October 2024 Languages Update
Welcome to the October 2024 Languages Update
Dear colleagues,
I hope the first month of the school year has got off to a positive start for you, your colleagues and your students.
This month’s update has links to pre-recorded and upcoming training, our new Revise resources and opportunities to join our team of Assessment Associates.
As always, if there is anything I can do to support you with our languages qualifications please do get in touch via the details at the bottom of this page.
Best wishes,
Rebecca Waker
Subject Advisor for Languages
In this month’s update:
- Welcome Back event
- Exam Insights CPD
- Pearson Revise
- SecEd Article
- International GCSE English as a Second Language
- International GCSE Arabic
- Inspirational Free Resources
- GCSE 2024 Drop-In Sessions
- Support Guide for GCSE 2024
- Pearson Edexcel Languages Website Walkthrough
- Follow us on Social Media
- Subject Advisor Support
- Assessment Associate Vacancies
On 12th September at 4pm I ran a webinar to give key updates on all of our languages qualifications. It was great to see so many of you there. If you weren't able to attend, the recording is now available on YouTube.
This month we are running our Exam Insights sessions for GCSE French, Spanish and German. These sessions will provide feedback and insights on the May/June 2024 exam series.
Delegates will:
- Receive feedback on the performance of candidates in the May/June 2024 exam series
- Look in detail at specific candidates’ entire scripts and compare their performances in the productive tasks
- Consider results against the mark schemes with opportunity to practise marking other candidates’ scripts in productive tasks
- Have opportunity to ask questions.
Events have passed
New Digital Revision Subscription for MFL – revision guides and digital resources for only £195*
The best value new MFL revision tools available. Unbeatable revision and exam practice for your Year 10s and 11s.
- Includes eBooks, audio, video, vocab quizzes, flashcards, and a revision planner – matched to the new MFL specifications.
- Available with 50% off write-in workbooks including practice papers.
- Bonus! Get all-subject access (that’s 80+ eBooks and linked tools!) included until July 2025** – share it with your whole school.
*When you buy write-in Revision Workbooks for your students at 50% off .
**All-subject access will be withdrawn after July 2025. It will be replaced with MFL-specific access for the rest of your subscription.
Alongside Esmerelda Salgado, I recently contributed to an article in SecEd. This article tackles the idea that languages are ‘too hard’ and ‘not for me’. In the article we address this misconception and provide best practice for tackling this in the classroom.
We know how important exemplars are when preparing students for their exams, especially with a brand new qualification. That’s why we are pleased to be providing these exemplars for the unit 3 writing paper. This document includes exemplar responses to all questions with mark schemes and examiner commentary on how the responses were marked.
We also know you are preparing to assess speaking in a different way to our previous specification. To support you with this, and with the administration of the other papers, we have our Administrative Support Guide.
Exemplars are so useful when preparing students for their exams, to support you we are pleased to provide the following exemplars for paper 1 questions 4, 8 and 9. We hope you find these useful.
Just like you, we want students to find the joy that learning languages can bring and realise the role language skills could play in their future lives. To help you with this we have created two collections of free resources for you to use in your lessons.
Permission to Speak
As part of our work to shine a light on the complete and often complicated history behind the growth of languages, we've partnered with leading language educators and leaders through the Association for Language Learning Decolonise Secondary MFL Special Interest Group to address 'diversifying the MFL curriculum' and to create a new series that aims to illuminate the hidden stories of marginalised people and cultures.
Languages in Life
From forming life-long friendships to unexpected career and travel opportunities, the impact of learning an additional language can be far-reaching.
In this series, we explore the views of students, language mentors and people from across the globe as they discuss their love of language learning and the effect it has had on their lives.
Join us for one of three drop-in clinics where we will answer your questions about the new Pearson Edexcel MFL qualifications. We will have different team members from Pearson on hand to answer your queries.
These 45-minute sessions will be limited in space to ensure everyone has the chance to ask their questions and we will share FAQs post event.
If you’re teaching our 2024 GCSEs in French, Spanish and German you will want to take a look at our comprehensive support guide.
This guide contains links to all of the support and resources you could need.
It’s the first place to look for all things GCSE 2024.
Whether you’re new to Pearson Edexcel qualifications or need a refresher I have put together this website walkthrough video to help you find your way around. This video covers where to find everything you need, or maybe didn’t even know was available.
Make sure you're following us on socials to keep up to date with the latest news about our qualifications and services
Can’t make our GCSE 2024 drop in or want to ask questions related to another qualification? Remember you are always welcome to book a 15 minute appointment with me or send me an email. For further support and opportunities to network with other Pearson Edexcel Languages Qualifications teachers you can join our group on Facebook. The links can be in the blue contact box found at the bottom of this page.
We have a range of vacancies available in our Assessment Associate team working on various qualifications, both UK and International. They are organised by language below.
Roles include -
- Principal Examiner
- Chair of Examiners
- Content Author
- Senior Content Validator
Subject advisor
Rebecca Waker
Languages
