A level French, German and Spanish were designed for students learning a language as an additional language, yet some students bring a home language into the classroom. In England, the exams regulator Ofqual studied this in summer 2016 and published “Native speakers in A level modern foreign languages” in April 2017, in response to stakeholder concerns about grading. This article summarises that report. The research is now several years old, the sample was small, and the authors describe their figures as estimates. It is general information about how the system worked at the time and does not describe current grade boundaries.
Who may enter A level languages
Ofqual’s background section says A level modern foreign languages (MFL) were originally conceived as second-language qualifications. It also states that the exam boards set no formal pre-requisites beyond a recommendation that students have skills equivalent to GCSE, and that there are no limits on who can enter. The qualifications are therefore taken both by students learning the subject as an additional language and by students with experience of the language outside study. Individual schools and colleges may set their own entry requirements. The broader picture for home-language learners is in the guide to heritage language learners.
Why Ofqual looked at the question
The research was prompted by concerns that the proportion of native speakers sitting A level MFL was rising, and that grading methods could disadvantage non-native speakers, because grade boundaries are guided by statistical predictions based on prior attainment, while native speakers might not be rewarded appropriately. The report notes that entries for A level French and German fell by around a third between 2007 and 2016, around 7,000 fewer students, while Spanish and other languages rose. Current entry levels appear in the guide to provisional 2026 entries.
The difficulty of counting native speakers
Ofqual says identifying native speakers is far from straightforward. Native speakers exist on a continuum, from a student raised in France until 16 to one who spends part of each year with a French family or has a French background but has lived in the UK for years, yet the research needed a yes or no answer. It rejected a dictionary definition, because terms such as first language and mother tongue are problematic, and found the National Pupil Database insufficient, since it records only a first language.
Ofqual collected two kinds of evidence: a student questionnaire adapted from a bilingualism tool and teachers’ reports. The student data could not be used, because the questionnaire did not work as intended for students whose only exposure was A level study and some responses were contradictory. The research relied on teachers, and the report warns that teachers may be less familiar with some students’ family background or may assume a highly proficient student has native-speaker characteristics.
What the data showed
Fewer than 28% of schools responded, and the smaller entries for Italian and Russian meant analysis focused on French, German and Spanish. According to teacher reports, native speakers made up 8.7% of French students in the sample, 17.4% of German and 10.1% of Spanish. Among students matched to prior attainment, whose results feed the statistical predictions, the figures were 7.6%, 10.5% and 4.9%. Ofqual concluded this suggests that any effect on standards might be smaller than stakeholders anticipated.
Native speakers outperformed non-native speakers on the overall A level after controlling for prior attainment, gender and school type. The effect was greatest in German and for students with lower prior attainment. Native speakers also outperformed a prior-attainment-based prediction at grade A, particularly in German. The effect of removing them from the predictions was relatively small in French and Spanish, in some cases smaller than the tolerances applied by exam boards.
Conclusions and limits
Ofqual concluded that native and non-native speakers perform differently and that there could be implications for maintaining standards, but that quantifying them was challenging. Contextual information suggested the proportion of native speakers was likely to have increased over time, though the research could not show this. On balance it suggested a small but important effect and recommended considering whether an adjustment to standards was appropriate. The authors added that routinely monitoring native speakers each year would not be possible or proportionate.
The findings come from a 2016 sample and are not evidence about current cohorts. How GCSE grading in French and German was later aligned with Spanish is covered in the guide to GCSE grading adjustments, and the A level content in the guide to A level modern languages.
The bottom line
Ofqual’s 2017 report found that native speakers made up roughly 5% to 17% of the A level language students it could analyse in 2016, depending on subject and sample, and that they tended to outperform non-native peers with similar prior attainment, most clearly in German. The authors stressed that defining and identifying native speakers is hard, that the response rate was low, and that the figures are estimates. Anyone choosing an A level language should treat the report as a snapshot of how standards were discussed then.
Sources
- Native speakers in A level modern foreign languages, Ofqual, April 2017 (gov.uk)