Tips/support for GCSE MFL reading paper

[SpiritOfTheRitz]

DS is doing 2 GCSE MFLs and generally has a good aptitude for them.

He’s just had mocks, and his scores in the reading papers are pulling him down a bit for both MFL - he’s scoring 8/9 for all the other aspects, but much poorer reading scores are leading to a 7 overall.

Is there any focussed way we can work on this, and try and pull it up a bit? Any good strategies?

Particularly for MFL, (though it is an issue for the English reading paper, and the history sources paper too - again high scores on the other papers compensate a fair bit.)

DS has diagnoses of dyspraxia, dyslexia and auditory processing disorder, and does get a quiet room for exams but no other adjustments.

My DD1 did 2 MFLs, though I'm no way an expert.

Thoughts that spring to my mind:
. What is his English language comprehension like
. Is he jumping to answers based on spotting 1 or 2 words in the text rather than reading properly for meaning
. Is he giving required detail in answers
. Is his vocab good enough or are there words he doesn't know
. Is his grammar good enough, especially verb declensions

Get the papers back and see where the marks are lost.

@Clary may be able to advise further.

Read the question first, then look for the answer. Eg, if the question is what is someone's pet, look for animal words. Much quicker than reading the whole passage. Find the stuff you need and ignore the rest.
Look for cognates/near cognate ( words that are like the English) but beware of false friends e.g. Gift in German means poison while sale in French means dirty!
Use BBC fireside for practice.
Learn vocab lists well.
Practise a lot. Read anything. Online news articles. Magazines. Anything in the target foreign language.
Use highlighted to mark useful information.

Could you find a pen pal for them to chat over Insta or WhatsApp?

My DD1 who also has dyspraxia struggled with harder comprehensions because she couldn't do reading between the lines. Anything that was said indirectly she had difficulty with. She was only saved in Eng Lang due to controlled assessments.

Thank you, loads of potential avenues to explore.

Vocab and grammar knowledge I would say are very good. DS has a very good memory.

Jumping to key words and not reading the whole sentence properly could well be happening.

I will check about lack of detail, I doubt it’s that as surely it would be a problem across the board, but worth thinking about.

Not being able to read between the lines is an interesting thought. I don’t think this is a problem. But DS is very good at compensating for things, so it’s hard to pinpoint where the difficulty is sometimes. Something to think about.

Using a highlighter is a fab idea, will try that straight away, could be a quick win.

haha thanks for the tag @TeenDivided I did watch this thread earlioer intending to reply this pm

So@SpiritOfTheRitz are you able to say which boards - this will help me focus my answer? And are you happy to say what MFLs - that might also help?

First tho yay that he is doing two, so few students even get the chance these days.

Some good advice already tho you might want to check if he is allowed to use a highlighter in the exam - IIRC you didn't use to be but things may have changed.

I usually rattle on about vocab and verbs but if he is getting 8/9 on speaking, listening and writing then he must be pretty secure in these. So it's interesting as to what is going wrong - I infer he is getting around a 6 for reading?

Many students panic about the speaking but usually do better than they fear. Their teacher after all wants them to get a good grade and will tailor the questions to their strengths and abilities (this isn't cheating, the exam boards say you should do this). They also worry about listening and it;'s true that the first AQA listening papers of the new spec (esp German) were solid; and if a student panics it's easy to lose it.

But reading is usually felt to be OK. The thing is, the texts in the reading paper are harder than the listening ones (bc you can read and reread them). Has he been given his papers back so he can see where he went wrong?

A few thoughts (I am assuming AQA btw as it's the most popular)

• Is he reading carefully - it's easy to give an incorrect answer even if you understand the question. Example text: Es ist halb neun an einem milden Samstagvormittag im September. Im Moment ist fast niemand im Wasser. Viele Schwimmer würden diese Situation wohl idyllisch nennen, ich aber nicht. - student is looking for two reasons why this would be idyllic. I've bolded up the answer but it might not be obvious. For instance "no one in the water", ie omitting "fast" almost) would not get the mark.
• For the q and a in target language - does he waste time giving a long answer? Sample question: Qu’est-ce que les parents de Laure ne recyclent pas souvent ? - the answer is simply les bouteilles en verre. No need to write Les parents de Laure ne recyclent pas souvent les bouteilles en verre.
• For the translation into English - this can be a big issue. Two things often happen - a student sees a word they know and quickly (it' the final task) makes up an English sentence which includes it - but which is not what the sentence says. OR they write down all the words they know but fail to make them into anything meaningful in English. The key is to look at the structure of the sentences - who is doing what and when - and write a sentence that fits that and makes sense. If there are words you don't know, work out what kind of word they need to be and have a guess. You lose maximum one mark for a wrong word. Example In der Zukunft möchte ich eine gut bezahlte Arbeitsstelle in dieser Großstadt finden, weil sie so lebhaft ist. - you might not know lebhaft but you can see it is an adjective and a positive one so it's worth a punt.

