation tables in the middle) into the exam. How is this possibly a test? He has asked us for a lot of help preparing it (we both speak French) and to be honest there doesn't seem any point not helping him. AIBU to think this is very easy, a bit unfair on those who don't have a parent who speaks French and those who are really good at French?

Surprised at him being allowed to bring ca home to work on. Ds currently y11 so also had cas none of which he was allowed to bring home. As for submitting the drafts in the exam how was this possible? In history for example they were allowed to take a side of A4 notes which could only be bullet points i.e. no full sentences. However I suppose it's easy enough to remember the task and do as your ds did.

RNJ3007- I don't know if the rules/syllabus have changed since I did my GCSEs 5 years ago, but you were definitely allowed a dictionary in the controlled assessment then, for AQA at least. There were 3 pieces of coursework, two that you did at home and one that you drafted at home and then wrote up in controlled conditions at school. For each one the teacher would look at your draft and wasn't allowed to give direct corrections, but there was a sheet with certain common errors on it (e.g. some wrong verb conjugations, some wrong gender agreement, etc) and the teacher could tick which ones applied to your work but you had to work out where the actual errors were and how to correct them yourself.

This seems fair enough to me.

My DS managed to scrape a C at GCSE French a year ago but to this day would not be able to construct a simple sentence or hold a basic conversation. I don't think he ever learned regular and irregular verbs and used Google translate for most of his homework. The fact that he still managed to get a C says a lot about the state of GCSEs IMO.

seesensepeople - I am definitely criticising the test not the child. I am allowed to find fault with the world. I am a linguist, but I think he might be too (he is not actually related to me as he is adopted). When he was younger, about 10 I think, he taught himself basic Dutch from a book, so I don't think he has no aptitude. As I said, I did help him to write the paragraph and I will be helping him rehearse regurgitating it, because as you rightly say, it's important. It just seems such a pointless exercise - I don't think he has learned anything from it. A multiple choice exercise would actually be more valuable as it would make them learn the verb endings and vocab.

I've done my french exam in the last few years and I was pretty shocked when I realized the bottom french groups were being allowed to bring their exercise books from the classroom into their controlled assessment... as in the books where they had written their assessment to learn.

Definitely allowed a dictionary for AQA. Teacher allowed to mark pieces of work in the lead up to the assessment but nothing after the task has actually been set. Also, once task has been set, any work done on it at school is not supposed to be taken home. Oh and parents should not be helping.

Also, he may be competing with others his own age for the assessment, but in life he will be competing more widely.

My DS has just done the speaking version of this. Five paragraphs, written in class and corrected, then learned by heart and recited for the exam. I felt that he had already done the work by writing it and the reciting bit just tested his (luckily quite good) memory.

But this is precisely the kind of thing Michael Gove wants students to do more of from 2015, so there will no doubt be more to come in the future

sunshine it's fine for the in class prep stage but not in the actual one hour assessment. Work done at school shouldn't be taken home, and work done at home shouldn't come to school. Also, on the task planning sheet, we can tick 'too short/long' or 'remove conjugated verbs' but cannot give any corrections or help.

Ruffello I give detentions for clearly google translated work (it is obvious), and I make all years learn verbs (by rote!) and tenses. With weekly vocab tests. Apparently I'm 'well harsh'!!!

Too right RNJ. There should be more teachers like you!

Unfortunately the government holds foreign languages in contempt, so this isn't really surprising. In the maths example though I don't see a problem with printing the formulas on the exam, ability to remember formulas isn't exactly maths skill, and in real life you'd be able to look them up in any situation that mattered.

OP, my DD did GCSE last year and it was the same as you describe. They were allowed a dictionary in the exam. They were given a lesson to prepare the writing and then were free to work on it at home, and then learn it. However, the teacher didn't have any input with correcting the preparation, but they could ask parents, siblings, anyone really for help.

I agree, a lot of it was an exercise in memory. DD has an excellent memory and did very well.

I have also concluded that this is not a fair and accurate test of linguistic ability as it favours those with better memory skills and those who have the advantage of outside help.

OP, sorry didn't mean to offend you but I did feel your poor DS was getting it in the neck for the crap exam system - you said things like he didn't have to do a lot of work in preparation, for example when another poster said he could get a higher grade for putting in the pre-work.

The GCSE system is not about the real world or even getting ready for the real world. Our job as parents is all about supporting them through it, there are plenty of people out there ready to denigrate their achievements - I find a bit of positive affirmation goes a long way.

And yes, of course you are allowed to find fault with the world - I wouldn't dispute that for a second!!

As a languages teacher, you can take a dictionary into the writing CA with Edexcel but the teacher is not allowed to correct. They can, however, give general feedback.

