CercleS and the Common
European Framework
Carol Taylor Torsello
University of Padua, Italy President of CercleS
Editing group:
University of Helsinki Language Centre CEF Committee: Editors: Pirkko Forsman Svensson, Tom Toepfer and Anu Virkkunen-Fullenwider
Assisting editors: Pirkko Alava-Wagner, Ullamaija Fiilin and Leena-Maija Åberg-Reinke
Webmaster: Jukka Rydenfelt
CercleS and the Common
European Framework
Carol Taylor Torsello
University of Padua, Italy President of CercleS
My thanks go to FINELC (Finnish Network of Language Centres) and its President for this invitation to CercleS (European Confederation of Language Centres in Higher Education) for a Seminar on CEF (Com-mon European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment), and to the University of Helsinki, and its Lan-guage Centre, with its Director and all the staff for the work they have done in organizing this second CercleS Seminar in the context of the Bi- and Multilingual Universities Conference.
Seminars are an innovation for CercleS, which, since it was founded in 1991, has held eight international Conferences - Strasbourg 1991, Bordeaux 1992, Hull 1994, Dresden 1996, Bergamo 1998, Antwerp 2000, Paris 2002, Bratislava 2004 - and the ninth one scheduled for Frankfurt (Oder) from September 28 to 30, 2006. This year, we have held two CercleS Seminars, the CercleS ELP (European Language Portfolio) Translation Workshop which took place in Padua, Italy on June 24, and this one, devoted to University applications of CEF. Both of these seminars are concrete examples of the commitment of CercleS to bringing the Common European Framework into university language learning. This commitment has been strong for years, as has been borne witness to not only by the sessions in our confer-ences but also in the ongoing initiatives.
At the Cercles Conference in Antwerp in 2000 three main initiatives were agreed on: 1) a scheme for standardization, certification and accreditation, 2) the CercleS European Language Portfolio, and 3) the creation and development of special interest groups.
1. A scheme for standardization, certification and accreditation.
At the Intergovernmental Symposium in Switzerland in 1991, the elaboration of CEF was promoted with the following motivation (Council of Europe 2001: 5-6):
“It is desirable to develop a Common European Framework of reference for language learning at all levels, in order to:
• promote and facilitate co-operation among educational institu-tions in different countries;
• provide a sound basis for the mutual recognition of language qualifications;
• assist learners, teachers, course designers, examining bodies and educational administrators to situate and co-ordinate their efforts.”
CercleS has not produced a CercleS scheme for standardization, certification and accreditation. Perhaps it is not necessary for it to do so. Papers presented in Bratislava by our Finnish colleagues Tom Toepfer (2004) and Anu Virkkunen-Fullenwider (2004) illustrate how here in Finland CEF itself is the scheme being applied throughout the national system, and being experimented with in order to test specific skills at university level even in LSP (Languages for Specific Pur-poses). In their article on FINELC in CercleS Bulletin 19, Elsinen, Forsman Svensson, and Nikko (2005) point out how the language requirements in Finland in the Decree of 2003 were stated in CEF terms, so obviously CEF has been accepted as the standardization tool in this country. Other papers presented at the Bratislava Confer-ence show how that important independent initiatives for standardiza-tion find it necessary to make explicit the relastandardiza-tionship between the levels they use and those of CEF. See the presentation by Kate Green (2004) on England’s “Languages Ladder”, which she says “roughly lines up with CEF”. See also Angela Asworth’s (2004) paper on the use of TOEFL, IELTS and Cambridge ESOL for placement in international courses in the Netherlands, and the efforts she mentions in defining equivalences. It seems that the NATO STANAG Exams, the object of a paper by our Czech colleague Zdena Rosická (2004), are also being looked at now in terms of equivalence to CEF. What has happened is that certification and accreditation projects that were already underway within CercleS member associations have found in CercleS a rich terrain for development, expansion and confrontation with other initiatives.