Wow OP sorry for the essay! Thing is, at this stage and with his clear knowledge of the MFLs, it is exam technique that is letting him down I suspect. Get him to do all the past papers he can find. There are limited numbers so do other boards as well and legacy papers which you can find online (obv remember that the structure of a different board's exam will be or may be different) - a reading task is a reading task. HTH

Oh my goodness @clary, thank you so much for such a detailed reply. DS and I will go through it together. I’m guessing you are an MFL teacher!

DS is taking French and Spanish, both AQA.
I think he got five for the reading papers, absolutely massive difference with the other sections. But it can’t just have been having a bad day, since it was the same for both languages.

Ah sorry for all the German in my reply then! I am a Germanist at heart it seems tho I taught French and German (not much Spanish!). Agree if he is getting a 5 in both reading papers there is an issue there.

Well worth going through the papers then to see what went wrong. But the writing and speaking are much more about the structures and language you can show off you know; with the reading it's about decoding and finding the right answer so it's deffo a different skill.

DS and I have pored over all the suggestions.
Not answering the question fully chimed a lot, though I don’t think it’s the full picture. He sometimes seems to be losing his place in the text, I think, and jumping to a completely random unrelated sentence. Highlighters not allowed according to Spanish teacher, but he is going to see if he can use a ruler to try and keep his place.

He had a go at another paper his Spanish teacher gave him this week, and there’s an immediate improvement to a 6.

So thank you for all the advice! And fingers crossed it will just take a bit of practice and he can improve a bit more, even if he’s always going to be better at the speaking and writing. Both MFL teachers are quite optimistic.
He’s planning to take at least one MFL for A level, so wants to do the best he can.

Invigilator here. aQA Highlighters allowed in the question sheet but not in the answer. Double check with the exam officer it's not changed this year! But I've read those regulations out enough to know them off by heart.

From jcq regs. This gets read out at the beginning of the exam.

It’s interesting me that he is gaining 8/9 in listening but so many grades below in reading. Broadly, the skills are similar – as in, your language skills are not being judged (unlike speaking and writing) – as long as your answer is clear, even the ones in TL, there’s no issue about things like adjective agreements or even spelling, and it’s about finding the right answer in the text and ignoring the bits you don’t need.

I wonder if, as he does well in listening, timing is a big factor? It’s impossible obvs to spend too long on a listening qu – as the audio keeps going! (at A level btw you can rewind endlessly!!) but IME it is easy for a student to spend way too long on a tricky reading qu and then not finish.

So it might help to work out timing for each question – pretty easy for reading as it’s an hour with 60 marks. So one minute per mark. If he has a five mark question, and he is spending ANY longer than five mins, he will run out of time overall. And I would always advise doing the first few questions more quickly as a) they are usually the easier ones and b) the translation is the hardest task, so worth leaving longer to do that.

Update:
Thank you for the clarification about highlighters. It turns out they help loads.

Speed is an issue it turns out, but probably more the other way round - rushing headlong in, going too fast, thinking it’s easy, and making silly errors.

We think maybe this doesn’t happen with the listening because you have to go at the speed it is delivered, and listen to it more than once, so it sort of paces you and makes you check your answer.

DS is always hyped up and going at top speed at the start of exams because of the adrenaline. We’ve had a look at some of the other papers in different subjects, and he definitely gets into his stride as he goes along.

Thinking maybe if he starts with the harder translation part first, he will have to slow down, actually read it properly and concentrate more and that might help to settle him.

Ah interesting - rushing rather than not finishing. Yes this is also familiar; student: "the reading paper was easy miss, I finished it in 30 mins!" Me: "hmmmm"

We think maybe this doesn’t happen with the listening because you have to go at the speed it is delivered, and listen to it more than once, so it sort of paces you and makes you check your answer.

Yes THIS. This is why listenign is not as bad as people fear - just as you cannot get behind, also you have to listen and pay attention and you cannot rush - if that is an issue.

Not sure about doing the paper in a different order - I am always a bit wary - but maybe try with a few practice papers and see.

If he does it in order, maybe do the opposite of what I said before - force himself to take three minutes to do the first 4-mark question instead of doing it in 30 seconds?

Sorry if this has been mentioned above, but is he aware of looking out for distractors? They are big on distractors in the reading. By this I mean looking out for negatives, words such as tampoco (neither), poco (few), ya no (no longer). Often the source text will mention all the options if it is multiple choice, but upon closer reading, distractor words mean that there can only be one possible answer.

Another thing to watch for are question types. Past, present, future questions mean he needs to look not only for tenses but also time markers.
Positive, negative and positive/negative questions often feature one of each in the answer. True, false or not mentioned is the same, one of each. I get my students to find the true statements first. They then look for information in the source text that contradicts the statement, they are the false ones. Anything left is not mentioned.

I'm sure there's more advice I could give, I'll have a think.

Just wanted to update on this.
DS has been practicing hard pacing himself, and looking out for distractors tenses and time markers, and checking and double checking.

Slight improvement on the reading paper in both languages, he does pick out a few silly mistakes on his second sweep as well( not all though). So thank you for all the advice.

On the other hand, in his recent practice paper in class he got full marks for the writing paper.
And he has an offer of a 6th form place to study both French and Spanish, as long as he gets sixes for GCSE.
Really hoping with a bit more maturity the reading side will fall into place.