Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: learning, teaching, assessment

6.2.2.2Others believe that in addition to exposure to comprehensible input, active participation in communicative interaction is a necessary and sufficient condition for language development. They, too, consider that explicit teaching or study of the language is irrelevant. At the other extreme, some believe that students who have learnt the necessary rules of grammar and learnt a vocabulary will be able to understand and use the language in the light of their previous experience and common sense without any need to rehearse. Between these polar extremes, most ‘mainstream’ learners, teachers and their support services will follow more eclectic practices, recognising that learners do not necessarily learn what teachers teach and that they require substantial contextualised and intelligible language input as well as opportunities to use the language interactively, but that learning is facilitated, especially under artificial classroom conditions, by a combination of conscious learning and sufficient practice to reduce or eliminate the conscious attention paid to low-level physical skills of speaking and writing as well as to morphological and syntactic accuracy, thus freeing the mind for higher-level strategies of communication. Some (many fewer than previously) believe that this aim may be achieved by drilling to the point of over learning.

6.2.2.3There is of course considerable variation among learners of different ages, types and backgrounds as to which of these elements they respond to most fruitfully, and among teachers, course-writers, etc. as to the balance of elements provided in courses according to the importance they attach to production vs. reception, accuracy vs. fluency, etc.

Users of the Framework may wish to consider and where appropriate state the assumptions concerning language learning on which their work is based and their methodological consequences.

6.3What can each kind of Framework user do to facilitate language learning?

The language teaching profession forms a ‘partnership for learning’ made up of many specialists in addition to the teachers and learners most immediately concerned at the point of learning. This section considers the respective roles of each of the parties.

6.3.1 Those concerned with examinations and qualifications will have to consider which learning parameters are relevant to the qualifications concerned, and the level required. They will have to make concrete decisions on which particular tasks and activities to include, which themes to handle, which formulae, idioms and lexical items to require candidates to recognise or recall, what sociocultural knowledge and skills to test, etc. They may not need to be concerned with the processes by which the language proficiency tested has been learnt or acquired, except in so far as their own testing procedures may have a positive or negative ‘wash back’ effect on language learning.

140

Language learning and teaching

6.3.2Authorities, when drawing up curricular guidelines or formulating syllabuses, may concentrate on the specification of learning objectives. In doing so, they may specify only higher-level objectives in terms of tasks, themes, competence, etc. They are not obliged, though they may wish to do so, to specify in detail the vocabulary, grammar and functional/notional repertoires which will enable learners to perform the tasks and treat the themes. They are not obliged, but may wish, to lay down guidelines or make suggestions as to the classroom methods to be employed and the stages through which learners are expected to progress.

6.3.3Textbook writers and course designers are not obliged, though they may well wish to do so, to formulate their objectives in terms of the tasks they wish to equip learners to perform or the competence and strategies they are to develop. They are obliged to make concrete, detailed decisions on the selection and ordering of texts, activities, vocabulary and grammar to be presented to the learner. They are expected to provide detailed instructions for the classroom and/or individual tasks and activities to be undertaken by learners in response to the material presented. Their products greatly influence the learning/teaching process and must inevitably be based on strong assumptions (rarely stated and often unexamined, even unconscious) as to the nature of the learning process.

6.3.4Teachers are generally called upon to respect any official guidelines, use textbooks and course materials (which they may or may not be in a position to analyse, evaluate, select and supplement), devise and administer tests and prepare pupils and students for qualifying examinations. They have to make minute-to-minute decisions about classroom activities, which they can prepare in outline beforehand, but must adjust flexibly in the light of pupil/student responses. They are expected to monitor the progress of pupils/students and find ways of recognising, analysing and overcoming their learning problems, as well as developing their individual learning abilities. It is necessary for them to understand learning processes in their great variety, though this understanding may well be an unconscious product of experience rather than a clearly formulated product of theoretical reflection, which is the proper contribution to the partnership for learning to be made by educational researchers and teacher trainers.

6.3.5Learners are, of course, the persons ultimately concerned with language acquisition and learning processes. It is they who have to develop the competences and strategies (in so far as they have not already done so) and carry out the tasks, activities and processes needed to participate effectively in communicative events. However, relatively few learn proactively, taking initiatives to plan, structure and execute their own learning processes. Most learn reactively, following the instructions and carrying out the activities prescribed for them by teachers and by textbooks. However, once teaching stops, further learning has to be autonomous. Autonomous learning can be promoted if ‘learning to learn’ is regarded as an integral part of language learning, so that learners become increasingly aware of the way they learn, the options open to them and the options that best suit them. Even within the given institutional system they can then be

141