VeldwERK:

What happens when you step into the

CEFR

Seminar on Curriculum Convergences

Council of Europe, Strasbourg

29th November, 2011

Daniela Fasoglio, Hetty Mulder SLO

(The Netherlands Institute for Curriculum Development)

The context

• 2007: Attainment targets for upper secondary education related to the levels of the CEFR (although still not compulsory)– One global standard for each ability – same for all foreign

languages (English, Arabic, French, Italian, German, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, from 2013 Chinese);

– Differentiation in programs determined by the CEFR levels to be attained in each language and ability.

• National examinations related to the CEFR (though not certifying)• CEFR Master plan 2008-2010:

– Development of a Dutch CEFR web portal: • One portal for English, French, German and Spanish• Target: teachers, pupils, principals, parents, employers• Content: information, teaching materials, interactive

functionalities

The context (2)

• Schools are given the opportunity to ask for SLO support (two years) in dealing with specific implementation issues regarding all school subjects.

• Choice out of a list of issues selected by SLO: a school can apply for one of those.

• 2009-2010: 9 schools ask for support in the implementation of the CEFR - mainly for English, German and French, incidentally for Spanish.

Reasons for schools to work with SLO

• Examination results below national average;• Great discrepancy between national examination results (reading

skills) and school examination results (listening, speaking, writing skills and literature);

• Improve FL teaching quality (teaching activities, assessment);• Changes in the FL curriculum (amount of hours, amount of

languages, new structure);• Alignment of FL curricula for the different languages: among

standards, assessment, methodology.

Aims and kind of interventions

• Overall aim: implementation of the CEFR = mutual target

• Focus on school individual context and needs

• Interventions for all school languages based on the same curricular model:

Concretization

• Curriculum alignment: vertical en horizontal• Curricular coherence• Subject innovation• Assessment criteria• Evaluation

• Formative evaluation of the CEFR portal

Organization

• Condition: all FL sections of a school to work together (both lower and upper secondary);

• Joint start;• School tailored routes;• Exchange of experiences and products and joint evaluation

• 2009: formative evaluation of the CEFR portal

Formative evaluation of the CEFR portal

• Teachers 'test run' teaching materials and web pages to see if they meet their needs in terms of:– relevance– completeness– effectivity– usability

• Methods:– Screening– Interviews– Try outs

• Materials are not always language specific• Teachers also give feedback on materials for other languages

Advantages of formative evaluation

As target users, teachers are a substantial part of the design cycle used for the website:

ADVANTAGES:• Improve quality;• Tailor contents to the users' needs;• Check if instruments developed really work;• Teachers learn from colleagues of other languages.

Products en results: fine tuning

among language curricula

• FL activities geared to one another in terms of:– rationale– objectives– criteria for the selection of:

• contents• learning materials• learning activities• work forms• tests and assessment tools

• Learning pathways from 1st to 6th form• Use of the same formats to describe FL curricula

Effect on learners

Transparancya general view on one's language competences and learning targets

expressed according to the same standards for all languages

School cultureattitudes and behaviours towards foreign language learning

Self-consciousnessenhancement of learner's autonomy

Products and results: teaching contents and organization of education

CONTENTS:• Improved use of the target language in the class• Choice or development of language materials calibrated to the

CEFR• Use of language tasks• Experiments with assessment based on CEFR criteria• Organization of feedback to learners• Learners aware of their language level

ORGANIZATION:• A new language 'lounge'• Native speakers als language assistants

Top 7 Hitches

1. Fine tuning

"What steps do we have to take in order for FL's to better get in tune with one another?"

2. Time

"It takes us a lot of time to develop and to performlanguage tasks."

3. Self assessment

"How can we encourage pupils' self assessment?"

4. Target language

"How can we improve the use of the target language in the lesson?"

Top 7 Hitches

5. Involvement

"How can we get all FL-colleagues equally involved?"

6. Differentiation

"How to cope with different levels in the class'?"

7. Assessment

"How can you line up CEFR level assessment with marks?"

Dissemination

Follow up

• 2011-2012 : 13 schools have asked for support in the implementation of the CEFR.

• Starting level of familiarization with CEFR is higher.

• Cooperation between languages is more obvious.

• Aims are more precisely formulated and relate to language learning in general, not to one specific language.

• Involvement in another design cycle: CITO-SLO handbook on testing and assessment with the CEFR.