Six things to avoid in MFL GCSE listening exams

Before I start my list of things that students need to be prepared for in the exam, I just wanted to acknowledge that the listening exams are really hard! They’re not just about knowing what the words mean, but there are often a few more steps that student need to take in order to answer the question correctly.

As I’m writing some brand new GCSE listening workbooks this week, I thought I’d do a deep dive into some GCSE listening exam techniques that can mean the difference between getting a mark and losing out.

Most of them are really simple, and some of them don’t even have anything to do with how well the candidate can understand the language!

Before I start my list of things that students need to be prepared for in the exam, I just wanted to acknowledge that the listening exams are really hard! They’re not just about knowing what the words mean - although this is a huge part of it and my next blog post will be about vocab learning and teaching for the listening exam - but there are often a few more steps that students need to take in order to answer the question correctly.

They need to process the words and sentences, then they need to interpret the meaning (which at this level means translating into English in their heads, or scribbling notes on the exam paper - but not in the answer boxes!), they also need to ignore any distractors (of which there are MANY in GCSE exams), and then they need to select the correct answer, either writing a letter in a box (AQA) or putting a cross in the relevant box (Edexcel). Sometimes, they will need to write an answer in English.

And they have to do all that quickly, in real time, before the recording moves onto the next question! There are no chances to pause, rewind and listen again if they’ve missed the answer on the two/three plays of the passage.

So, with all that in mind, here are 6 super important things that your GCSE students need to focus on in terms of exam technique in these exams:

1. Answer every single question. Even if it’s just a guess. A blank answer has zero percent chance of being correct. Every. Single. Time. 
2. Try to write as neatly as possible. This one might be easier said than done for some students, but they need to make their letters super clear in the boxes, and write each word in the dictation as clearly as they possibly can. Examiners won't give them the benefit of the doubt and award a mark if they can't read what they've written.
3. Spell English words correctly in their answers. Again, easier said than done for some students, but poor English spelling and grammar can actually mean the difference between getting a mark, and it being marked wrong. For example, if the answer is “bought” and a candidate writes “brought”, that is incorrect grammar and won’t be credited.
4. Look at how many marks there are for each question. If there are 2 marks, 2 pieces of information are required in that answer.
5. Give precise details in open response questions. These are the questions where candidates need to write an answer in English. For the majority of these questions, single-word answers are not enough BUT also beware of writing too much, as adding information that contradicts your response, or is irrelevant, or changes the meaning of otherwise correct responses, means that you won’t get the marks for that question. I must say here that it is quite hard to know exactly how much information is required in each question, so give your KS4 students plenty of practice with these types of open response questions! Use old spec papers and look at the mark schemes, as these types of questions are pretty similar to the previous spec. The only difference might be that there is vocab that isn’t on the new spec vocab lists, but if you use them in class for practice, you can do vocab activities beforehand to help with anything that isn’t on the vocab list.
6. Students need to listen to the whole sentence before answering the question. There are so many distractors, in the form of negatives, different tenses, and completely irrelevant information that they really must make sure they wait, process the whole sentence (or even the whole text) and then interpret the meaning of the passage before they answer the questions. Candidates lose a lot of marks by just rushing to write the first thing they hear (which is often a distractor), and not listening to the whole passage!

I hope these tips have been helpful - let me know if any have surprised you, and which ones you are going to drum into your Year 11s before their mock exams!