Definition
An approach to the description of language use that views the individual as a social agent who uses language to perform actions.
Comment
The CEFR defines language learning as a variety of language use (Council of Europe 2001: 9), which implies a task-based approach to language learning and teaching.
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Definition
The individual's capacity to do things for himself/herself.
Comment
Learner autonomy entails a recognition on the learner's part that he/she is responsible for his/her learning. It has been defined as "a capacity for detachment, critical reflection, decision-making and independent action" (Little 1991: 4).
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Definition
Portfolio learning in general and language learning that makes use of the ELP in particular aim to develop the learner’s explicit (conscious) awareness of the processes and content of learning.
Comment
The ELP is particularly concerned with the learner/user’s awareness of the language learning process, the (inter)cultural dimensions of language learning and use, and the full extent and implications of his/her developing plurilingual repertoire.
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Definition
Checklists of “I can” descriptors are an obligatory component of the ELP and usually form part of the language biography.
Comment
Checklists are intended to support the learner/user’s self-assessment, but when the ELP plays a central role in the language learning/teaching process they can also be used to identify learning targets and monitor progress. Some ELPs organize their checklists by level (all A1 checklists followed by all A2 checklists, and so on), while others organize them by activity (all listening checklists followed by all reading checklists, and so on). The latter form of organization may make it easier to recognize the reality of partial competences.
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Definition
The CEFR was designed to provide a common basis for the creation of language syllabuses, curriculum guidelines, examinations, textbooks, etc. across Europe. It seeks to describe in a comprehensive way what language learners have to be able to do order to use a language for communication and what knowledge and skills they have to develop. In its Global Scale, Self-Assessment Grid and Illustrative Scales the CEFR defines six levels of second/foreign language proficiency: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2.
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Definition
“The language learner/user’s communicative language competence is activated in the performance of the various language activities, involving reception, production, interaction or mediation (in particular interpreting or translating). Each of these types of activity is possible in relation to texts in oral or written form, or both” (CEFR, p.14).
Comment
The CEFR’s central concern with language activities reflects its action-oriented approach to the description of language use. As the above definition makes clear, this approach is more complex than the traditional division of communicative proficiency into the four skills of listening and speaking, reading and writing.
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Definition
Competences are “the sum of knowledge, skills and characteristics that allow a person to perform actions” (CEFR, p.9). General competences are those that “are called upon for actions of all kinds, including language activities” (ibid.) and communicative language competences are those that “empower a person to act using specifically linguistic means” (ibid.).
Comment
The descriptors that the CEFR uses to define communicative proficiency in relation to listening, reading, spoken interaction, spoken production and writing, refer to what we can do with language; the scales of language quality and strategy use refer to the competences on which we draw when engage in communicative activities.
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Definition
A descriptor is a short sentence that defines a communicative task or activity, a dimension of the learner/user’s linguistic knowledge, or a strategic capacity.
Comment
In the CEFR descriptors take the form of “can do” statements because they refer to the behavior and capacities of the learner/user as a third person. In the ELP checklists, descriptors take the form of “I can” statements because they are components of the owner’s gradually developing self-portrait as language learner/user.
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Definition
Formative assessment is any kind of assessment that aims to measure progress in learning in order to shape the direction and content of further learning. It is sometimes referred to as “assessment for learning”. Summative assessment measures learning outcomes at the conclusion of a phase of learning.
Comment
The self-assessment that is fundamental to effective ELP use is both formative and summative: formative when the checklists are used to identify learning targets, reflect on the demands they make, and assess whether or not the targets have been achieved; summative when the learner/user periodically updates the proficiency profiles in the language passport or selects pieces of work to preserve in a “display” dossier.
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Definition
The presence in a society or community of two or more languages.
Comment
Council of Europe documents distinguish between multilingualism and plurilingualism (the capacity of the individual to communicate, at whatever level of proficiency, in two or more languages). Plurilingual individuals belong to multilingual societies, but multilingual societies need not contain plurilingual individuals.
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Definition
Plurilingual repertoires are usually uneven: we tend to be more proficient in one language than in the others we know, in which we may have partial competences – for example, we may be able to communicate orally but not in writing, or to read but not to understand speech.
Comment
The CEFR’s definition of communicative proficiency in relation to five activities (listening, reading, spoken interaction, spoken production and writing) makes it easy to identify partial competences and the ways in which our proficiency varies from one language to another.
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Definition
According to the CEFR the individual’s plurilingual repertoire should be seen as a single resource that he or she draws upon flexibly in response to the particular demands of different communicative situations.
Comment
There are many ways in which we can exploit our plurilingual repertoire. When lost for a word in one language we may fill the gap by using the equivalent word in another language but pronouncing it as though it belonged to the first language. When communicating in a multilingual group we may speak our first language, understand what others say in their first languages, and use our understanding to mediate with members of the group who do not understand. And so on.
Although the ELP is raise the owner’s awareness of his or her developing plurilingual repertoire, this is unlikely to happen unless the ELP is used to support all language learning and teaching in the school. Language education that aims to be genuinely plurilingual must provide learners with regular opportunities to reflect on, compare and discuss their experience of learning and using different languages.
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Definition
An individual's capacity to communicate, at whatever level of proficiency, in two or more languages
Comment
In Council of Europe documents 'plurilingualism' refers to the individual, whereas 'multilingualism' refers to the presence of two or more languages in a society or community. The presence of plurilingual individuals in a society makes that society multilingual; whereas the presence of two or more languages in a society does not guarantee the presence in that society of plurilingual individuals
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Definition
The learner's own assessment of his or her learning achievement.
Comment
Self-assessment is fundamental to effective use of the ELP. "I can" checklists organized by CEFR level (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2) and communicative activity (listening, reading, spoken interaction, spoken production, writing) are used not only to evaluate learning outcomes, but to identify learning targets and monitor learning progress. In other words, self-assessment based on checklists embraces planning and monitoring as well as evaluation. It is formative in the sense that it helps to give direction to the learning process. The self-assessment that the learner periodically undertakes in order to update his/her language passport is summative in the sense that it sums up the learner's achievement at a particular point in time.
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Definition
“A strategy is any organized, purposeful and regulated line of action chosen by an individual to carry out a task which he or she sets for himself or herself or with which he or she is confronted” (CEFR, p.10).
Comment
Strategic competence belongs among the learner/user’s general competences because it underpins non-linguistic as well as linguistic actions. When we are learning how to perform any task we are likely to adopt conscious strategies, but we deploy them with diminishing conscious awareness as our mastery of the task develops. We have achieved full mastery when we can perform the task spontaneously, automatically and without reflection. At that stage we have recourse to conscious strategy use only when something goes wrong with task performance. This explains why research into the role of strategic competence in language use has focused centrally on communication breakdown and repair.
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Definition
A task-based approach to language teaching and learning assumes that we learn to communicate by performing communicative tasks.
Comment
If we want language learners to perform actions in the language(s) they are learning, it is necessary to give them tasks to perform. Some proponents of task-based learning distinguish between communicative tasks, which occur in “real life” contexts, and pedagogical tasks, which are confined to the teaching/learning context. However, the more the target language is used as the medium of teaching and learning, the less easy it is to maintain this distinction.
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Definition
The use of the ELP to support all language learning and teaching in a school or other educational institution.
Comment
Only when it is used at institutional level can the ELP promote the development of the individual learner's plurilingual repertoire.
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