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This article describes how language policy is formed at a European level, focusing on
the Common European Framework of Reference for Language (CEFR). The CEFRs
prominent role in assessment has led to criticisms of its adequacy as a model for
learning and fears that it is being used as an instrument of centralization and
harmonization. First, we argue for studying the CEFRs effect on language policy as
a case of impact, as this concept is understood within language assessment. We refer
to experience with Asset Languages, developed as part of the United Kingdoms
national languages strategy. Second, we agree with many commentators who insist
on the frameworks flexible and context-amenable nature. If use of the CEFR is
made prescriptive and closed, it indeed becomes a straitjacket. What is needed is
engagement with the complexity of specific contexts. We introduce the European
Survey on Language Competences, a European Union (EU) initiative scheduled for
2011, which will further raise the profile of the CEFR as an assessment framework.
This project should contribute to achieving comparability of measures and standards
across languages. At the same time it underlines the need to develop contextualized,
practical ways of realizing the CEFRs potential as a framework for teaching and
learning.
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52 JONES AND SAVILLE
The Language Policy Division section of the Council of Europe web site
illustrates the range of current areas of work. A recent focus is on the languages of
education (Fleming, 2008). The Council also assists member states in producing
self-evaluative language education policy profiles, as an aid to defining possible
future policy developments.
The EUs language policy is best seen as part of the so-called Lisbon
Strategy, the goal set in 2000 for Europe to become by 2010 the most competitive
and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world (Council of the European
Union, 2000, p. 2). In 2002 member countries agreed action to improve language
EUROPEAN LANGUAGE POLICY 53
learning, in particular by teaching at least two foreign languages to all from a very
early age. A European Indicator of Language Competences was first mooted at this
time as one measure of progress toward the Lisbon goals. An action plan to promote
language learning and linguistic diversity (European Commission, 2003) stressed
among other things that English is not enough (p. 7); it reflected the concerns of
some member countries to counteract the increasingly dominant role of English as a
lingua franca seen to threaten other traditionally important languages such as French
and German. Multilingualism now has its own commissioner. The EU
Multilingualism Web site provides access to information about a wide range of
activities relevant to shaping language policy.
Thus some writers have concluded that the CEFRs major influence to date
has been on assessment (Coste, 2007; Fulcher, 2008; Little, 2007). Certainly the
publication of the CEFR and the subsequent preliminary pilot version of a manual for
relating language examinations to it (Council of Europe, 2003) has stimulated a great
deal of work by language testers. It has led to increasing insistence by governments
and other test users on proof of alignment, and a rush on the part of testers to provide
it. This influence is set to increase. A recent recommendation on the use of the CEFR
by the Council of Ministers (Council of Europe, 2008) includes the call for countries
to
For some commentators this situation illustrates the CEFRs lack of construct
validity as the framework for learning, teaching, and assessment that its title lays
claim to. For example, Fulcher (2004, 2008) comprehensively rejected the CEFR, on
the grounds that its descriptive scales, being empirically derived on the basis of
teacher judgments, are atheoretical, have no basis in second language acquisition
(SLA) research, and describe progression in a circular and reductive manner (Fulcher,
2008, p. 22).
Others interpret the situation described above as evidence that the CEFR is
being exploited as a tool of authority and controlmanipulated unthinkingly by
juggernaut-like centralizing institutions (Davies, 2008, p. 438, cited by Fulcher
2008, p. 21). As Trim, one of the principal framers of the framework, conceded,
there will always be people who are trying to use it as an instrument of power
(Saville, 2005, p. 282).
specific context that determines the final meaning of the claim. By engaging with the
process in this way, we put the CEFR in its correct place as a point of reference and
also contribute to its future evolution. A policed CEFR would almost by definition be
a closed-down, fossilized system, whereas we should certainly be thinking in terms of
its further development, as Coste himself foresees.
But although policing the use of the CEFR is certainly not the way to go,
there is certainly a great deal of work to be done to guarantee its sensible use and
ensure that its impact on the learning and teaching of languages turns out on balance
positive. This work involves actors at every level of language education, and in every
field, and there is a large role for assessment and measurement expertise. The use of
the CEFR for assessment carries risks, as is true of any large-scale assessment
initiative. It is reasonable that language testers should work to understand these, and
even to mitigate or overcome them. The CEFR is a fit object for the study of impact,
as that concept has been developed within language testing (Alderson & Wall, 1993;
Hawkey, 2006).
The study that proposed this new recognition system (Nuffield Languages
Programme, 2002) found existing qualifications inadequate as mechanisms for
promoting successful language learning. They could not function formatively, given
their summative role at the end of an extended period of study. Consequently, the new
framework should embody a set of graded, accessible learning targets. Also, many
qualifications in languages were found to be confusing and uninformative about the
levels of competence they represented (p. 8); thus the new framework should
embody meaningful proficiency levels. For both these purposes the CEFR was
identified as a model to be followed.
Despite these criticisms, the framers of the original recommendations did not
see the new framework entering the field of formal qualifications, but somehow
operating alongside it and offering informal certification. However, the scheme as
launched envisaged twin strands of accreditation: an informal, teacher-led one of
micro-levels, and an externally administered assessment scheme at six major levels
having equal formal status to other language qualifications within the National
Qualifications Framework. This was the scheme that Cambridge Assessment was
awarded by tender and developed under the brand name Asset Languages. It
encompasses 25 languages; the skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking
EUROPEAN LANGUAGE POLICY 57
The system is now fully operational, if not complete in terms of the levels
covered by each language; however, it is still too early to begin to evaluate its success.
