Mother tongue/heritage language GCSE – why?

Why we need our community languages exams

March 16th, 2015 by Teresa Tinsley

Back in 2013 my colleague Kate Board and I undertook some research for the British Council investigating which languages the UK will need most in the next 20 years, and why. We took into consideration not just trade and the potential for UK exports, but whether cultural and strategic ties were likely to expand or need strengthening. We made the point that our country already has a rich asset in the pool of speakers of different languages amongst its population. Children whose parents speak Turkish, Arabic or Chinese are in a position to make much more rapid progress with those languages than those whose only contact with the new language is in the classroom.

For over 20 years, the education system has recognised this important fact by providing a range of languages at GCSE and A level (and even more through the Asset Languages scheme, which was withdrawn in 2013). But as exams become tools for measuring school performance rather than accrediting what individuals can do, the rationale for offering a wide range of languages is melting away. The exam board AQA has announced that it will be withdrawing A levels in Bengali, Hebrew, Panjabi and Persian after 2018 and OCR plans to do the same with GCSE and A levels in Dutch, Gujarati, Persian, Portuguese and Turkish.

Languages such as Bengali, Panjabi and Persian tend not to be taught in mainstream schools, but in supplementary classes which take place after school hours and at weekends. Children often put in many hours learning to read and write a language with which they may have varying degrees of familiarity, but if they gain a GCSE or an A level, policymakers, university admissions officers or the public at large are all too quick to believe that they have somehow ‘cheated’ the system by being able to gain a qualification with very little effort.

As exam boards, clearly under financial pressure, pull away from developing the new wave of GCSEs and A levels in languages that only have very small entry figures, it is easy to see why policymakers may be wary of getting involved. The matter looks to have all too much in common with that hottest of hot potatoes – immigration. But let’s be clear, we are nottalking about exams for people who do not speak English, but of the benefit of other languages in addition to English to our whole economy and society, as well as to the individual concerned.

more…