Oral language tests set to end

In a report, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is likely to accept recommendations from last year's review of language teaching by Lord Dearing, who said the short oral exams should be replaced by assessment by teachers over a longer period.

Lord Dearing's report, which was accepted by then-Education Secretary Alan Johnson last March, said that it was right that speaking and listening should account for half of the marks in a language GCSE.

But he said the format of brief orals - while accurate in assessing performance on the day - was not a reliable guide to students' ability.

The stress of the oral exam may also be a contributory factor in putting youngsters off studying languages, he said.

A QCA spokeswoman declined to confirm a Sunday Telegraph report that the oral assessment report being published in the coming week would sound the death knell for the traditional spoken language test.

But she said the QCA report followed on from Lord Dearing's recommendations which were accepted in full by the Government.

In his report, Lord Dearing wrote: "We... proposed a new approach to the assessment of speaking and listening, which rightly account for half the marks in the GCSE, on the grounds that the present method is too stressful and too short to be a reliable way of assessing what the candidates can do.

"It is interesting that when people spoke about the oral test, that however long ago it may have been, it is often remembered as a stressful experience. We therefore proposed that these parts of the examination should be over a period through moderated teacher assessment.

"We recognise that any change has to be made in a way that does not weaken the validity of the assessment, and concerns have been expressed to us about that. But that has to be balanced against the risk that a test that is often highly stressful and over a short period, whilst accurate in its awards against performance on the day, is not a reliable test of the candidates' capability."