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The European LanguagePortfolio

Practical (h)ELPSupport for Portfolios

I – Theoretical: The Language Matrix – intrinsic link between CEFR and the ELPII – Practical: Applications for Rollout of ELPs for 15+ and on-going education

Peter BrownChair, EAQUALS

British School TS & EAQUALS Bolzano-Bozen 15 October 2004 2

Matrix of Language in the CEFRLanguage use


Matrix of Language in the CEFRLanguage use

Can-Dosfor various

communicative activities and

situations


Matrix of Language in the CEFRLanguage

competences Language useCan-Dos

for various communicative activities and

situations



competences Language useLinguistic

Socio-linguisticPragmatic

…

Can-Dosfor various


situations



competencesGeneral

competencesLanguage useLinguistic

Socio-linguisticPragmatic

…

Can-Dosfor various


situations



competencesDeclarative

knowledge of world, social and practical

skills, cultural

awareness, attitudes,

motivation ...

General competencesLanguage use

LinguisticSocio-linguistic

Pragmatic…

Can-Dosfor various


situations

8


competencesDeclarative

knowledge of world, social and practical

skills, cultural


motivation ...

General competencesHigh Language use


Pragmatic…

Can-Dosfor various


situations

Low

. Courtesy Dr. Neil Jones

Matrix of Language in the CEFR


Pragmatic…

Can-Dosfor various


situations

Declarative knowledge of world, social and practical

skills, cultural


motivation ...

General competences

Language competencesHigh Language use

LowMore linguistic Less linguistic


Pragmatic…

Can-Dosfor various


situations


skills, cultural


motivation ...

General competences

Language competences

The European Language Portfolio

High Language use



Pragmatic…

Can-Dosfor various


situations


skills, cultural


motivation ...

General competencesLanguage use

Language competences

The European Language Portfolio

High


. Courtesy Dr. John de Jong 12

CommunicativeStrategies

CommunicativeLanguage Competencies

Hierarchy of Scales•To illustrate hierarchical the principle one branch of the hierarchy is worked out in detail to the right

Reception Production

Understanding

Note: this branch of the hierarchy is part of the quantity dimension: how much a language learner can do

a native speakerConversation

InformalDiscussion

FormalDiscussion

Obtaining Goodsand Services

Interviewing &being interviewed

Spoken Written

Interaction Mediation

Overall language ProficiencyGlobal Scale

•And at each further node in the hierarchy the CEF offers descriptive scales.

CommunicativeActivities

•The Global scale is for Overall Language Proficiency.

. Courtesy Prof. G. Schneider 13

The two basic functionsReporting functionFocus on:

Pedagogic functionFocus on:

results / products summative assessmenttransparencycomparability

learning processesformative assessmentlearning incentiveslearning occasions


Self-assessment with grid and checklist

I can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. I can enter unprepared into conversation on topics that are familiar, of personal interest or pertinent to everyday life (e.g. family, hobbies, work, travel and current events).

15

Self-assessmentwith grid and

checklist

I can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. I can enter unprepared into conversation on topics that are familiar, of personal interest or pertinent to everyday life (e.g. family, hobbies, work, travel and current events).


Simple Planning Points

• Get to know the CEF and its scales• Self-assessment – try it out yourself• Discuss in T-T peer groups• Integrating the ELP

– Time– Space– Activities

• Allow the Learners to use their initiative• Protect less proficient students• Assess progress, and results, regularly

Practical (h)ELP

Experiences and activities with the EAQUALS-ALTEEuropean Language

Portfolio


Background and Context

• Age groups involved: 15+ - upper-secondary, university students, young adults and adults

• All learners at A1 and above get their own (free) copy at the start of the course

• From 2000 - 2004, approximately 3000 distributed on- and off-site


2001-2: ELP Piloting

• An essential stage: The ELP was piloted with 80 learners at levels ranging from A2-C2

• Initial staff training andinduction with regular feedback meetings

• Passport LB Intercultural awareness Dossier


2002-3: The first roll-out year

• ELP introduced school-wide at the beginning of the academic year.

