What is the Common European Framework?

The Common European Framework provides a common basis for the elaboration of language syllabuses, curriculum guidelines, examinations, textbooks, etc. across Europe. It describes in a comprehensive way what language learners have to learn to do in order to use a language for communication and what knowledge and skills they have to develop so as to be able to act effectively. The description also covers the cultural context in which language is set. The Framework also defines levels of proficiency which allow learners’ progress to be measured at each stage of learning and on a life-long basis.

The Common European Framework is intended to overcome the barriers to communication among professionals working in the field of modern languages arising from the different educational systems in Europe. It provides the means for educational administrators, course designers, and teachers, teacher trainers, examining bodies, etc., to reflect on their current practice, with a view to situating and co-coordinating their efforts and to ensuring that they meet the real needs of the learners for whom they are responsible.

By providing a common basis for the explicit description of objectives, content and methods, the Framework will enhance the transparency of courses, syllabuses and qualifications, thus promoting international co-operation in the field of modern languages. The provision of objective criteria for describing language proficiency will facilitate the mutual recognition of qualifications gained in different learning contexts, and accordingly will aid European mobility.

The taxonomic nature of the Framework inevitably means trying to handle the great complexity of human language by breaking language competence down into separate components. This confronts us with psychological and pedagogical problems of some depth. Communication calls upon the whole human being. The competences separated and classified below interact in complex ways in the development of each unique human personality. As a social agent, each individual forms relationships with a widening cluster of overlapping social groups, which together define identity. In an intercultural approach, it is a central objective of language education to promote the favorable development of the learner’s whole personality and sense of identity in response to the enriching experience of otherness in language and culture. It must be left to teachers and the learners themselves to reintegrate the many parts into a healthily developing whole.

The Framework includes the description of ‘partial’ qualifications, appropriate when only a more restricted knowledge of a language is required (e.g. for understanding rather than speaking), or when a limited amount of time is available for the learning of a third or fourth language and more useful results can perhaps be attained by aiming at, say, recognition rather than recall skills. Giving formal recognition to such abilities will help to promote plurilingualism through the learning of a wider variety of European languages.

The uses of the Framework include:

The planning of language learning programmes in terms of:

• Their assumptions regarding prior knowledge, and their articulation with earlier learning, particularly at interfaces between primary, lower secondary, upper secondary and higher/further education;
• Their objectives;
• Their content.

The planning of language certification in terms of:

• The content syllabus of examinations;
• Assessment criteria, in terms of positive achievement rather than negative deficiencies.

The planning of self-directed learning, including:

• Raising the learner’s awareness of his or her present state of knowledge;
• Self-setting of feasible and worthwhile objectives;
• Selection of materials;
• Self-assessment.

Learning programmes and certification can be:

• Global, bringing a learner forward in all dimensions of language proficiency and communicative competence;
• Modular, improving the learner’s proficiency in a restricted area for a particular purpose;
• Weighted, emphasising learning in certain directions and producing a ‘profile’ in which a higher level is attained in some areas of knowledge and skill than others;
• Partial, taking responsibility only for certain activities and skills (e.g. reception) and leaving others aside.

The Common European Framework is constructed so as to accommodate these various forms.

In considering the role of a common framework at more advanced stages of language learning it is necessary to take into account changes in the nature of needs of learners and the context in which they live, study and work. There is a need for general qualifications at a level beyond threshold, which may be situated with reference to the CEF. They have, of course, to be well defined, properly adapted to national situations and embrace new areas, particularly in the cultural field and more specialized domains. In addition, a considerable role may be played by modules or clusters of modules geared to the specific needs, characteristics and resources of learners.