Glup, MFL GCSE is very different from O level and has changed a lot over the years I have been teaching it.

My own O level consisted of speaking exam (text to read aloud followed by a conversation, which was not pre-prepared); an essay exam (complete this story); a translation (French into English) and reading comprehension (questions in English); an aural exam (text/questions on tape, nothing written down and you weren't allowed to write the questions, just make notes); a dictation (1/4, 1/2 or full mark deducted for every mistake, including punctuation).

AQA GCSE in mid 1990s: 4 foundation exams (listening/speaking/reading/writing) and 4 higher exams as well for those who were capable. Listening and reading, all questions were in English; speaking was 2-3 role plays with 10 mins to prepare followed by a prepared conversation (on 3 topics out of 6); writing was not pre-prepared but you knew what topics were likely to come up.

GCSE now: Listening/reading exam at the end (worth 20% each) some questions/answers in MFL, some in English; speaking 2 x 4-6 min controlled assessments both pre-prepared, once topic is set there is no teacher input/correction allowed; writing is the same but 2 x 1 hour to write.

And this is the 3rd spec of GCSE that I have taught!

You have all written exactly my sentiments with regard to GCSE languages. DD is doing French and Spanish. I do no speak Spanish, can understand some of it, but I do speak French and I was appalled, actually, at what the students had to do. I felt the exam and work is a bit, well, disrespectful to the students. It does not test their ability, but their memory. They have all done so much work and, in the end, are not able necessarily to speak any of the language. Luckily, DD is pretty gifted and we have spoken some French at home.

I don't agree with Gove's suggestions for the "new" GCSEs. So far as I recall, GCSEs were introduced as many children find final exams too stressful and the results don't show their true ability. Gove seems to want to turn the clock back and give no credence to any work that pupils do in class or independently. I despair. I really do and I feel sorry for the pupils who will be put through these new exams that haven't been thought through properly.

We hated the memory test too.

Dd actually has a reasonable understanding of French and has been known to read French books in her spare time, but has anxiety problems and managed to work herself into a massive state over the memorisation. I just don't see the point: surely the whole point of an oral test should be to test that you can perform on the spot? How often will you find a Frenchman who is willing to listen to your recital?

With the old O-level you used to have to make basic conversation.

YANBU
CA that test the the teachers commitment to helping and the parents knowledge are ridiculous.

No one here knows much French, but that sort of thing in Science would be a joke (between us DH and I have done all three sciences to university level).

DD1 wouldn't let her DDad (son of two English teachers) read her descriptive writing practice. She's dyslexic and she has to write in her style or tenses and plurals go haywire.

RNJ you can definitely use a dictionary with aqa, I am a French teacher and didn't know this until I went for inset led by the chief examiner, who took great delight in telling us this and also pointing out the verb tables in the middle!!

Plus to echo the other MFL teachers- the teacher can mark normal class work and homework which can be 'recycled' for CA but anything which is a formal draft cannot be marked.

I think overall the CA favours those with better memories, not necessarily the better linguists.

HOWEVER...I have to say that the standard needed to attain an A* is much higher than 5 years ago, realistically they need things like 3-4 tenses, lots of idioms, things like subjunctive phrases, so that kind of cancels out the fact they are able to prepare beforehand in my eyes. The level of accuracy has to be much much higher. We noticed that if a verb is conjugated correctly, the examiner tends to disregard the whole sentence it is contained in as it renders the overall message unclear.

Also the listening and reading exams are much harder than in recent years, this year's has sparked outrage among teachers, it was so hard!

By the way...I refused to go along with the 'blind' memory test, i.e. learning things you have no idea about, so I focused hugely on verb formation and getting my class confident on how to conjugate, along with more advanced phrases with my higher candidates...all pupils who originally started in a foundation level class got a B or above in their coursework and our results were on average 20% higher than at similar AQA centres. I did work on their memory slills too, but literally for 1 hour. We found that the errors crept in when pupils had no idea what they were even trying to say in English!

Aaargh sorry me again - RNJ I do remember the examiner saying she didn't recommend using a dictionary unless the pupils were very good at using them. I personally don't let them as it causes more problems than it solves!

Actually, there's a lot of rules to controlled assessments.
The teacher isn't supposed to correct it. The pupil isn't allowed to take notes from the classroom home, and they're not allowed to take notes from home to the classroom in. And technically, the pupils aren't allowed to do more than six hours preparation at home.

Which is why I detest controlled assessments in languages. The controlled assessments take up teaching time, and you are nominally not allowed to ask the teacher to teach you! Instead, you memorise your errors.

Practice doesn't make perfect- it makes permanent.

I don't think I will take another language GCSE while this system is around. The memorisation is stressful for me, and my memory is practically photographic!