Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

Cheating in MFL oral exam am I just being naive?

77 replies

middleclassonbursary · 04/05/2014 21:16

At lunch today with friends I was talking to their DC's asking how GCSE's are going, one told me that in the MFL oral exam the teacher asks the question then held up the answer written on a piece of paper. I was stunned then someone else's DC (different school) said his school did it. My DC said his school didn't but his friends with friends at other schools say it's common practice.
I'm completely stunned, this in my book is cheating. One said we do it because everyone else does it.

OP posts:
fourcorneredcircle · 04/05/2014 21:54

I don't do it! I suppose others could, and we'll never know. I would like to think its children exaggerating. I hate to think of my colleagues being so unprofessional and giving their students such an advantage to the disadvantage of others - the higher the aggregate marks the higher the grade boundaries for all. It's such a cut throat situation in so many schools at the momment I feel sick at the likelyhood.

Original poster
middleclassonbursary · 04/05/2014 22:12

I laughed initially when the child told me, thinking he was making it up but quickly realised he was quite serious especially when another one said his school had done it too.
When I asked why; because they want an A or an A at the very least and that "most do it" so you have to do it too. To quote Tyler Hamilton one of the most banned riders in the history of cycling "Lance's (Armstrong) golden rule: what ever you do those other *** are doing it more."

OP posts:
Leeds2 · 04/05/2014 22:34

I think I would be minded to write to the Examining Board in question, and name the schools. This cannot be right.

RunAwayHome · 04/05/2014 22:59

I have been told by pupils that the teacher will make gestures such as pointing forward or back to tell them what tense they need to answer the question in. They also bring in a list of the prepared questions for the teacher, and they are allowed to highlight the ones they'd like to be asked, and cross the ones that they don't, or put the pages of the topics they like on top, and the ones they don't like on the bottom. The teacher has already been through the questions and answers with them so that they know exactly what to say, and it is just a test of rote memory. It seems pointless and unfair.

Hercule · 05/05/2014 07:53

I'm in my forties and I remember my teachers making elaborate gestures in our language oral exams. My husband's teacher mouthed the words for pupils. So not a new thing.

Surely in this more modern times the exams could be filmed instead of just recorded?

MelonKim · 05/05/2014 07:55

the teacher will be sacked

I know of a case

bruffin · 05/05/2014 07:57

Im on my 50s and oral exam wss not done by teachers but by strangers and we had no idea what the questions would be.

MelonKim · 05/05/2014 07:59

agree - they are so much easier now
We learned answers pat with s1

Eastpoint · 05/05/2014 08:05

They don't do that at my DDs school.

We had external examiners which is so much fairer.

MelonKim · 05/05/2014 08:07

GCSE nowadays for mod langs is a piece of piss compared to O level
There is no prose, no direct translation, dictionaries all over the place for the writing ( which s1 just learned off by heart then rewrote)

ridonkulous

I would call the school about the cheating though, although when this happened locally the teacher was sacked. pronto

momb · 05/05/2014 08:10

I'm shocked by this! When I did French oral we had some external person come in and talk to us individually in the library for 20 mins each. It hadn't occurred to me that nowadays they would be recorded instead.

Original poster
middleclassonbursary · 05/05/2014 08:12

There is no point in reporting it because like Lance Armstrong they'll deny it.

OP posts:
MelonKim · 05/05/2014 08:22

gah - kids always grass up teachers.

GiraffesAndButterflies · 05/05/2014 08:23

There's definitely a point- exam boards are used to investigating malpractice, they will want to get to the bottom of things.

summerends · 05/05/2014 08:30

Is n't it sad that teachers feel the pressure for the need to stoop to that.
However even if they don't cheat, language GCSEs still seem to develop rote learning of prepared material rather than actually knowing how to construct a sentence. I would rather the content of any oral / written piece of work was less advanced but could actually be produced spontaneously

CookiecutterShark · 05/05/2014 08:32

I am sure this kind of thing happens. There is just so much scope for cheating within the current systwm. And it makes it so difficult for those of us who choose to follow the rules and do it properly.

