As an English teacher, it seems a travesty that speaking and listening skills are not recognised in the accreditation, as things stand, in the GCSE English specifications. Students receive a cursory “P” if they “pass” that does not appear on their exam certification and so motivation is not high in the context of working with a content-heavy reading and writing curriculum.
In my professional experience working with GCSE English resit students, it has often been the case that many in the class have been verbally or aurally articulate and rich in their use of language. In conversations, their speaking comes from the heart as they respond to the sorts of things that typically emerge in English resit classes: the stuff of life - English as social practice.
However, where they may be confident verbally or aurally (not accredited) they are perhaps not as confident in their reading and writing (accredited). And so these important life skills are relegated, and some students are disadvantaged because their own skill set is not given the same opportunity as those who are confident readers and writers. This is a gross error of judgement on the part of Ofqual and the Department for Education, in my humble opinion, informed as I am by 29 years of English teaching.
In this article I present three examples, taken directly from my own teaching when speaking and listening was part of formal assessment and where students received a separate line in their exam accreditation that showed how well (or not) they had done. Such formal validation does matter to students. The examples included here are drawn from both the old AQA specification (a talk to a group) and IGCSE assessment process, where students had a 10-minute slot in which to deliver their talk on a subject of their choosing (recorded) with only a brief pre-prepared plan to guide them. This assessment opportunity was often a stunning experience for me as a teacher and I think for many students. They sometimes surprised themselves as much as me. Afterwards, I would note down some of the most memorable; hopefully this is conveyed in the accounts that follow.
GCSE English: Should we assess spoken language?
Ofqual assessment plans: What FE staff need to know
Speaking and listening exams: Why change is needed
Refuseniks are tricky to win over and, when given the opportunity, their enthusiasms can set them alight as they get into their talking. This refusenik became unstoppable as he described and explained the joys he found in fishing, the finer details, terms of reference; what it is like fishing for hours on end into the dead of night or in the early hours after dawn has broken. The quiet, the river sound, birdsong. He revealed a completely different side from the glum one I had previously seen. He came alive. So much technical kit involved, the precious time spent with his granddad, fishing together undisturbed as they regularly were; contemplative concentrated times spent by riversides, the winding rural walk to get there, in all weathers…In his talking, this student inspired in ways I would not have imagined possible beforehand. Ironic that it was this very formality of assessment that generated such a positive response. I saw confidence and engagement with English, pride in and love of specialist language.
Expressing his own voice, articulating experience, and expertise: being heard. Enthusiasm right there. This platform was a real game-changer in his relationship to English. He was given a space that was his, made sense to him and within which he communicated with fabulous eloquence and enjoyment.
He stood at the front of the class and we waited for him to start. He was one of the hard-nut rogues, on the outside. Seventeen years old. Trouble and troubled, but likeable. He often charmed the class in all his “laddish” ways.
This was the occasion of a “speaking and listening” assessment. I was nervous for him, and wondered what he would come up with. He stood, holding a small photograph, and began to tell the story behind it. It was a photograph of himself, at about the age of 2, surrounded by brothers and sisters. He talked about the importance of family.
Everyone in the room slowly shifted mood with his words as we began to absorb the huge story being shared. This was not what we expected at all. This student spoke with a firm, clear, powerful voice about how much he loved family. He told us he had not seen the family in the photograph for many years, since just after the photograph was taken. With great force of emotion - visible on his face, expressed in his voice - he spoke of how he was fostered from a young age. His “birth family”, in the photograph, had been separated.
He didn’t tell us why. He then spoke of his experience of being fostered. That it was the best thing. He wanted to tell people about his experience. He didn’t like the way in which foster children and foster families were talked about as something “less”. He spoke with such tremendous feeling. The class was stunned and swept into his telling, listening to his every word, keeping back the tears if they could. He stood at the end still holding the photograph, a brave figure of confident vulnerability. He was troubled because of a world that caused him deep trouble; we had seen him at his worst sometimes, and then this. He had a strong understanding of family beyond perhaps many.
Again, I realised a “teacher truth”: never underestimate the life experience behind bravado. And so it is. In some lessons, our young people, struggling with all that growing up brings, find voice. Speaking and listening moments like this can transform and maybe bring an increased sense of self-belief, as well as empathy through stories shared. Teenagers being listened to in this way is powerful with their lives acknowledged, their voices heard.
Much later in the year, exam day came. I watched students go into the exam hall. This student didn’t turn up. I texted and rang - he picked up - he’d overslept. His foster dad drove him, I met him at the gate and walked with him to the exam hall. He had a history of scarpering from exam rooms by using “the toilet excuse”, and who can blame him. This time he stayed and chose to see it through. Relationships with our students matter.
A bit of a live wire. Chatty, engaging, motivated. They spoke about ambition. They wanted to work for the emergency services. This student talked to us about what changed their life, what made them want to come back to college, revisit education. They’d never “bothered” at school. Failed all exams. Skipped some of them. Dodged school a lot of the time too. They were a bit older than the other students in the class, at 19. When they left school, they would often hang around in local parks. Directionless. Bored. Angry. In one of these parks, a youth community centre was discovered. They started to go along, play cards, chat, play pool - and came upon a youth worker. Through talking to this youth worker and hanging out in the centre, this student started to think about life a bit differently, started to think about what they could do instead of just hanging around not doing very much. Direction was found.
Because of the youth work initiative, they were persuaded to enrol on a course at their local college. They started to get interested. A spark. So there they stood, telling us all about this, now at college and doing well on a public services course, voice full of pride and exuding determination as we were told that they were definitely going to be a firefighter. The time for questions came at the end. I asked if they ever went back to the park where the youth community centre was. The answer felt, and remains, unspeakably sad: “It’s not there anymore. It was closed down. The cuts…nothing there anymore for people like I was…”
And so it is. For many, further education is a lifesaver for the post-16 generation. The question that haunted this talk was: where have all the youth workers gone, and what are the consequences of cutting back youth work in the streets and parks across our communities in Britain today? This student spoke of how youth work contributes massively, intervenes, inspires, encourages, listens to, informs, guides our too often disenchanted young. It’s a social and economic crime that there are so few youth workers. Bring back youth work big time: effective prevention of potentially great harm.
These examples show moments of power taken and experienced by students. Why rob them of such opportunities and experiences where they can find their own voices, explore using their own language to express themselves? Why rob them of this being part of the accreditation system today? Cutting down the reading and writing content and creating some proper room for speaking and listening within the curriculum would surely be a good thing. A rethink, and a reminder, of what really counts in the English curriculum for our young people has to happen. Educational policymakers, Ofqual and the DfE should and could learn from experience when looking to the future: these skills should be awarded more value.
Elizabeth Draper is an English specialist, working in further education, advocating for a meaningful, relevant, enjoyable curriculum. She is a member of the OCR English Curriculum Consortium and trustee of the English Association, and she tweets @draperel
Already a subscriber? Log in
