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CEFRL: THIS WAY OUT!
CECRL : PAR ICI LA SORTIE !
Bruno MAURER, Ordinary Professor of the University of Lausanne, EA739 Dipralang,
University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 (France), Christian PUREN, Professor Emeritus of the
University of Saint-Étienne (France), CEFRLL: This way out! Paris: Éditions des Archives
Contemporaines, 2019, 6+314 p. ISBN: 9782813003522. French original available for
free, published in parts, or in whole: https://doi.org/10.17184/eac.9782813003522.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE FOLLOWING PARTS:
Back cover ............................................................................................................ 1
General introduction .............................................................................................. 2
Chapter 1.3.4.7. A deception and a stratagem .......................................................... 7
Chapter 3.6.2 Communicative approach and Action-Oriented Approach e in the CEFRL
and CV proficiency grids (extract) ...........................................................................11
Conclusion of the first part (extract) .......................................................................17
General conclusion................................................................................................18
Bibliography.........................................................................................................21
Acronyms
CEFRL: Council of Europe, Common European Framework of Reference for Languages:
learning, teaching, assessment, Strasbourg, Language Policy Unit, 260 p.,
https://rm.coe.int/1680459f97 (COE 2001).
CoE’s-LPU: Language Policies Unit of the Council of Europe
CV: Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: learning, teaching,
assessment. Companion volume with new descriptors, Februry 2018,
https://rm.coe.int/cefr-companion-volume-with-new-descriptors-2018/1680787989 (COE
2018)
Back cover
In February 2018, the Council of Europe published, more than 15 years after the Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages (henceforth “CEFRL”), a Companion
Page 2 of 23
volume supposed to complete the 2001 document, with new scales of descriptors,
especially for mediation. This late addition ignores all the criticisms of the CEFRL formulated
in the meantime, as if this document were the definitive and unsurpassable reference in
language-culture didactics. The first three parts of this book, CEFRL: This Way Out!,
provide a close critique of these two publications, at the end of which it appears that the
project of the CEFRL and its Companion Volume can be summarized in a few words:
pretending to deal with teaching-learning-assessment, but in reality, working only to
promote a limited and commercial form of assessment, namely certification. In the first
two parts, the stranglehold of private interests on the European project of school language
teaching is established, with supporting evidence, while the third part highlights the many
theoretical and practical dead ends and inadequacies of the CEFRL, in particular its
dependence on a single methodology, the communicative approach.
The last two parts outline two parallel ways out of the CEFRL, both from a resolutely
plurimethodological perspective: an "integrated assessment" that takes into account all
the issues at stake in the language teaching-learning process; and an "integrated
plurilingual methodology" that draws on the already existing in terms of learners' language
repertoires and on the already constructed in terms of knowledge about languages and
language-learning competencies.
The "exit" of the CEFRL is now open, free and wide: the authors' wish is that researchers,
trainers, publishers and teachers borrow it in great numbers, and develop it!
General introduction
The idea of this four-handed work came to us spontaneously after we had each read the
February 2018 CEFRL Companion Volume (henceforth "CV"): we were surprised to find
that it repeated all the guidelines of the 2001 CEFRL:
- It does not take into account the numerous and diverse criticisms addressed to the
CEFRL: Berchoud, 2017; Comerford, 2010; Friederike Delouis, 2008; Lefranc, 2009c;
Maurer, 2011; Migeot, 2017; Prieur, 2017; Puren, 2006d, 2007b, 2012b, 2015f; Simons,
2011; to limit ourselves to only the texts cited in the present work.
–It does not take into consideration the evolutions that have taken place in the meantime
in language didactics, such as the theoretical and practical developments of an actional
perspective combined with the communicative approach but clearly distinct, the
elaboration of a complex model of cultural competence, or the awareness of the need to
build both a plurilingual and plurimethodological approach to language-culture learning-
teaching-evaluation.
–It does not take into account the design of the new international standardized
assessments such as PIRLS and PISA, whose competence descriptors, because they are
centered on the processes and not on the products, allow for an effective linkage of
assessment with teaching-learning.
