We would like to offer you an opportunity to participate in the validation of a new set of CEFR Illustrative Descriptors for mediation by completing an online questionnaire. The online questionnaire asks you to consider descriptors by thinking about a person you know very well (this could be yourself or someone else), and how they perform in a second/foreign language. This is a project of the Language Policy Unit of the Council of Europe.
If you would like to participate please go to the following link to see the contents of each survey. Once you have decided which scales are of interest, select the survey link and complete the questionnaire. Please note that you cannot save your responses and come back to the survey – it must be completed in one sitting (approximately 10-15 minutes).
The survey is available until 8 November 2015.
Please distribute this link to colleagues involved in language education (e.g. teachers, academic directors, examiners, etc.) who you think might be interested. It is hoped that you will see the value of participating in this important project.
Thanking you in advance.
Brian North, Project Coordinator
Background
In 2013, the Council of Europe commissioned the development of an Extended Set of CEFR Illustrative Descriptors which include new scales for mediation, online interaction, plurilingual and pluricultural competences and responding to literature. The project will lead to the publication of the Extended Set of CEFR descriptors on the Council of Europe’s website in mid-2016.
The descriptors have been developed by an international team during 2014. In order to validate them, a series of 3 activities have been organised:
- Workshop 1 (completed in February-March) involved pairs of informants categorising descriptors into scales and evaluating the quality and usefulness of them. 136 institutions took part and the formulation of the descriptors has been finalised as a result.
- Workshop 2 (completed in May-June) involved individually judging the level of descriptors (using SurveyMonkey) after participating in a group CEFR familiarisation activity.
- Online Survey (October – till 8th November): A final online survey (SurveyMonkey) to confirm the calibration of the final set of descriptors.