Accommodating speaking endorsement for Pearson-Edexcel GCSEs and International GCSEs in languages that are not taught at your centre
As speaking is a core language skill, it is expected that all candidates will be offered an opportunity to have a speaking endorsement including those studying a language that is not taught at your school or college’.
Centres must provide a ‘spoken language statement’ to Pearson-Edexcel that confirms that they have taken reasonable steps to ensure that all candidates have been offered an opportunity to receive speaking assessment in relevant target language. This includes external candidates, native speakers, those with heritage language skills or, indeed, any student from the centre who is entered for a GCSE or International GCSE in a language that is not taught there. If a centre fails to provide a spoken language statement to the awarding organisation, this will be considered as malpractice.
Centres must, therefore, take reasonable steps to find external tutors or other specialist language trainers to assess the candidate*. Any candidate who is denied this opportunity will receive a speaking endorsement result of ‘not classified’ and this will be reported on the GCSE certificate alongside the ‘qualification’ grade which will be based on their performance across Papers 1, 3 and 4.
In the case of non-taught or external candidates, it may not be practical to have evidence of ongoing target-language speaking assessment and so consideration could be given to a ‘one off’ assessment. It’s my understanding that such an assessment would need to involve two or more task types (for different purposes, themes and contexts).
If looking for specialist teachers to carry out GCSE speaking endorsement for languages not taught at your centre, some useful links (including the National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education and the Association for Language Learning language Teacher Networks) have been provided in the following GCSE and International GCSE posts on the Pearson Edexcel language teacher communities for these qualifications. Teachers may wish to consider using these communities (and other professional languages and teaching related ones) to seek out specialist teachers of lesser-taught languages or, if they have appropriate skills, to offer their support to other centres:
Pearson Edexcel languages teacher community – GCSE
Pearson Edexcel languages teacher community – International GCSE
* It is expected that centres will ensure that those engaged to conduct and assess the speaking endorsement are made fully familiar with the linked assessment criteria and guidance as well as the overall aims and objectives, themes and topic areas, as well the grammar and vocabulary lists of the specification.
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