Page 3 of 23
–As a result, it reproduces in the new assessment tools it proposes, in particular for literary
reading, plurilingual competence and mediation, the same shortcomings and defects as the
CEFRL.
All these criticisms are grouped together in the third part of our book. We have preceded
them with two parts that we felt were essential.
–The first part deals with "the Companion volume project". It highlights the only real
objective of the private organizations that have taken de facto control of the orientations
of the Language Policies Unit of the Council of Europe (henceforth CoE’s-LPU): for them,
with the aim of commercializing the certifications they deliver, it is a question of
maintaining at all costs, to the point of incoherence and denial, an image of excellence
both of the CEFRL evaluation system they claim and of the relationship between this
evaluation system and teaching-learning.
–The second part studies the mode of production and the mode of writing of the CV, for
a result whose quality is very far from the current academic standards.
–The third part brings together our criticisms of the contents of the CV, which are
developed and argued, particularly with regard to evaluation: they mainly concern the CV,
but are equally valid for the CEFRL. It is these criticisms that justify the title of our book,
namely that it is urgent to "get out of the Framework", that is to say, to break away from
the logic that it imposes, which is to construct curricula and programs, to evaluate the
progress of students and to pilot their learning on the basis of an individual certification
evaluation system, which is moreover monolingual and "mono-methodological", in this
case elaborated with reference to the communicative approach alone.
We believe that the three parts of this critical set can provide teachers and trainers, who
may find it difficult to resist the "CEFRL injunction", with the weapons of an indispensable
resistance.
–In the fourth and fifth parts, we develop for them the idea suggested by the title of
our book, namely that there are ways out of the CEFRL: the two alternative proposals
presented, developed and exemplified, have in common that they refocus didactic
reflection and intervention on methodology, i.e. on the ways in which the processes of
teaching, learning and evaluation are related. We had already traced this path, in the wake
of a critical analysis of the CEFRL, in a 2006 article entitled "The Common European
Framework of Reference and the methodological reflection in language and culture
teaching: a project to be resumed" (Puren, 2006b). We were simply taking up an old
proposal by René Richterich, in his 1985 work, which is still relevant today: contrary to
what its title –Besoins langagiers et objectifs d’apprentissage (Language Needs and
Learning Objectives)– suggests, and to the use that is most often made of it, he clearly
distanced himself from a conception of teaching-learning based on a prior definition of
teaching content –the same one that is found in the CEFRL, whose evaluation system
claims to provide the basis for establishing school programs at the expense of an approach
by methodology. For R. Richterich, this approach seemed logically implied in the
implementation of a true learner-centeredness:
Learning to learn a foreign language, making the learner discover his own learning
strategies, making him capable of developing and exploiting them, teaching him to
Page 4 of 23
become autonomous, these are some of the salient features of current pedagogy
and didactics. It is interesting to note that the methodological weight is twofold: on
the one hand it concerns the teacher who must find the practical means to carry
out the above tasks, on the other hand it concerns the learner who must acquire a
method to learn. Methodology therefore applies to both teaching and learning.
(1985: 13)
As early as 1979, several years earlier, R. Richterich had published an article in a well-
known and widely read journal of French as a foreign language, Le Français dans le monde,
entitled, in a manner that could not be less ambiguous, "L'antidéfinition des besoins
langagiers comme pratique pédagogique" (“The anti-definition of language needs as a
pedagogical practice”, available online). This text was also, in application of the same logic
of a real focus on the learner, a plea for a prior anti-definition of methodology, i.e. involving
what we call here a "plurimethodological approach", to be taken into account not only in
teaching-learning, but also in evaluation:
From different types of objectives, discover, propose, choose possible actions: for
lexicon, for example, learn words by heart with their translation, look up definitions
in a bilingual dictionary, establish tables of semantic fields, guess the meaning from
the context, etc.; for syntax, learn rules by heart, repeat, conjugate, observe and
compare to deduce general rules [...]. (1979: 58)
The two proposals we make in our fourth and fifth parts have in common, among other
things, the implementation of such a plurimethodological approach.