But working on the project has been instructive in a number of ways. Beyond the
merely technical challenge of bringing multiple languages onto a common
proficiency framework, it reveals challenges of a different order related to introducing
a new assessment, having its rationale and values, into an education system with its
own rather different drivers. Simply accommodating individualized
testing-when-ready is difficult within a system used to a cohort-based lockstep
approach; likewise, a proficiency-testing approach based on minimal exam
preparation, when the norm is achievement testing of closely specified and heavily
prepared objectives. The value of clear criterion-referenced proficiency levels may
count for little to school heads focused on the value of performance points attached to
achieving exam grades. Moreover, the end users of exam results may not value
evidence of useful language skills, however acquired, if they are accustomed to
valuing them simply as evidence of transferable academic ability. Some of these may
be specifically UK issues, and others may have more general resonance.
Asset Languages offers the two options of external assessment and informal
teacher-led certification. The latter, intended to be used formatively, takes the form of
short tasks that can be used off-the-shelf or adapted for particular contexts. Feedback
from teachers suggests that incorporating the scheme into their teaching is seen as
introducing a considerable amount of extra work, which they may feel too busy or
insufficiently confident to deal with. This is one reason why they tend to use the
supposedly formative tests unchanged, as mini-summative events unconnected to their
teaching. Teachers also want more detailed information on the content of the external
exams, to prepare pupils better. Generally, they want more guidance in relating their
classroom work to the functional, can-do framework of the Languages Ladder.
This parallels the findings of surveys into the use of the CEFR mentioned
above, and also of another Council of Europe initiative, the European Language
Portfolio (ELP), which is closely linked to the CEFR and has focused the most
coherent and principled attempts to integrate it into classroom learning. The ELP
serves the pedagogical function of encouraging reflection on the language learning
process and the development of learner autonomy; at the same time it documents the
learners developing proficiency (Little, 2007, p. 649). Little is an advocate for the
ELP and has produced extensive support material for teachers using it (Little &
Perclova, 2001), but admits himself that it is impossible to say how widely it is
58 JONES AND SAVILLE
actually used and refers to a wealth of anecdotal evidence to suggest that because
most models have been developed independently of curricula, teachers and learners
see the ELP as an optional extra whose use will involve them in extra work (Little,
2007, p. 652). He concludes that wide uptake of the ELP in the longer term depends
on establishing an integral relationship between ELP models and curriculum, as has
successfully been done with the primary level ELP in Ireland.
Thus the issues faced by both the ELP and Asset Languages may to some
extent result from their voluntary status. Compare this with the situation in France,
where the CEFR has been integrated more completely into the national curriculum
(Bonnet, 2007, p. 670). This began with the establishment of performance indicators
and targets in CEFR terms, and continued with fundamental reforms of foreign
language teaching explicitly organized around the CEFR. Targets are set for three
stages of education, and foreign language (FL) curricula have been rewritten.
Professional development of language teachers is accordingly being refocused on
teaching and assessing in relation to the CEFR. The French example is likely to be
followed elsewhere. Certainly the previously mentioned recommendation on the use
of the CEFR by the Council of Ministers (Council of Europe, 2008) points strongly in
this direction.
As members of this team, we will introduce the project and relate it briefly to
the context discussed earlier. The survey is intended to provide information on the
general level of foreign language knowledge of the pupils in the participating
countries and provide strategic information to policymakers, teachers, and learners
with the aim of improving teaching methods and outcomes. The language tests and
interpretation of results must relate to the CEFR and cover the levels A1 to B2.
secondary education (or higher secondary if that is where a second foreign language
is first taught), and only the two most taught foreign languages in a given country, out
of English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Reading, listening, and writing are
included in the first iteration, with speaking deferred for practical reasons. Only
individuals currently learning a language will be sampled, and nobody is to be tested
in more than one language. The Commission has stated that future iterations of the
survey will include all European languages, and the skill of speaking, something
which will entail a rather different approach.
These comparisons will be based on two kinds of data: from the language
tests and from questionnaires administered to students, teachers, and school heads.
The questionnaires will investigate, at a number of levels from the individual learner
to the country, how educational outcomes relate to malleable processes (such as
teaching methods) and antecedent or contextual conditions. The CEFR has a dual
status in the survey: It is both the explicit point of reference and one of the variables
whose impact may emerge in the analysis of outcomes.
At the time of writing, detailed proposals on conducting the survey have been
presented to, and accepted by, the Commission and its advisory board of participating
countries. From a language assessment point of view, key issues are the design of the
language tests themselves, the alignment of tests across languages, and the
assignment of testees to CEFR levels. Space precludes discussion here. Suffice it to
say that the design of the tests aims to reflect the CEFRs action-oriented, functional
model of language use while ensuring relevance for 15-year-olds in a school setting.
Cross-language alignment and standard setting against the CEFR levels are current
active areas of research in the language testing community that the survey aims to
move forward. It is hoped that the survey will provide as one of its outcomes useful
resources that can be made available to others engaged in this area.
The developers remit is, of course, limited: the task is to construct valid
assessment tools, collect good response data, and provide interpretable results. In the
process we will, we believe, be able to contribute to the empirical construction of the
CEFR as a practical multilingual framework. Beyond that, however, the surveys
developers have no remit to promote the CEFR, or develop the links between
pedagogy and assessment which this article has suggested are desirable and
necessary. However, we see the survey, and the subsequent discussion of outcomes, as
60 JONES AND SAVILLE
a favorable context for progress in this area. What is needed is thoughtful and positive
engagement, including that of the language assessment community. The impact of the
CEFR on language education is complex and heterogeneous. Coste (2007) insisted on
careful analysis of each context of use. He merits quoting at length:
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