Six things MFL teachers should never do in the GCSE speaking exams

I'm sure *you* aren't making these mistakes, but some MFL teachers definitely are, and I just want to make sure that you aren't tempted to do any of these 6 things.

After focusing just on the reading aloud part of the speaking exam in last week's blog, I'm broadening out this week to talk about the speaking exams in general... but still focusing on the avoidable mistakes that you might be making as a teacher-examiner. 

So here are the 6 mistakes and my advice for what to do instead...

1. Not checking that the student’s voice is clear and loud enough on the recording. Keep the microphone closer to the student than yourself, and don't timetable speaking exams during lesson changeovers when there might be a loud bell or noise in the corridor.
2. Not sticking to the script for the role-play questions and compulsory follow-on questions. Practise beforehand if necessary, highlight the bits you need to say (and in which language, if you're Edexcel), but don't change the script!
3. Focusing on fancy language and not drilling the basics. There's no point shoving a subjunctive in when a candidate can't answer the basic question "when is your birthday". Just because it was taught in Year 7, doesn't mean they remember it in Year 11.
4. Giving students stock answers to describe photos. If it’s not in the photo, then it won’t be credited and they may even lose marks for talking about things that are irrelevant.
5. Stretching the follow-on conversation to fill the full 9 or 12 minutes, when the candidate completes the other elements quickly. You don’t need to fill the time, and as long as the minimum time for the conversation has been met, and the candidate has said enough, you can stop the exam before the 9/12 minutes.
6. Using the same set of questions with all candidates for the follow-on conversation. Students score best on this section when there is a starter question, followed by follow-on questions that are personalised and respond to what the candidate has said.

I went into each of these in more depth in the video above, and am always happy to explain more if you have any questions. Just email or DM me on the socials!