Local organiser: Andrea Lutz, Levende Talen

ECML experts: José Noijons (Netherlands), Karine Dekeukelaere (Belgium)

Participants: 11 (teachers and teacher trainers, curriculum developers, publishers)

Getting started with RELANG and the updated final attainment levels for modern foreign languages.

“It's an honour to be here” said Wendoline Timmerman from the Ministry of Education, Department of Secondary Education and ECML Governing board member for the Netherlands at the opening of the two-day RELANG training workshop that took place on 18 and 19 March 2025 in Utrecht. This is unique for the Netherlands and has long been a wish of Ms Timmerman’s to bring the importance of the CEFR to the minds of teachers of modern foreign languages. Levende Talen has thus made a first step towards professionalising teachers in CEFR and its relation to the updates of the core objectives and examination programmes for modern foreign languages developed by SLO, national expertise centre for the curriculum.

An enthusiastic group of teachers, a curriculum developer and a teacher trainer took part in this inspiring workshop. Participants were introduced to the principles of the CEFR Companion Volume where the relationship with the attainment targets and core objectives was made clearly visible. By gaining insight into how the alignment with descriptors of the modern foreign language exam programme domains Communication, Language Awareness and Cultural Awareness and CEFR was made, participants were able to produce their own test materials through assignments and grading instruments. All are now looking forward to applying this new knowledge in their own learning environments.

Andrea Lutz, local coordinator, 21 March 2025

ECML project website: RELANG, ECML-EC cooperation agreement 2025 "Innovative methodologies and assessment in language learning"