The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Insights for language testing

Abstract

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (Council of Europe, 2001) which aims to bring about harmonisation and transparency within Europe and promote the idea of European citizenship is a project that provides the stakeholders with a reference document that could be utilised not only for developing language curriculum and syllabus, preparing course books but also for evaluating the learning outcomes. In terms of language testing, the major claim of the CEFR is its potential to be used as a reference point to design of new language tests and make a comparison among the existing language tests by setting standards. Council of Europe (2001) also makes clear that the CEFR could be used for the specification of the content of the test and exams, setting the criteria of assessment and describing the levels of proficiency in tests. Though the CEFR has a great potential for playing a crucial role in language testing, the issues of developing and aligning tests to the CEFR need to be considered with a critical eye. Hence, the present study is an attempt to examine the practical considerations and potential problems related to the CEFR in terms of language testing and to discuss some practical implications for language testers and language teachers in terms of test generation and alignment.