Grade boundaries set at “ridiculous” levels are driving pupils away from languages and leaving talented linguists with lower results than they deserve, it has been claimed.
Languages teachers fear their subjects - which are already suffering from falling numbers - will be sidelined further as they gain a reputation among pupils as “hard” options that could put their university places at risk.
Of the 30 most popular Highers, German and French set the bar highest for an A grade (78 per cent and 77 per cent, respectively); Spanish is also above most subjects, with 73 per cent required for an A.
‘Learners were disappointed. For some, it impacted on their access to higher and further education’
Gillian Campbell-Thow, chair of the Scottish Association for Language Teaching (Salt), said: “Learners who were expecting to get an A, having had high marks all year, were of course disappointed. For some, it impacted on their access to further and higher education.”
As TESS has reported, the situation for modern languages has already been described as “near critical” this year because of a decrease in pupils taking the subjects at S4.
Ms Campbell-Thow said that, at Higher, “we are now seeing learners opting for subjects where they feel they are more likely to get an A”.
Languages teachers are also reportedly narrowing their focus. Ms Campbell-Thow said that one Salt member “felt she had to take out a lot of the creative content…in favour of teaching to a test, which flies in the face of Curriculum for Excellence”.
She added: “We don’t want to find ourselves teaching to an exam, using rote learning and effectively putting a ceiling on skills development and language acquisition, but the worry of letting down learners and parents…has left our practitioners feeling both vulnerable and under pressure.”
‘Unusually high’
One Salt member said “very good” candidates who achieved between 74 and 76 marks in preliminaries were left “very disappointed” to miss out on an A because of an “unusually high” cut-off point.
Another teacher was “astounded” by the “ridiculous” boundaries, which were also high for lesser grades: 56 per cent was required for a C in German, for example, while candidates for several other subjects could get a C with less than 50 per cent.
“I don’t think the [French] paper was too easy, I think it was just about right…or else all the other [course] materials are wrong,” the teacher said.
Another Salt member said “hugely unfair” grade boundaries did not bode well for the future: “When the cut-off scores for an A become widely known, many high-achieving pupils who need As to get to university will be put off choosing it.”
The same teacher added: “I have one pupil who is an excellent linguist and has a fantastic grasp of French, who gained 75 per cent and therefore a B - I was astounded when he did not get an A.”
‘We have a very robust set of mechanisms to ensure that qualifications offer an appropriate level of challenge’
A spokesman for the Scottish Qualifications Authority said: “Our main aim is to be fair to candidates across all subjects and all levels and maintain comparable standards across the years, even as arrangements evolve.
“We have a very robust set of mechanisms to ensure that qualifications offer an appropriate level of challenge - and that every year’s cohort is presented with a similar degree of challenge. In addition, the robust post-exam system of checks and balances is in place to ensure that candidates are treated fairly.
“There is no difference in the way we have made grade boundary decisions for modern languages compared with other subjects.”
Concerns have been expressed for some time about uptake of languages, partly because they are now largely optional. Also, with pupils tending to take fewer subjects at National 4 and 5 than they did with previous qualifications, there is a widespread perception that languages are being squeezed out.
German, in particular, has declined to a point where it now has just 330 more candidates than take the Higher in English for speakers of other languages.
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