The Companion Volume is intended as a complement to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment(CEFR). It represents another important step in a process that has been pursued by the Council of Europe since 1971 and owes much to the contributions of members of the language teaching profession across Europe and beyond.
The Companion Volume is the Council of Europe’s response to requests that have been made by the groups involved in the field of language education to complement the original illustrative scales with more descriptors. In addition to the extended illustrative descriptors, it contains an introduction to the aims and main principles of the CEFR.
The Companion Volume thus contains:
- a text explaining key aspects of the CEFR for teaching and learning;
- updated versions of the 2001 scales (gaps filled: better description at A1 and the C-levels, new analytic scale for phonology);
- descriptors for new areas: mediation (including reactions to creative text/literature), online interaction , and plurilingual/pluricultural competence;
- examples for the mediation descriptors for the four domains public, personal, occupational, educational;
- a brief rationale for each descriptors scales (old as well as new);
- a brief account of the development project.
The French version will be published before the end of the year, with German following next Spring.
More information on the CEFR website: www.coe.int/lang-CEFR