Are we following the script?

The BBC News website was reporting quite heavily on Sunday claims made by an undercover reporter regarding advice given by former MFL Chief Examiner Terry Murray on how to help students get as many marks as possible in their GCSE oral examinations. Whilst I don't necessarily agree with some of Mr Murray's guidance, let's be clear that there is a stark difference between cheating, and doing our best as teachers to allow students to gain the best possible mark in their exams, and I'm angered and saddened by the ignorance of both Ruth Alexander, the undercover 'teacher', and Nick Gibb, the Shadow Schools' Minister, who appeared as a guest on Donal McIntyre's programme on BBC Radio 5, which ran with this as the top story.

Mr Gibb expressed disbelief at how teachers were able to get hold of the conversation questions so soon before the exam. What he obviously doesn't know is that these questions are not set by the board, but by the teachers, and that whilst students do prepare answers for these questions, they do not know which questions they are going to be asked. I would have also hoped that Ruth Alexander took the time to read through the GCSE MFL specifications, which would have emphasised the rules and guidelines for the oral exam. For the AQA exam, the students are allowed to make notes on the role play section and bring those into the exam - they don't even need to learn that bit. AQA also send teachers lists of suggested questions. There are schools who have banks of model answers, it is no different to any other subject on the curriculum.

I feel that this report also shows a complete lack of understanding as to what is required to learn a language at GCSE. We are dealing with students with a massive range of abilities, from naturally gifted linguists to as Mr Murray puts it, "Poor Joey". We have management, inspectors, local authorities, as well as the government putting pressure on schools to raise standards, whilst language departments round the country feel the pinch as numbers continue to drop in certain languages. Nick Gibb would surely love us to teach students the finer points of French grammar, to enable our pupils to converse fluently about Camus or Brecht, but for the run of the mill student, it just isn't going to happen, and Mr Gibb should really know better. It is one thing to prepare students for the speaking exam, and another for the student to actually perform under pressure in the exam. If we consider that 25% of their final grade comes from how they perform and cope in that 10-15 minutes, even the best thespian would do well sticking to that 'script'.

We teach some students set phrases, specific vocabulary, basic (and I mean basic) grammatical structures, and hope that they revise effectively, prepare properly and learn what they can for the exam. For many of the less able, a recording of the exam might sound like a few pages from a Berlitz phrase book, but it's time that the ignorant became informed, so as to avoid non-stories like this. It is naive and foolish to think that teachers in other subjects don't prepare their students to the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it, because schools are jockeying for position in the league tables.

In her post on a very lively TES MFL forum, Helen Myers makes a valid point when she says that teachers "...are left with an invidious responsibility in the absence of clear guidance. " The teachers are not being unprofessional, nor are they breaking any rules set by the exam boards. So for critics of the current method and practice used in GCSE oral examinations, perhaps you should look at the rules laid down by these exam boards, and be very careful who you call a cheat.