Mind you the exam boards aren't exactly keen to do anything about it. We use edexcel and their support material for the writing actually tells you to get the pupils writing similar paragraphs to those you'll expext for the final piece in the teaching phase then you can correct them. This is so close to allowing teachers to correct drafts that I'm sure some do.

Unfortunately if you have a vi form then you can hazard a guess at where it's happening as it gets a* for gcse but they have no basis for AS and really struggle. It's very short sighted.

I've signed up to do exam marking this year with the hope of seeing the standard we're competing against - and it does feel like competing.

Shootingatpigeons · 05/05/2014 08:33

I hope this will be reported and acted on. It certainly didn't happen at my DDs school and as she is dyslexic the oral exam was a complete nightmare for her, she was extremely stressed and upset and got a very low mark for that component of the exams and in one other, I can't remember which but another made very difficult for her by her learning difficulties. She had to work incredibly hard to get good enough marks in the other components, to A* standard to scrape a B. Why should other pupils get that unfair advantage. Please report it.

My oral was also by an external examiner, I failed it too.

CookiecutterShark · 05/05/2014 08:36

It also doesn't help with getting languages numbers back up. Who's going to choose a subject for gcse where it seems you 'have to' cheat? We're always being asked "miss, can you just do ... / mark my draft / ask me ..." We're seen as difficult enough as it is and it's compulsory in my school

MelonKim · 05/05/2014 08:38

the result is that s1 has NO real concept of German, no idea about the cases and the words that make them change..

Raskova · 05/05/2014 08:39

If they all do well at oral but shit at the rest, it would be obvious!

My teachers never did this. Maybe people were more honest 'years ago' Wink

HPparent · 05/05/2014 08:45

My dd told me that children had their books and materials in full view during a Spanish exam last year. The class teacher was invigilating and didn't give a shit as she was retiring. DD didn't cheat and got a B. 2 boys who did cheat and got A* were being lauded over in the school magazine.

Elder DD gies to a super selective. One girl who messed up a science practical and has an Oxbridge offer was basically told how to correct it by teachers but other girls who made the same error weren't. DD not affected but made me bloody mad as all the cheating will raise the grade boundaries.

Kids and teachers are under so much pressure I can understand that if the opportunity is provided some will take advantage.

Original poster
middleclassonbursary · 05/05/2014 08:48

How do I report it? "I was a lunch the other day and the children at St X and St Y were telling me about cheating in their MFL oral. I asked my DS at St Z and he said it doesn't happen their but his friends report it happens at ST A, B, C, D, E, F etc"! I looked on the website for one of the schools and it doesn't even tell you what exam board they use and one was sitting IGCSE (I'm told the oral is harder you don't prepare questions in advance) and one GCSE. One school uses both.
As I've already said like Lance Armstrong they'll deny it cheating is lying let's face it.

OP posts:
threepiecesuite · 05/05/2014 08:49

We do it by the book but I have heard that cheating is rife.
I think it's the most stressful exam ouf of them all for Year 11s.

CookiecutterShark · 05/05/2014 08:50

Raskova do you know it should be but I'm not sure it would be picked up unless it happened every time.

We had a year once with writing marks in one language beloqw other skills and below our other languages - and we mark and moderate as a team to the same mark scheme. We appealed the marks and nothing changed. That was with several students having *B. No one got * overall Sad We changed boards after that.

PurpleAlert · 05/05/2014 08:55

My DD told me a local school where her friends go told MFL pupils to put their prepared stuff on a piece of card to read out as the sound of paper rustling would be a give away on the recording...

MFL GCSEs seem a bit of a joke in my opinion-comprehensions where the questions and answers about a french text are in English and orals where a large amount is preprepared and learnt off by heart.

DD seemed to know quite a bit of vocabulary but no idea how to put them into a grammatically correct sentence. She ended up with an A in her french and can hardly speak it at all. I on the other hand scraped a D at O level and 33 years later was able to help her with her exam prep.

Swipe left for the next trending thread