In particular, the AKS (Arbeitskreis der Sprachenzentren) UNIcert® system of accreditation can be cited in this connection. This was a very early effort, initiated in 1991 (Hausdorf ,Voss 2000, Voss forth-coming). Also noteworthy is the very ambitious French task-based testing and certification system CLES, with its emphasis on academic discourse, in the development of which RANACLES (Rassemblement National des Centres de Langues de l'Enseignement Supérieur) has played an important role (Nissen, Candas, Freymann, Petermann, Tan 2002). Under the auspices of AICLU (Associazione Italiana Centri Linguistici Universitari), the Italian Certification System CERCLU has been developed by a team led by the directors of 9 university lan-guage centres: Padua, Bergamo, Bologna, Roma 3, Roma IUSM, Siena, Trieste, Verona, Cagliari. The CERLCU tests are carefully tailored to apply the descriptors of CEF for levels B1 and B2 for all skills while catering to the specific needs of university students in Italian universities learning either English or Italian as a foreign lan-guage. CERCLU is a modular test, with one module for each of the four basic skills. Reading, listening and writing are administered online, and reading and listening are automatically corrected. The speaking tests are administered face-to-face, with dual evaluation based on a carefully elaborated table of criteria. The writing tests are also evaluated by two people applying a specific table of criteria. For further information on CERCLU, see Taylor Torsello, Ambroso 2004, Gotti, Taylor Torsello 2005 and the project website: http://www.aiclu.it/ cerlcu/ . There is room for collaboration on CERCLU, as the data bank needs to be enlarged and other languages could be developed. Recognition of this examination by CercleS members is also impor-tant, as more and more students arrive from Italy, either on incoming exchanges or returning after an exchange programme in that country, with a CERCLU certification of B1 or B2 English or Italian.
2. The CercleS European Language Portfolio
In May 2002 the Council of Europe validated the CercleS version of the ELP, issuing it the accreditation number 29.2002. This meant that at the CercleS conference in Paris in September of that year the CercleS ELP could be presented by its drafter, David Little (Little, Simpson 2004), and experimentation could be launched, under the coordination of Mary Ruane (2003a) and with the essential collabora-tion of the (CercleS) Nacollabora-tional Associacollabora-tions, who were responsible for 1) distributing the ELP to their members, 2) making sure that the rules for use set up by the Council of Europe and by CercleS were abided by, 3) collecting information on the Language Centres, teachers and students participating in the experimentation and keeping CercleS informed of the number of users and the people involved, 4) monitor-ing the experimentation process within their association, and 5) where necessary, supplying an adequate translation into the national lan-guage. In the French National Conference in Strasbourg in November 2002, members of RANACLES proposed an experimental protocol for France, giving the ELP experimentation in that country great impetus (Taillefer, 2004). The Cercles ELP was piloted within RANACLES, AULC (Association of University Language Centres), AICLU,
CASALC (Ceská a slovenská asociace ucitelu jazykových center na vysokých školách), and ACLES (La Asociación de Centros de Lenguas en la Enseñanza Superior) (Ruane 2003b).
During the first meeting of the new Executive in Padua in December 2004, it was decided to apply a strategy of facilitation, in the hopes of making it easier for language centres belonging to National Associa-tions which are CercleS members to obtain and experiment with the ELP. The ELP was sent out to all the national presidents, and the process for distribution to their members was made much more direct and simple. It was also decided that steps should be taken to encour-age and facilitate the translation of the ELP into the national lan-guages, including the organization of the Cercles ELP Translation
Workshop in Padua on June 24, 2005. Up to that time there were (besides the original English and French versions) an Italian transla-tion and a Czech and a Slovak translatransla-tion. During the Seminar, CercleS received commitments for translations into German, Dutch and Spanish, to be done within 2006. A protocol was also outlined for translators and procedures were discussed for the distribution and use of the translations along with the original English and French versions.
Discussion also began on the possibility of creating an online version of the CercleS ELP. University language centres using the ELP, in fact, are used to working on line, and the students are increasingly expected to be able to download questionnaires and complete them at the computer, as well as to access and input texts. Two articles in CercleS Bulletin 19 on ELP experimentation report on the use of a platform or computer conferencing software in connection with the paper-version of the ELP. Helen Phillips (2004) of Bristol reports on how the virtual learning environment Blackboard is used to support a portfolio-based unit in Language for Science and Technology. Fiona Dalziel (2004) of Padua reports on how the computer conferencing software FirstClass is used in our university’s experimentation, which now involves about 1000 students for 6 languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian as a foreign language, Dutch and Portuguese), and sees students getting their lower degree in languages after three consecutive years in which Portfolio work is an integral part of their course (Dalziel forthcoming).
