Introduction / introduction

Since its publication in 2001 the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR; Council of Europe, 2001) has established itself as a key reference in international discussion of proficiency in second and foreign languages. The CEFR represents the culmination of three decades of collaborative research, and it unites two apparently opposed tendencies in the Council of Europe’s work on language teaching and learning. On the one hand, its definition of proficiency in terms of the individual user-learner’s capacity for communicative task performance goes back to its roots in the adult education projects of the 1970s. The Council’s first work in modern languages was carried out under the auspices of the Committee for Out-of-School Education, which was strongly in favour of learner autonomy and self-assessment and strongly opposed to formal exams; from the beginning, great emphasis was laid on language learning appropriate to the individual user-learner’s communicative purposes. On the other hand, the CEFR responds to the need, felt with increasing urgency since the 1980s, for some kind of metric against which to compare language qualifications both across languages and from country to country. For the most part, the CEFR itself succeeds in holding these two tendencies in fruitful tension.

Canada’s observer status at the Council of Europe ensures that it is well informed about the organization’s projects, and Canadian language educators have shown a keen interest in the CEFR since its publication. In Europe the CEFR’s proficiency levels and scales have had a major impact on the work of the international testing agencies. In language classrooms the influence of its action-oriented (“can do”) approach to the definition of proficiency, which reaffirms the Council of Europe’s commitment to communicative and learner-centred approaches to language teaching, has sometimes been direct. But more often it has been felt indirectly, via the European Language Portfolio (ELP; Council of Europe, 2011), which was conceived as a means of mediating the CEFR’s ethos to language learners. In Canada the CEFR seems to have had relatively little impact on language testing, whereas its “can do” approach has been warmly welcomed in some quarters as a means of giving fresh impetus to communicative language teaching in schools. Its influence is apparent, for example, in the Ministry of Education of Ontario’s (2013) K–12 framework for French as a second language (FSL), entitled “A Framework for French as a Second Language in Ontario Schools Kindergarten to Grade 12: Core French, Extended French, French Immersion,” which describes the CEFR as a “reference tool” that is “a valuable asset for informing instruction and assessment practices” (p. 4) and features its action-oriented approach in the section on the evolution of FSL pedagogy, describing it as today’s most pertinent approach to FSL teaching (p. 32; see also Faez et al., 2011). In some cases teachers have encouraged their students to use checklists of “I can” descriptors to identify learning targets, monitor progress, and evaluate outcomes. Such checklists are a core component of the ELP, and this has sometimes caused the ELP to be elided with the CEFR and vice versa. As these differences between Canada and Europe suggest, reception of the CEFR and the ELP varies from context to context, depending on the needs and priorities that are in sharpest focus.

To date most of the published research on the CEFR and ELP has focused on the European context where theoretical work, case studies, and anecdotal reports have suggested that the CEFR is a useful descriptive scheme for analyzing second language (L2) learner needs, goals, materials, and outcomes and for orienting L2 assessment. For this special issue we specifically sought a broad range of empirical findings from researchers reporting on studies of the CEFR and ELP in relation to issues such as proficiency testing, language policy, L2 teacher education, and development of teaching/learning resources and curriculum design, implementation, and assessment. We also sought research reports documenting and evaluating pedagogical innovations based on the CEFR and/or the ELP for the Focus on the Classroom section...