Abstract:

Current trends in English Language Teaching in Europe are significantly influenced by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment (CEFR) that enriched the communicative approach by other concepts such as an action-oriented approach, a learner-centered approach, the concepts of learner autonomy, plurilingualism and multiculturalism, changing the focus on language learning as one of the subjects towards learning other subjects through different languages.

Language is viewed as a tool for communication and the goal of language learning has shifted towards negotiating meaning through interaction. The focus on communicative competence has stimulated a more holistic approach to integrated skills teaching and assessing. Language education should reflect the development of technology, and the original CEFR did not include the descriptors related to online communication which is unlikely to be exactly the same as face-to-face interaction. Online communication is a multi-modal phenomenon, with an emphasis on how communicators interact online to handle both serious issues and social exchanges in an open-ended way. Therefore, scales related to spoken interaction and written interaction were complemented by a new scale with descriptors related to online interaction, focusing on multimodal conversation and discussion and goal-oriented online transactions and collaboration, presented in the Companion Volume, the provisional edition of which was published in September 2017 by the Educational Department of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

Our study focuses on an analysis of different modules through which trained teachers were familiarized with the philosophy that is behind the CEFR, aiming at online interaction. The teachers were provided with a number of activities through which they were expected to become aware of particular CEFR levels. The main focus was put on B1, B2 and C1 levels as they are expected levels of secondary school leavers, particularly B1 for secondary technical school students, B2 for secondary grammar school students and C1 for students studying at bilingual secondary grammar schools or bilingual sections of secondary schools. Teachers’ judgements were compared, and analysed with the aim to provide examples of good practice that would encourage English teachers to develop task-based materials reflecting CEFR CV descriptors for online interaction and build transversal skills (e.g. collaboration and mutual understanding) that are applicable across subjects. The idea behind the project was to maximise the impact of the CEFR CV on classroom practice and use online interaction descriptors to operationalise an action-oriented approach.

Keywords:

CEFR Companion Volume, new scales, online interaction descriptors.