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Chapter 1: The CEFR: Introduction and historic overview

Chapter 2: From Communicative to Action Oriented: Tracing a path

Chapter 3: The Communicative Approach

Chapter 4: The Action Oriented Approach

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              The CEFR: A brief background 

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              The CEFR: A brief background 

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The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is a tool that was created in Europe in the 1990s.

A hard copy version of it was published in English and French in 2001.

The birth of the CEFR is linked not only to advances in the field of language education, but also to the social and political changes that were sweeping through Europe in the late 1980s.

In 1989, a single event changed the geography of Europe radically: the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This event created the conditions for a redefinition of the European space, geographically and politically, as well as for social, economic, and linguistic mobility on a massive scale.

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                            But, what is it?

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                            But, what is it?

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"It's a tool for Language Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. The CEFR defines itself as a descriptive tool, rather than as a prescriptive tool; it integrates concepts from a number of different theoretical studies"

What is its objective?
The CEFR's core objective is to provide a common language to assist professionals involved in the teaching and learning of languages at all levels in their respective practices and missions.

The CEFR and the curriculum
The CEFR provides tools, principles, and resources for the development of language curricula, textbooks, and programs to support the teaching and learning of various languages, as well as assessment tools.

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               From Communicative to Action-Oriented: Tracing a Path

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               From Communicative to Action-Oriented: Tracing a Path

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Before moving on to the Communicative Approach...

Discuss: What does learning a language mean?

1. Does learning a language mean memorizing vocabulary, learning rules, and then applying them?

2. Does it mean that a new language is absorbed by osmosis, the way an infant learns his or her mother tongue?

3. Does one learn a language through conditioning and by mechanically repeating a model?

4. Is learning a language a creative form of cognitive development?

5. Does learning a new language mean, primarily, learning to communicate in L2?

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        The communicative Approach or CLT

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        The communicative Approach or CLT

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"It is based on the idea that learning language successfully comes through having to communicate real meaning. When learners are involved in real communication, their natural strategies for language acquisition will be used, and this will allow them to learn to use the language".

Teaching language in a way that reflects real life.

Language varies according to the situation and the message that the speaker or writer wants to convey.

Language is divided not into grammatical structures, but into a list of concepts and functions.

Language functions or communicative intentions makes it possible to use the target language effectively in situations that involve communication (Introducing oneself, asking for directions, ordering a meal, etc.).

These functions take place within notions such as time, space, social relations, and so forth.

Rather than endlessly repeating with the aim of memorizing or dissecting the language, particularly its grammatical structures, students must use the target language in meaningful ways to communicate a message either orally or in writing.

Grammar is only one component of "communicative competence".

Use of the communicative approach aims to bring real life into the classroom. Teaching/learning is organized around real-life situations.

There is a shift away from memorizing lists of words. Priority is given to authentic materials selected from real-life sources (newspaper articles, radio programs, advertising, excerpts from books, video clips, and so forth).

The learner not only becomes a communicator engaged in the negotiation of meaning, but also takes greater responsibility for his or her learning.

The teacher is a model, a facilitator, an organizer of activities in the classroom, an advisor, an analyst of the needs and interests of learners.

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From Communicative to Action-Oriented Approach (AOA)

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From Communicative to Action-Oriented Approach (AOA)

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"The CEFR incorporates the advances that were made with the communicative approach and takes them to the next level, proposing a fuller and more thorough vision capable of linking teaching and learning, objectives and evaluation, the individual and the social, the classroom and the world beyond."

In this approach, learners  draw on the competences at their disposal in various contexts under various conditions and under various constraints to engage in language activities.

This approach views users and learners of a language primarily as social agents.

Members of society who have tasks (not exclusively language-related) to accomplish in a given set of circumstances, in a specific environment and within a particular field of action.

We speak of tasks in so far as the actions are performed by one or more individuals strategically using their own specific competences to achieve a given result.

This AOA takes into account the cognitive, emotional and volitional resources and the full range of abilities specific to and applied by the individual as a social agent.

Action involves doing things and accomplishing tasks. These tasks require both language and communication.

AOA sees the learner as a whole person, with values, beliefs, a personality, and a language or languages.