English Language is Broken. Here's How to Fix It

We should get rid of all the reading questions from the English Language GCSE. They are totally irrelevant.

I’m going to demonstrate why, using the evidence of AQA’s own published answers and the Assessment Objectives.

And then I’m going to suggest what we should replace them with.

Here’s My Personal Anecdote - if you are interested

I sat this year’s AQA GCSE English language exam this year.

I have read every answer to every question published by AQA, and have noticed particular patterns. These make it very easy to ace the exam.

With the reading questions it means there is just one technique - points make prizes - that acquires every mark.

We can say that this is not precisely the same skill in every question - some questions ask for inference, others for summary, others to analyse structure. Let’s pretend that these are actually different processes, rather than the same thing.

The analogy I would use is tennis. These different questions teach forehand slice, forehand topspin, backhand slice and backhand topspin. They are not as different as forehand, lob, serve, backhand, volley. We pretend the questions require dramatically different skills, but they don’t.

Here’s another way the analogy works. The points make prizes method is not like winning points in a tennis game. It is simply repeatedly hitting the ball. It is mechanical.

For English language questions 2-4 on both papers it simply means:

1. Keep writing explanations, and write as many as you can.

2. You can introduce each explanation with ‘this suggests’ so you know what follows is an explanation, and count them.

3. For an 8 mark question you need 8 explanations. For a 20 mark question you need 20. That’s it.

What Evidence Do I Have?

Well, the obvious answer, is every single answer ever published by AQA. What else would I need?

I have pushed this as far as I can logically - and students contact me all the time to show that it has helped them hugely improve their grade in the mocks. We’ll see what the data looks like after the exams.

I will also have my own exam paper - will this repetitive method give me 100%?

What is English For?

If I am right, these English questions are barely a test of English. The best which can be said of them as that they test the students’ ability to read.

Let’s look at the assessment objectives Ofqual gave to each exam board:

Are these already tested in the literature GCSE? Take a look:

These are different ways of saying the same things. The only skills in language not specified in literature are ‘synthesise’ and ‘compare’.

But could literature AO3 “understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written” be done without synthesis? No.

What about ‘compare’? Comparison is not a skill Ofqual demands in literature. It is, however, clearly specified in language, “across two or more texts”. The exam boards have run with this, and said ‘actually, this is more of a test of a literature student - let’s put it there too.’

That’s why the poetry comparison question exists.

A Thought Experiment

Part 1

All the reading assessment objectives can be, should be, and are tested in the literature GCSE. Therefore, to assess students’ skill in these objectives, we can just ask them to sit the literature exam.

There is no need to have them in language.

There is no case for arguing that literature is not an appropriate area for study for any student with ‘normal’ cognitive abilities. Very few students are currently excluded from this exam.

This is Ofqual’s moral case for teaching literature:

• GCSE specifications in English literature should develop knowledge and skills in reading, writing and critical thinking.

• Through literature, students have a chance to develop culturally and acquire knowledge of the best that has been thought and written.

• Studying GCSE English literature should encourage students to read widely for pleasure, and as a preparation for studying literature at a higher level.

So, as far as possible, all students should take the literature GCSE.

Part 2

Make a list of all the types of writing you would like to be good at, as an adult and (because you may be an English teacher) as a writer.

Short stories, poetry, blogs, articles, whole books, travel guides, film reviews, restaurant reviews, reports … I’m just making stuff up. Your list is going to be much more relevant. You’ll get a lot more out of this post if you write your top 10. Just give it 60 seconds. You’ll be glad you did at the end.

Imagine we asked 100 English teachers to rank 30 such suggestions, and then aggregated the rankings to pick to the top 10. Or we started with 40 and ranked the top 15. Those top 10 to 15 would then be the writing curriculum.

Let’s take a small subset of these. Imagine we taught students to write:

1. Short stories.

2. Persuasive articles and speeches.

3. Formal letters applying for jobs.

4. Formal letters of complaint.

5. Satirical attacks on ideas or institutions they don’t like.

6. Biography of someone in their family.

7. Autobiography.

Work down the list. At which number would you stop before you could infer the students’ ability to read?

We could probably have a reasonable degree of certainty after point 2. Why? Because you can’t write what you can’t read. If you write competently in 1 and 2, you can read those text types at least competently.

There is also empirical evidence. Students nationally do not score different marks for Section A - the reading questions, and Section B - the writing questions. The marks are simply in line, especially when looking at cohorts.

Because the relationship is obvious, isn’t it? Reading is the cause of a student’s skill at writing. To excel at writing is to excel at reading.

Part 3

Now imagine what your English curriculum would look like if the exam boards simply asked students to write in 4 different genres across both papers.

How much better would our students be at writing? How much more interesting would be the texts they read and the writing their produced?

And - this should matter - how much better prepared would our students be for their future lives?

KS3

I’m pretty sure that Ofqual aren’t going to be influenced by my brilliant analysis! But, what is to stop you looking at your KS3 curriculum and creating a writing curriculum full of the ideas on your list?

What does your moral purpose tell you to do?

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