Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (original) (raw)
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The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: A research agenda
Language Teaching, 2011
Editorial noteThis new strand in the journal provides a space for contributors to present a personal stance either on future research needs or on the perceived current applications of research in the classroom. Like much of our current content, it echoes the historical uniqueness of this journal in terms of its rich and expert overview of recent research in the field of L2 teaching and learning. However, this new strand takes such research as its starting point and attempts to look forward, using these findings both to debate their application in the language learning classroom and also to suggest where research would be best directed in the future. Thus, the objective of both papers is eminently practical: contributors to the research agenda will present suggestions for what research might usefully be undertaken, given what is currently known or what is perceived to be necessary. In the research into practice papers there will be critical appraisal both of what research is, and is ...
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.pdf
This article provides some context for the unquestionable influence of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR) on language learning, teaching, and assessment ten years after its publication. If a survey about the most relevant and controversial document in the field in the twenty-first century were to be carried out, the CEFR would most surely be the top one. The document itself has been translated into all European languages, and its scales are now available in more than 40 languages, including sign language. The CEFR levels and its scales have become currency in Europe and beyond, and its recommendations-having seduced governments and institutions-are slowly finding their way into everyday practice. The CEFR, however, is not a model of absolute perfection, and criticisms and challenges will also be reviewed and discussed.
2009
for their contributions to the Reference Supplement to the Manual. The institutions who made available illustrative performance samples and sample test items that have been circulated on DVD/CD ROM and made available on the Council of Europe's website in order to assist in standardisation training (especially: Eurocentres; Cambridge ESOL; the CIEP; the University for Foreigners, Perugia; the Goethe-Institut; the Finnish authorities; DIALANG; the Generalitat de Catalunya and CAPLE). ALTE (especially Nick Saville) and the members of the "Dutch CEFR project group" (Charles Alderson, Neus Figueras, Günther Nold, Henk Kuijper, Sauli Takala, Claire Tardieu) for contributing to the "Toolkit" related to this Manual with the Content Analysis Grids which they developed for Speaking and Writing, and for Listening and Reading respectively. The many individuals and institutions who gave detailed feedback on the pilot version, especially: the members of ALTE; Asset Languages (Cambridge ESOL); Budapest Business School; Cito; Claudia Harsch; the Goethe-Institut; the Polish Ministry of Education; the
2011
This collection was produced for the Preliminary Pilot Version of the Manual for Relating Language Examinations to the CEFR in order to facilitate the specification and standardisation process for writing (Chapters 4 & 5 of the Preliminary Pilot Version of the Manual for Relating Language Examinations to the CEFR, Language Policy Division, Council of Europe (Strasbourg, France)). The tasks have been kindly supplied by examination providers for different languages: Alliance Française, Cambridge ESOL, CAPLE (Universidade de Lisboa), CIEP (Centre international d’études pédagogiques), CVCL (Università per Stranieri, Perugia), Goethe-Institut, WBT.
A Manual. Strasbourg: …, 2009
The Linking Process 2.1. Approach Adopted 2.2. Quality Concerns 2.3. Stages of the Process 2.4. Use of the CEFR 2.5. Use of the Manual 2.1. Approach Adopted Relating an examination or test to the CEFR is a complex endeavour. The existence of a relationship between the examination and the CEFR is not a simple observable fact, but is an assertion for which the examination provider needs to provide both theoretical and empirical evidence. The procedure by which such evidence is obtained is in fact the "validation of the claim". Relating (linking) examinations or tests to the CEFR presupposes standard setting, which can be defined as a process of establishing one or more cut scores on examinations. These cut scores divide the distribution of examinees' test performances into two or more CEFR levels. Appropriate standards can be best guaranteed if the due process of standard setting is attended to from the beginning. Standard setting involves decision making which requires high-quality data and rigorous work. As these decisions may have important consequences, they need to be fair, open, valid, efficient and defensible. This can be facilitated by the use of well-tried systematic processes and explicit criteria. In standard setting, it is usual to refer to content standards and performance standards. Content standards describe the content domain from which the examination can be or has been constructed. Very frequently this description refers to performance levels. Such descriptions are by necessity general and usually formulated in qualitative terms. In standard setting literature they are referred to as "Performance Level Descriptors" (PLDs: See Section 6.7.) and act as a general reference system against which particular examinations can be described. Performance standards refer to specific examinations and express the minimum performance on that specific test or examination; in this sense they are synonymous to "cut scores". There is, however, one major point which needs to be stressed. