Teenagers will be encouraged to learn foreign languages by talking about tattoos , music festivals , YouTube and rap music under the latest GCSE shake-up . Teenagers will be encouraged to learn foreign languages by talking about tattoos , music festivals , YouTube and rap music under the latest GCSE shake-up . Exam board officials yesterday unveiled a draft syllabus for 14 to 16-year-olds which they said would ‘ make content more contemporary ’ . Some students will be asked to study a review of a gritty 15-rated foreign film , while others will look at Spanish tweets on the Olympic Games . The proposals , announced by Oxford , Cambridge and RSA Examinations ( OCR ) , aim to rid classrooms of ‘ tired phrases ’ which some pupils now see as outdated . The board said children were ‘ uninspired ’ by conventional topics like ‘ my school day ’ , ‘ my pencil case ’ and ‘ my family ’ . It said the new French , German and Spanish GCSEs would allow pupils to talk about their interests using updated content . Exam board officials also hope to ‘ bring back linguistic skills ’ by focusing on grammar as a component of an indispensable language ‘ toolkit ’ . OCR languages expert Katherine Smith said : ‘ This entails moving away from working too long on a clichéd topic until a student is bored with it , to working on more appealing subjects , and with an all-important shift in emphasis on the skills that they can transfer across content . ‘ Current GCSE specifications have focused on preparing coursework which is more about the theme than learning the building blocks of a language . ‘ This has de-skilled students and led to ‘ topic fatigue ’ . Our new approach should fundamentally improve both the student ’ s enjoyment and their linguistic ability. ’ The course content , which has now been submitted to Ofqual for approval , would be studied by pupils from 2016 . The board said it had disposed of old topics including ‘ My holiday ’ , ‘ Aurélie and Fabian go to town ’ or ‘ Mathilde ’ s school day ’ . One teacher at an OCR teacher consultation said : ‘ Students are not really going to meet somebody in a café in Paris and describe their entire family. ’ Pupils would no longer be forced to recite phrases like ‘ I have a grapefruit every morning ’ and instead would be able to express views such as ‘ In my opinion a discreet tattoo is an expression of your personality ’ . In the new draft German GCSE , there is a film review of the thriller Run Lola Run , which is rated 15 and features some mild violence . In the Spanish GCSE , students will be asked to look at tweets on the Olympic Games . Exam board officials yesterday unveiled a draft syllabus for 14 to 16-year-olds which they said would ‘ make content more contemporary ’ Other proposed content includes listening to a radio broadcast on rap music and discussing online gaming and YouTube . Potential topics include Cannes Film Festival , volunteering abroad and foreign food . Experts said the new content would take inspiration from methods used to teach English as a foreign language . Literature extracts will be also be studied at the request of the Department for Education , including passages from an Ionesco play . OCR also wants to abandon inflexible vocabulary lists and encourage pupils to use a smart app to help them memorise words . Ms Smith added : ‘ While language teachers are pulling their hair out as their student numbers decline with languages not prioritised by the current system , captains of industry are also deeply frustrated . ‘ We are passionate about getting these three core language GCSEs right to help the UK build a generation of people with the language skills that are so desperately needed . ’
Exam board officials 14-16 unveiled draft syllabus for kids aged yesterday . Some students will be asked to study review of gritty 15-rated foreign film . Other GCSE pupils will look at Spanish tweets on the Olympic Games . Proposals aim to rid classes of ‘ tired phrases ’ now through to be outdated .