Since the Padua experimentation is the one closest to me, I can vouch for the importance it has had as an instrument of change in our university. If I try to analyse the reason for its success, I think it must be in the role played by the project coordinator, Fiona Dalziel, who has helped teachers to gain know-how, enthusiasm and self-confi-dence through seminars, in-class help, on-line tutoring, research guidance, an ELP website on Padua University Language Centre’s
teaching site (http://claweb.cla.unipd.it/home/pel/ ), an ELP confer-ence for teachers and for students in FirstClass, and much more. In the two lower degree courses in languages (Modern Languages and Cultures; Linguistic and Cultural Mediation), students are now gradu-ating after three consecutive years of Portfolio work. It has become clear that portfolio students have different expectations from their university courses. These students become a powerful force pushing for change. In fact, the introduction of the ELP has had important positive effects on the official language syllabus and exams, which have become more CEF oriented.
3. Special interest groups
CercleS incorporates many special interests, but so far, to my knowl-edge, attempts to formalize special interest groups have not been particularly fruitful. What is happening instead is that groups with special interests are using CercleS as an informal networking system, in many cases setting up European projects, in some cases inviting CercleS to participate as a partner in the bid: e.g. Lingu@net Europa Plus (http://www.linguanet-europa.org, Mosig 2004), TNP 3 (http:// web.fu-berlin.de/tnp3/ ), LATE (http://www.rrbv.nl/LATE/Audits/ LanguageAuditing.html, Koster 2004a, 2004b, 2004c), ENLU (www.fu-berlin.de/enlu/), PICTURE (http://www.worldenough.net/ picture/, Koster 2004d, Koster, C., Golubeva, I., Maciejewska, E. forthcoming), and EXPLICS (see paper by Johann Fischer in this Seminar). Another outcome of the networking between those with a special interest is pioneered in this seminar. At Bratislava, there was a great interest in the application of CEF at university level, the specific terrain of languages for special and for academic purposes, and the proposal of this Seminar, to my knowledge, is the fruit of this interest. My wish is that it will be followed by other Seminars offering opportu-nities for discussion and brainstorming on matters of special interest to CercleS members.
I would like to close with some words about the role that CercleS can play in the development of CEF. CEF is an extremely important docu-ment, but it is just a framework of reference (indeed, it is the CEFR), with much need of being applied critically to different educational contexts, and even completed, that is, added to. CercleS is playing a very important role in developing specific university applications of CEF, in planning, teaching, creating materials and courses, testing, etc. This Seminar has offered an opportunity to foreground and syn-thesize some of the work that is being done along these lines. It should mark the beginning of a series of such CercleS opportunities.
At least two important areas still need to be developed within CEF:
• Language mediation (Council of Europe 2001:99)
• Intercultural competence (Council of Europe 2001:104-5) CercleS could play an important role in these areas. Within its mem-bers there are institutions where translation and interpretation are the object of quality research and teaching, so the expertise is there to be tapped. Our trans-European Confederation of Language Centres in Higher Education is also a body which is highly qualified to contribute to the description of intercultural competence, to the elaboration of teaching methods and the materials to help develop these areas (see the PICTURE project), and of assessment tools for evaluating them. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages has been extremely important for CercleS, giving it a very valuable tool to use toward accomplishing its aims. CerleS can also prove extremely valuable to CEF, toward its full, proper application in European univer-sities, and toward its perfection and completion. This relationship of reciprocity is a valuable, enriching challenge for CercleS.
References
Ashworth, A. ( 2004) What international English language test scores really tell us about our prospective students: entry requirements for international undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the Nether-lands. Paper presented at the 8th CercleS International Conference, University Language Centres: Broadening Horizons, Expanding Net-works, 9-11 September 2004, Comenius University in Bratislava.
Council of Europe (2001) Common European Framework of Refer-ence for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dalziel, F. (2004) The ELP pilot project at the University of Padua, CercleS Bulletin 19: 4-5.
Dalziel, F. (forthcoming) The CercleS ELP: reflections on an Italian pilot project. In Marovcikova, A., Taylor Torsello, C., Vogel, T. (eds.) University Language Centres: Broadening Horizons, Expanding Net-works, Bratislava, CercleS.
Elsinen, R., Forsman Svensson, P., Nikko, T. (2005) FINELC: Our past is our prologue, CercleS Bulletin 19: 10-11.
Gotti, M., Taylor Torsello, C. (2005) Case study: The CERCLU project: Certification of language competence in Italian university language centres. In Bickerton, D., Brown, K., Clark, B., Flood, C. (eds.), The Good Practice Guide, Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, UK, 2005, available at: http://www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk/ resources/goodpractice.aspx?resourceid=2306.