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) provides the content and Performance Level Descriptors. The PLDs are given, unlike the situation in most standard setting in other contexts, where the PLDs first need to be defined. This means that the CEFR needs to be referred to at all stages of the linking process as illustrated in Figure 2.1. The approach adopted in this Manual is such that thorough familiarity with the CEFR is a fundamental requirement. Standard Setting (Chapter 6): The crucial point in the process of linking an examination to the CEFR is the establishment of a decision rule to allocate students to one of the CEFR levels on the basis of their performance in the examination. Usually this takes the form of deciding on cutoff scores, borderline performances. The preceding stages of Familiarisation, Specification and Standardisation can be seen as preparatory activities to lead to valid and rational decisions. Chapter 6 describes procedures to arrive at the final decision of setting cut scores. The material presented there draws on an extensive literature on standard setting, and the procedures presented in Chapter 6 are a selection from the many available procedures deemed to be suitable in the context of language testing. Additional procedures based on the exploitation of teacher judgments and IRT to incorporate an external criterion (e.g. CEFR illustrative items, or teacher assessments with CEFR illustrative descriptors) into a linking study are presented in Extra Material provided by Brian North and Neil Jones. Validation (Chapter 7): While the preceding stages of Familiarisation, Specification, Standardisation and Standard Setting can be conceived roughly to represent a chronological order of activities, it would be naïve to postpone validation activities until everything has been done, and to conceive it as an ultimate verdict on the quality of the linking process. Validation must rather be seen as a continuous process of quality monitoring, giving an answer to the general question: "Did we reach the aims set for this activity?" A simple, but nevertheless important example has already been referred to: it is important to provide CEFR familiarisation and standardisation training, but it is equally important to check if such activities have been successful; this is precisely what is meant by validation. Aspects of validity and procedures to collect validity evidence are described in this final chapter. Aspects of validity and procedures on how to collect validity evidence have been put together in the final chapter (Chapter 7) of this Manual. 2.4. Use of the CEFR A common framework of reference enables different examinations be to related to each other indirectly without any claim that two examinations are exactly equivalent. The focus of examinations may vary but their coverage can be profiled with the categories and levels of the framework. In the same way that no two learners at Level B2 are at Level B2 for the same reason, no two examinations at Level B2 have completely identical profiles. The parts of the CEFR most relevant for linking examinations are: Chapter 3 "The Common Reference Levels"; Chapter 4 "Language Use and the Language User"with scales for Communicative Language Activities and for Communicative Language Strategies; Chapter 5 "The User/Learner's Competences", particularly Section 5.2 "Communicative Language Competences" with the illustrative scales for aspects of linguistic, pragmatic and socio-linguistic competence. Users of this Manual will find the full text of the CEFR and related documents, plus a number of useful tools on the Council of Europe website, including the following: Documents The CEFR in English and French, including appendices. Links to other language versions on the Council of Europe website (www.coe.int/lang; www.coe.int/portfolio) The Manual, including appendices. The forms and reference Grids included in the Manual. 12 The Reference Supplement. Content Analysis Grids CEFR Content Analysis Grid for listening and reading (sometimes referred to as "the Dutch CEFR Grid"): Appendix B1. CEFR Content Analysis Grids for speaking and writing, developed by ALTE: Appendix B2.
Language Testing, 2005
Learner-centred approaches to language teaching, especially those that seek to develop learner autonomy, require the learner to take decisions concerning the goals, content and methods of learning; they also assign a central role to self-assessment. Although the logic of learner-centredness demands that learner self-assessment should somehow be integrated with other forms of assessment, to date this has been only a minority concern, usually in relation to one or another form of portfolio learning. The recent publication of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and the increasingly widespread adoption of its companion piece, the European Language Portfolio (ELP), renew the challenge to develop a culture of assessment that both facilitates and takes full account of learner selfassessment. This article begins by briefly considering the importance and limitations of self-assessment in second language (L2) learning. It goes on to address issues of principle raised in turn by the CEFR and the ELP, and then reports on a project that: • has drawn on the CEFR to define an ESL curriculum for non-Englishspeaking pupils attending Irish primary schools; • has developed a version of the ELP as the foundation of teaching and learning; and • is currently elaborating assessment and reporting procedures in which learner self-assessment plays a central role. I Introduction: learner-centredness and learner self-assessment There are three reasons for engaging learners in self-assessment and taking account of the results. First, as a matter of principle, a learnercentred curriculum-defined by Nunan (1988: 2) as 'a collaborative effort between teachers and learners'-falls short of its definition if
Beyond the CEFR: towards standardization of language competence
The creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has evidenced the need for the development of language policies at universities. University-based language centres have made a great contribution to the development of language learning since their emergence and have played a major role in the development and implementation of language policies and language education. In addition to teaching and training Language Centres have another important function as university students are now required to prove their language competence at different stages during their university studies for mobility, graduating, entrance to master programmes, etc., as well as for better job opportunities in the international market. This new function of language centres can be defined as the need for the development of more reliable systems for the accreditation or certification of language competence which will provide a basis for comparability of levels of assessment at European level. As a consequence, national language associations throughout Europe are immersed in a process for the design of a common model for the accreditation of language competence in higher education institutions that allows for comparability in achievement across languages and institutions, but which at the same time, allows for degrees of variation and the possibility to reflect the specific needs and aims of the different institutions. In the present work we describe the evolution of the accreditation process in Europe, with special attention to the model developed by the Spanish Association of Higher Education Language Centres (ACLES).