Aligning language education to the CEFR: Whys, whats and hows - Neus Figueras

The publication of the CEFR-CV (2020)has resulted in a renewed interest in the principles that underlie the CEFR’s descriptive scheme, from which level labels and descriptors (often referred as the vertical dimension in the CEFR) have tended to divert attention.
The contents and recommendations in the CEFR, what they mean, what they imply, how they can be implemented, and why they are key in language education are currently being revisited and theorized, fifty years after John Trim and David Wilkins sketched out the action-oriented approach that became the basis of The Threshold Level’ published in 1980. This session will address why it is necessary to ‘go back to’ and to ‘go deeper into’ a document which was published 20 years ago and has been widely influential but is seemingly still not fully understood. It will outline the issues raised re. the use(s) and implementation of the CEFR worldwide and in Spain in particular, by professionals working in different fields: curriculum developers, textbook writers and publishers, assessment specialists, teacher trainers or practitioners. The Handbook for aligning education to the CEFR will be discussed in this context, as it aims at contributing to a fuller understanding of the CEFR, and at facilitating the use of the document, by outlining the processes to follow when aligning curricula, materials and assessments to the CEFR and by providing guidelines to complete them. Published in April 2022, the Handbook is currently being put to use in alignment projects by different stakeholders and it is hoped that their views and experiences can be incorporated in a future edition.