Green, K. (2004) The Languages Ladder – Steps to Success. The National Recognition Scheme for Languages. Paper presented at the 8th CercleS International Conference, University Language Centres: Broadening Horizons, Expanding Networks, 9-11 September 2004, Comenius University in Bratislava.
Hausdorf , S., Voss, B. (2000) The University Modern Languages Certificate UNIcert®, CercleS Bulletin 12:1-2.
Koster, C. (2004a) CercleS as partner in Leonardo project, CercleS Bulletin 17: 11.
Koster, C. (2004b) LATE Project leads to two new publications, CercleS Bulletin 18: 8-9.
Koster, C. (2004c) A Handbook on Language Auditing. Amsterdam: Editions De Werelt.
Koster, C. (2004d) PICTURE Project, CercleS Bulletin 18: 13.
Koster, C., Golubeva, I., Maciejewska, E. (forthcoming) Painting a PICTURE: towards a language teaching module on intercultural com-munication. In Marovcikova, A., Taylor Torsello, C., Vogel, T. (eds.) University Language Centres: Broadening Horizons, Expanding Net-works, Bratislava, CercleS.
Little, D., Simpson, B.L. (2004) The European Language Portfolio: background, a case study, and an introduction to the Cercles version. In Satchell, R., Chenik, N. (eds.) University Language Centres: Forg-ing the LearnForg-ing Environments of the Future. Paris: CercleS, 2004, 25-39.
Mosig, U. (2004) Zur Weiterfuhrung eines internationalen
Sprachresourcen-Portals: Lingu@net Europa PLUS, in CercleS Bulle-tin 18, 2-3
Nissen, E., Candas, P., Freymann, C., Petermann, A., Tan, A. M. (2002) CLES – experimenting a task-based language certification. Paper presented at the 7th CercleS International Conference, Univer-sity Language Centres: Forging the Learning Environments of the Future, Paris, September 19-21, 2002.
Phillips, H. (2005) Using Blackboard to support a Portfolio-based unit. CercleS Bulletin 19: 2-3.
Rosická, Z. (2004) BILC (Bureau for International Language Co-ordination), standardization, testing and STANAG 6001 certificates. Paper presented at the 8th CercleS International Conference, Univer-sity Language Centres: Broadening Horizons, Expanding Networks, 9-11 September 2004, Comenius University in Bratislava.
Ruane, M. (2003a) Dissemination of the CercleS ELP, in CercleS Bulletin 16: 2-3.
Ruane, M. (2003b) List of ELP committees and participating centres, in CercleS Bulletin 16: 4.
Taillefer, G. (2004) CercleS ELP: Experimentation in French Higher Education, CercleS Bulletin 17:4.
Toepfer, Tom (2004) Applications of CEF at university level: FL oral skills. Paper presented at the 8th CercleS International Conference, University Language Centres: Broadening Horizons, Expanding Net-works, 9-11 September 2004, Comenius University in Bratislava.
Taylor Torsello, C., Ambroso, S. (2004). The CERCLU Project for certifying language competence in Italian university language centres, in Satchell, R., Chenik, N. (eds.) University Language Centres: Forg-ing the LearnForg-ing Environments of the Future. Paris: CercleS, 2004, 120-133.
Virkkunen-Fullenwider, Anu (2004) Applications of CEF at university level: FL reading skills. Paper presented at the 8th CercleS Interna-tional Conference, University Language Centres: Broadening Hori-zons, Expanding Networks, 9-11 September 2004, Comenius Univer-sity in Bratislava.
Voss, B. (forthcoming) Networking for languages in higher education. In Marovcikova, A., Taylor Torsello, C., Vogel, T. (eds) University Lan-guage Centres: Broadening Horizons, Expanding Networks,
Websites:
CercleS: http://www.cercles.org
CERCLU: http:www.aiclu.it/cerclu/
ELP site on CLAWEB, the teaching web site of the Language Centre of the University of Padua : http://claweb.cla.unipd.it/home/pel/
ENLU Project: www.fu-berlin.de/enlu/
LATE Poject: http://www.rrbv.nl/LATE/Audits/LanguageAuditing.html Lingu@net Europa PLUS Project: http://www.linguanet-europa.org
PICTURE Project: http://www.worldenough.net/picture/
