Kathleen Graves’s title contained the paradox that in teaching, you sometimes have to be less efficient to be more efficient. In a time in which testing and accountability have become paramount, in an attempt to cut out the dead wood in education, we have neglected the learner and a broader vision of what learning is for.
Michael Hoey’s was a compelling argument in favour of teaching language lexically, because that’s how language is, and that’s also how it’s learnt and mentally stored. On the linguistics angle, he endorsed the work of Michael Lewis and his ´lexical approach´, and on the pedagogic side, he recommended the ´Monitor Model´of Stephen Krashen.
With increased mobility in the European Higher Education Area, many teachers are now finding that they have students from different cultural backgrounds in their classrooms. Additionally, many English language teachers might be finding that they are now teaching students who are aiming to study a part of their degree, through the medium of English, in a different country.
In this second TESOL SPAIN article on the Common European Framewrok of Reference (CEFR), I consider the scaling of communicative proficiency using traditional lables (for example Elementary or Pre-intermediate) and CEFR levels (A1, A2, etc.).
This is the first of two aticles, written to provide contextual background for the TESOL SPAIN 25th National Convention, theme: Access Europe: Language as a Common Currency.
The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) is an indispensable tool for the realisation for the Bologna Process in the European Higher Education Area. It offers guidance for teaching, learning and assessment of languages for communication purposes.
In 2004, after giving a presentation on the Eurpopean Language Portfolio (ELP) at the TESOL-Spain National Convention, I was invitied to write a series of articles for English Teaching professional (ETp) http://www.etprofessional.com.
The second article on the Eurpoean Laguage Portfolio (ELP) describes how the Dossier is intended to be used. I also refer to my own teaching experiences about 30 years ago, when I was inadvertently using a kind of ELP Dossier with a group of rather educationally jaded secondary school kids.
This last article on the Eurpoean Language Portfolio (ELP) describes how the Passport draws on records and work referenced and stored in the Biography and Dossier. It represents a comprehensive summary of an individual's learning achievement in foreign languages.
"I've studied English for X years but I still can't use it". Sound familiar? It's what you get when you present language as a ladder of grammar rules rather than as communicative potential. If learners want to be able to use English, they need an action-oriented approach to language: developing communicative competences rather than just knowledge of form.
