There is to be an overhaul in the way A-level modern foreign languages are assessed, a new report from Ofqual has revealed.

From the summer of 2015 onwards, students sitting exams in foreign languages subjects will benefit from improved and fairer marking.

The report said that the changes are in response to concerns expressed by teachers and stakeholders over the quality of grading of these specific A-levels.

An assessment was duly carried out to see whether the claims were valid, with all exam boards being scrutinised in their grading of French, German and Spanish tests.

There were many inconsistencies and inappropriate demands, the team behind the task noted.

For example, in many of the assessments that were inspected, it was found that a large number of questions were of a level of difficulty “not well targeted to students’ ability”.

It was also noted that marks pupils gained for speaking tended to be very high, with almost all exam boards delivering assessments where students achieved “well above” half marks.

This, Ofqual outlined in its paper, suggests that differentiation between students with different abilities “was poor”.

Mark schemes also proved to be problematic. Experts conducting reviews of these found in a number of cases that the guidelines for identifying what did or did not constitute a correct answer were ambiguous.

“Exam boards need to make sure that assessments are designed in the right way to differentiate fairly between students,” said Glenys Stacey, chief regulator of Ofqual.

“It is vital that students, teachers and other users of these qualifications can have confidence in them and know that the results are fair. The changes we’re proposing will do that. Those that should get the higher grades will do so – that’s only fair.”

Some of the recommendations from Ofqual include making questions more reliably differentiated and rethinking marking schemes so that they have a sound system of criteria to rely on.

Other proposals involve exam boards giving greater consideration to how to boost the quality of spoken language assessments, which will address the current shortfall that is leading to “poor discrimination” between candidates.

One area that is lacking is a consistent approach to assessing a student’s wider understanding and ability to explain “economic, ecological, historical, literary or wider cultural aspects” of the country whose language is spoken.

This needs further investigation and indeed investment – Ofqual advises that cultural aspects need to be considered as one of many key objectives when it comes to assessment.

“Delivery of these recommendations will result in greater fairness for students,” Ofqual said in its paper.

“They will provide greater assurances that the better students are, more consistently, awarded higher grades than the less able students. We will monitor the changes made by exam boards to deliver against these recommendations and the effectiveness of those changes in realising this aim.”

In response to the findings, Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers and Richard Harman, chairman of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, issued a joint statement.

Welcoming the findings and recommendations, they explained that it was an important moment in recognising and acting on “these historic unfairnesses”.

“As the British Council and CBI have repeatedly said, it is vital that schools and universities have confidence in the fairness of language exams so that the long-standing decline in candidate numbers can be halted,” they explained.

“It is essential that the problem of the too few A* grades compared to other subjects is sorted out for next summer and that the lessons learned from this report are planned into the assessment of the reformed A-levels which are currently being designed.”