Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment - Companion Volume

Author: Council of Europe · Type: academic · Status: draft · URL: https://rm.coe.int/common-european-framework-of-reference-for-languages-learning-teaching/16809ea0d4

Licence: Council of Europe publication (2020), free to download as PDF; quotation with attribution permitted; not for commercial republication of full text

Summary

The authoritative 2020 update to the CEFR. It adds validated, calibrated descriptor scales for exactly the competences Immersive builds: plurilingual comprehension, building on plurilingual repertoire, and mediation. It reaffirms that plurilingualism is an uneven and changing competence in which resources in one language may differ sharply from another, and traces partial competences back to the 1996 provisional CEFR. It explicitly describes calling on knowledge of several languages to make sense of a text, and states plurilingual experience may accelerate subsequent learning. This is the institutional foundation for marketing receptive B1/B2 outcomes as a recognized, respectable goal rather than half a product.

Insights

• The CEFR officially recognizes uneven, partial language profiles: plurilingualism is presented as an uneven and changing competence, not a deficit. (high, draft) cefr plurilingualism positioning

  Plurilingualism is presented in the CEFR as an uneven and changing competence, in which the user/learner’s resources in one language or variety may be very different in nature from their resources in another. — Section 2.3, p. 30

• The 2020 Companion Volume adds brand-new validated descriptor scales for plurilingual comprehension and building on plurilingual repertoire, the exact competences intercomprehension training develops. (high, draft) cefr intercomprehension plurilingualism

  Table 1 lists ‘Plurilingual comprehension’ and ‘Building on plurilingual repertoire’ as descriptor scales added in this publication. — Table 1, p. 23

• The CEFR defines plurilingual competence as including the ability to call upon knowledge of a number of languages to make sense of a text, which is a near-literal description of the Bridge Method. (high, draft) cefr intercomprehension positioning

  call upon the knowledge of a number of languages (or dialects, or varieties) to make sense of a text — Section 2.3, p. 30

• The CEFR states that plurilingual and pluricultural experience may to some degree accelerate subsequent language learning, supporting the claim that leveraging known Romance languages speeds acquisition. (high, draft) cefr plurilingualism intercomprehension

  It may, therefore, to some degree accelerate subsequent learning in the linguistic and cultural areas. (quoting CEFR 2001 Section 6.1.3.3) — Section 2.3, p. 31

• Partial competences have been part of the CEFR framework since its 1996 second provisional version, so comprehension-first goals have a quarter century of policy legitimacy. (high, draft) cefr positioning plurilingualism

  The linked concepts of plurilingualism/pluriculturalism and partial competences were introduced to language education for the first time in the second provisional version of the CEFR in 1996. — Sidebar, p. 30