English Language: What are we waiting for?
By Stephanie Keenan, Head of Product – English
You may have noticed - the GCSE English Language specification has no set texts.
This gives English teachers a brilliant opportunity to teach with creativity and flair, to introduce modern, relevant and diverse texts to our classrooms, to weave them into our curriculum to complement our literature texts. A specification with no set texts should give teachers real professional freedom and autonomy, but it can result in a narrowing of focus on exam practice alone. It doesn’t have to be this way. A specification that assesses writing and reading skills through unseen texts should not be a barrier to engaging and diverse classroom experiences that support student success.
The Curriculum and Assessment Review final report indicates a direction of travel which aims to maintain high standards while ensuring all students experience a broad, inclusive and engaging curriculum. We agree with Professor Becky Francis and the Government - that GCSE English Language should better reflect the modern world and include multi-modal texts.
English Language GCSE is uniquely placed both now, and in the future, to develop independent, confident and thoughtful readers, writers and speakers. It is a subject which should empower students to critique and challenge the views and perspectives of others and develop and express their own independent views, rather than being passive recipients on the receiving end of a ‘content delivery’ model of curriculum.
AQA examiners’ reports have continually said that the best answers are those centring student voices and opinions. They celebrate answers in which students think for themselves, because our assessment rewards clear argument and analysis and independent views and perspectives.
Slowing down, pausing to plan, think and express your own point of view is all likely to support success. Relevant ideas, answering the question and true engagement with the text over shoehorned clunky context, pre-learned chunks or over-used technical terms any day.
The time to revive English language teaching in the classroom is now! You don’t have to wait for curriculum reform. Refresh your English language teaching beyond the scope of the exam alone with these suggestions:
Focus on co-teachability
Let texts talk to each other! If literature is our comfort zone, start there. Pair fiction and non-fiction texts, heritage and modern texts, and extend the range of voices in the classroom. Illuminate Shakespeare with extracts from Akala’s ‘Dark Lady’, or Farah Karim Cooper’s ‘Great White Bard’; study Winsome Pinnock’s ‘Leave Taking’ with extracts from Amelia Gentleman’s ‘The Windrush Betrayal’ or Hirsch’s ‘Brit(ish)’. Consider ‘An Inspector Calls’ through the lens of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘We Should All be Feminists’.
Share dynamic,accessible and inclusive non-fiction texts
Choose whole texts or extracts (publishers often share these free) or opinion pieces by modern writers that reflect a wide range of voices and experiences, like our Emerging Identities resource. Could you set a whole non-fiction text in Key Stage 3? Reimagine a themed unit with powerful new extracts? Leave space for discussion of current news and views? Do your texts engage learners who may not see themselves reflected in more traditional text selections?
Genre bust
Be adventurous and inspire yourself with some new reads. Test what you think you like and consider introducing some (age appropriate) texts or extracts which play with form. Try a verse drama like ‘Pink Mist’ by Owen Sheers, or poetic narrative like ‘The Girl Who Became a Tree’ by Joseph Coelho. Check out ‘Clap When You Land’ by Elizabeth Acevedo, ‘Long Way Down’ by Jason Reynolds, ‘Everything All at Once’ by Steven Camden (Polarbear) or ‘One’ by Sarah Crossan.
Talk about texts
Use dialogic methods championed by subject specialists like Let’s Think English and the English and Media Centre. Read Robin Alexander. Drop the PowerPoint, centre the power of the text, craft your questions.
Play with language and texts
Run a language investigation unit in Key Stage 3 – or try text translation: show students how to play with form, narrative voice, audience. Turn third person into first; write from a different character’s perspective, change the tone of a text from angry to apologetic; use poetic techniques in non-fiction texts.
Not only can this ignite your own passion for English Language now, and spark enjoyment and engagement in the classroom,
but this will set your students up for success, building confidence in reading and writing around texts they can connect with and authentic purposes. By supporting independent responses to texts, students can be set up to access the assessment with confidence and show what they know, think and can do. And by approaching the GCSE English Language qualification in this way, you are giving students a coherent pathway into studying A-Level Language, Lang Lit and Literature and compatible subjects like Media Studies, Psychology and Sociology.
Last but not least, these approaches can equip students for life through the skills acquired around media literacy and real-life language skills, and the access to that incredible range of exciting texts out there – studying English Language should mean there’s something for everyone.