• “ELP days” – one each term with activities and worksheets for teachers and learners.

ELP Day 1: Passport and gridELP Day 2: BiographyELP Day 3: Writing skills for Dossier


2003-4: Continuing the ELP cycle

• Following teacher and learner feedback, we decided to use 4-week ELP ‘windows’

• Essential: training workshops with idea-sharing before activities

• Approaching the ELP from a ‘practical’ angle – tying it in with in-class activities in the teaching syllabus


ELP: practical applications

• Raising awareness of individual language competencies and needs: Passport

• Encouraging non-judgemental self-assessment: Language Biography activities

• Adapting and creating activities and worksheets at all levels that clearly ‘fit in’ with can-do statements


Examples of worksheets and activities

English from all over the world

English is a vast language made up of ‘borrowed’ words from many other

languages. ‘Ombudsman’, ‘chocolate’, ‘marzipan’, ‘igloo’ all originate from other languages

Can you think of other examples?

Where do you think the following words might come from?

British School TS & EAQUALS Bari 07-08 October 2004 24

• barbecue• tattoo

zerosagacruise

• shampoo• cravat• penguin• bistro• mosquito

• Native CubanPolynesianArabicIcelandic

• Dutch• Hindi• Croatian• Welsh• Russian• Spanish


Feedback from Piloting

• Experience indicates use of L1 for A1-A2-B1• Encourage target language use from B1.2

onwards• Use it on yourself first• Peer groups (T), Pilot groups (L)• Setting up monitoring & feedback• Weaker students need support• The loop: Passport – Grid – LB – check - LB


Some questions

• Portfolios are expensive – in money and time – is it worthwhile?

• Is self-assessment reliable?• Do learners want continuous self-

assessment and discussion of the learning process?

• Will employers and educational institutions use and recognise it?


Some responses

• Piloting has shown very positive acceptance from learners, especially young learners, who see it as giving prestige and value

• Self-assessment gives very reliable results in comparison with exams etc.

• Employers and universities generally welcome a standardised system of recording language achievement


Conclusions and Recommendations

A clear implementation and roll-out policy is essentialTeachers need training before using the ELP with learnersPiloting is vital

‘Little and often’ gets over the initial barrier of self-assessment: ELP windows Development and sharing of activities based on small sectionsof the ELP seems to be the best approach


Fast Forward Two Years

• Electronic, downloadable versions of the ELP for running on local PCs

• Electronic summary of the Passport forpurposes of CVs

• EUROPASS• Teachers’ Portfolios• From CoE downloadable Can-do’s ...


The databank

[ 309 (Interaction, A2) + ml]

Can ask and answer questions about what they do at work and in free time.

. Courtesy Dr. Brian North 31

Correlation: 0.70

0

10

20

30

40

0 10 20 30 40


Correlation: 0.80

0

10

20

30

40

0 10 20 30 400

10

20

30

40

0 10 20 30 40


Correlation: 0.90

0

10

20

30

40

0 10 20 30 40

M E Raichle M.D. Washington U School of Medicine St. Louis 36

Raichle Neuro imaging

Marcus E. Raichle. M.D. Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

High

Low

Bra

in a

ctiv

ity

SEEING + HEARINGWORDS

Indeed, all areas involved in each of the separate activities are now involved simultaneously.

Above: the result of experiments where people were confronted with simple reading (left picture) or simple listening (right picture) tasks. Amount of activity in different areas of the brain is shown by color shades. High activity is yellow, low activity is blue. Other colors mark a range of intermediate degrees of activity (see legend to the top right).We can clearly see that different language activities are handled in different areas of the human brain.What will happen if we present two tasks simultaneously?


If you’d like to contact us [email protected]

• www.coe.int/portfolio

• www.eaquals.org

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