Time for a Level 3 certificate in languages?

Neil Kenny | 7th May 2025 | Opinion Piece

In the following opinion article, Neil Kenny, drawing on stakeholder discussions he’s been involved in via the British Academy over a number of years, calls for a new one-year Level 3 Certificate in ‘Applied Languages’ to be introduced in England. It would typically be taken alongside A-levels in a language in which the student has a GCSE but that they’re not pursuing at A-level.

What are the options for a Year 12 or 13 student in England who has a GCSE in a modern language, wants to study it further, but chooses three other A-level subjects? In the past, one solution might have been to do an AS-level in the language, in addition to those three A-levels, but that became less viable in 2015/16 when AS-levels were decoupled from A-level qualifications. What if the student is keener anyway to apply their GCSE language to an area of personal interest?

Age 16 is usually the end of the languages road for such a student. Yet there are many reasons why they might want to apply the language to an area that personally interests them, whether to enrich their work, travel, and study opportunities, or out of cultural curiosity, for personal development, for enjoyment, or a combination. That applies whether the student is doing SHAPE or STEM A-levels or both.

If we imagine another student, who wants to apply their Maths knowledge post-GCSE but not to do Maths A-level, they’re luckier. They can choose a Level 3 Core Mathematics qualification (do-able in one year) alongside their A-levels.

Surely an equivalent should exist for languages?

Now is an opportune time for this to be considered by the Department for Education in England, given the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR) currently underway. For, as Wendy Ayres-Bennett and Charles Forsdick note in their recent overview of languages in UK education, the CAR includes the question of post-16 alternative qualifications.

What I propose does not encompass the whole question of alternative qualifications for languages at all levels. There’s an important wider debate to be had about whether a multilingual proficiency framework such as the former ASSET languages scheme could be introduced. But a new one-year Level 3 certificate in languages would in my view work well either on its own or as part of an expansion of alternative qualifications.

This certificate could be:

• Called ‘Applied languages’

  
  

• Developed in languages with the biggest pool of potential takers (‘Applied Spanish’, ‘Applied French’, ‘Applied German’) and then in others (‘Applied Mandarin’, ‘Applied Arabic’, and so on)

  
  

• Open to students with Grade 4 or above at GCSE in a language they are not continuing at A-level. If the student is a heritage learner with some proficiency (having attended a Saturday school for example), the qualification would be open to them without a GCSE (if they can demonstrate equivalent competence). There’s a dearth of accreditations (beyond GCSEs and A-levels in a limited number of languages) available to heritage learners.

‘Applied languages’ could be taken in either year of post-16 education, typically alongside 3 A-levels or alongside other further education pathways. It would be included in the student’s UCAS tariff.

What would it cover? Students would apply the four skills (speaking, listening, writing, reading) to an area of interest of their devising (e.g., from science, politics, culture, history, business, tourism, hospitality, marketing, sport, music, health). They would study that area of interest in ways that prioritise communication skills, digital skills, and learner autonomy. For example, they’d do guided online research of authentic materials in the language, including critical use of AI; they’d translate some of those materials into English, logging how they edit any translations that they have generated via AI; they’d produce a podcast or video in the target language, drawing on those materials; they’d present the podcast or video to the class, applying oral skills in the target language. And they would extend their grammar a little beyond the new GCSE.

Wouldn’t this over-stretch resources? Some of the teaching (e.g., grammar) could be combined with an A-level group. A separate Applied Languages group would be taught within one school (if enough takers) or across several, possibly partly online after school, but in any case, ‘live’.

How would it be assessed? Credit would be given for confident and effective communication even where grammar was 'imperfect'. Assessment of oral skills would be divided between pre-recorded performance (within the podcast/video) and open conversation (about the area of interest).

So this certificate would complement the A-level, being very distinct from it. Students would continue to choose the A-level if they want a squarely academic pathway which engages more analytically, through the language, with cultures and societies, and which develops all four skills to a higher level than Applied Languages, with considerably more grammar and vocabulary. Applied Languages, by contrast, would be for students wishing to apply the language to their chosen area of interest, consolidating and adding a little to the linguistic content (grammar, vocabulary) learned at GCSE, becoming more confident at using it in communication.

Such a qualification was called for in Towards a National Languages Strategy (in which I was involved in my former capacity as the British Academy’s Lead Fellow for Languages) and more recently in the languages-focused part of the BA’s response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review’s call for evidence (Q47), following discussions (in which I participated as a member of the BA’s Languages Executive Group) with the Association of School and College Leaders and other stakeholders.

No such Level 3 qualification in languages exists in England, the nearest being one approved and co-awarded by The Language Alliance and The Skills & Educational Group  but focused more squarely on business (and takeable alongside a GCSE or A-Level in the language rather than being an alternative to the A-Level). Level 3 Certificates in Bilingual Skills (relating to specific workplace sectors) are offered by the Chartered Institute of Linguists, but are set at an equivalent of a high grade at A-level, rather than at a level between GCSE and A-level. Closer in some respects to what is proposed here, but available only in Northern Ireland, is the OCN, Level 3 Award and Certificate in Modern Languages.

Applied Languages would cut across the divide between academic and vocational qualifications, having the flexibility to be orientated in either direction depending on the student’s chosen area of interest. It would fill a big existing gap without multiplying qualifications (some being vocational, others academic). Above all, it would help increase uptake of languages!

Kenny_2025.pdf

Download PDF • 60KB

About the Author

Neil Kenny was formerly Lead Fellow for Languages at the British Academy and remains involved in the BA’s language policy work. He is Professor of French at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.’