The network meeting for the project “A Quality Matrix for CEFR Use” took place at Graz on 9-10 May 2017. The meeting was a great accomplishment and a key event in the life of the project.

Thirteen experts from 12 countries brought their support, expertise and ideas to the Quality Matrix and to the associated resources that will help users to promote quality language education.

The atmosphere was extremely focused but at the same time relaxed. Thanks to the preparatory tasks that the project team had sent in advance, the participants were well advanced in their reflections as regards the project and were therefore able to get straight down to work.

Two days of intense effort facilitated the achievement of lots of objectives : a clear conceptualisation of the matrix itself and of the questions that help users  to reflect on principles of quality in relation to the CEFR; a structure for the good practices that will allow users access at the beginning of the process as well as during the reflection phase at the end ; a concept for a web site organised around supplementary resources that will be tagged in such a way as to facilitate effective access for users with different levels of expertise, working in different contexts.

The experts particularly appreciated the prospect of having a clear tool to provide guidance and stimulate reflection in support of pedagogic innovation and CEFR-based curriculum development, inspired by quality assurance approaches. 

The workshop strengthened the link between the members of the project team and the experts, which promises to develop into a network of collective intelligence at the service of quality language education.