UK: Oral tests at GCSE could be dropped as too stressful

[Harold Schiffman]

Oral tests at GCSE could be dropped as too stressful
Sunday, 17 Feb 2008 16:31

Oral exercises could be a thing of the past

Oral exams for GCSE foreign languages could be dropped after a report
claimed that they were too stressful. The Sunday Telegraph claims that
the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) would instead rely
on teacher assessments. The QCA said that its report out next week
would concur with a previous review which claimed that one-off oral
tests were not a reliable guide to ability. Lord Dearing's review of
language testing claimed that the stress of oral examinations was
putting youngsters off studying subjects such as French and German.A
QCA spokeswoman declined to confirm that next week's oral assessment
report would signal the end of school oral examinations.

But Sky News quotes the spokesperson as saying that the QCA report
would follow on from Lord Dearing's recommendations, which in turn
were supported fully by the government. Former chief inspector of
schools Chris Woodhead was critical of the plans saying: "Crucial to
learning a language is the ability to speak it and the only reliable
way of assessing a student's competence in speaking the language is to
have the oral exam at the end of the course. "The motivation is to
make modern languages easier and more attractive to more students," Mr
Woodhead said. "But what's the point when it undermines the currency
in such a radical way."

Conservative shadow schools secretary Michael Gove wrote in the Sunday
Telegraph: "After being told they could get a pass without writing a
word in a foreign language, now pupils are being told they can pass
without speaking it."Once again, this government is moving the
goalposts on examinations and instead of proper rigour we have got a
watering down of standards," he said.

http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/politics/oral-tests-at-gcse-could-be-dropped-as-too-stressful-$1205069.htm

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************