The fourth part sets out and illustrates the concept of "integrated evaluation": this is an
evaluation that is not thought of as having to model the teaching-learning process, as is
the case in the CEFRL, but rather as an integral part of this process. This implies considering
it in all the complexity of its multiple functions and in relation to the different learning
methodologies available, i.e. within the framework of a plurimethodological approach.
We present several examples. The first is that of the "standard practice procedure" in which
each of the activities, which correspond to progressive levels of mastery of language forms,
has been evaluated separately since the direct methodology of the 1900s. The second
example is made up of proposals for training exercises and evaluation of the different
cognitive activities of the (also historical) model of the "explanation of texts", a reference
school action of the direct and active methodologies of the 1900s-1960s, but which retains
all its relevance, as can be seen by comparing them to the activities taken into account in
the current international assessments PIRLS and PISA. The third example is that of the
"General referentials of learning and evaluation of reading comprehension competence"
which we (Puren) have recently participated in the elaboration of in Algeria in the
framework of a project for the improvement of the teaching-learning of national and foreign
languages. Finally, we present a particular case of integrated assessment, that of PISA,
whose results –the assessment of reading comprehension in the mother tongue or
reference language (henceforth "L1")– are correlated with surveys of the various
educational actors, in order to draw from them ideas for improvement not only of the
teaching-learning process, but of the overall management of the educational system.
We have just referred to the international standardized assessments PIRLS and PISA, both
of which focus on the evaluation of competences. This gives us the opportunity to make a
Page 5 of 23
few immediate clarifications, which we feel are essential in order to clarify our positions on
questions that could give rise to suspicions, accusations or even accusations of intent on
the part of some of our readers, which could influence their reading of our work.
1) The concept of "competence" as it has spread over the last three decades in all areas of
evaluation and training certainly comes from the business world, but this does not
invalidate it ipso facto. The fact that this concept is often used in companies to exploit
employees does not allow us to discredit the thoughts and proposals of management
specialists who develop it, any more than the massively unequal and selective functioning
of the French education system allows us to discredit the thoughts and proposals of
pedagogues who want to put differentiated teaching at the service of success for all.
Concepts, as we know, can, like all intellectual tools, be used in the service of opposing
values: thus "professional competencies" to justify specialized training limited to the future
job; "transversal competencies", on the contrary, to justify general training opening up to
broad employment possibilities.
On the other hand, precisely in language didactics, the concept of competence has been
integrated since the beginning of the 20th century, under the names of "reuse",
"assimilation" or even "appropriation", as the final objective of the standard school
procedure of exercising (cf. Puren, 2016c), which consists in giving learners the ability to
reuse language forms for their personal expression, i.e., in situations other than those in
which they have been taught. And the notion of "communicative competence", with its
different components, has been imposed since the 1970s in this discipline as well as in
business management, without any of its specialists, to our knowledge, having denounced
any ideological flaw in it. To limit oneself to discrediting a concept globally on the sole
pretext of its origin and/or a given use in a given field is akin to single-mindedness, or
cognitive hemiplegia, and betrays in these detractors an ideological approach that is as
intellectually reductive as the one they denounce in their opponents.
2) For the last three decades, all large companies have adopted the "project approach",
and some sociologists have rightly pointed out that it has enabled them to move from
hierarchical control, which is less and less supported by the employees, to control by the
employees themselves, as the project leads them to mobilize, to invest themselves, and
thus to take personal responsibility. The same criticism can be levelled at the project mode
in training and education, not to mention the long-documented abuses to which it can give
rise in these two fields.
But the first promoters of the project, well before the specialists in company management,
were, for example, Dewey, in the USA, or Piaget, in France, pedagogues who can hardly
be suspected of the slightest sympathy towards capitalist ideology. So that to discredit on
principle in language-culture didactics the actional perspective, whose project is naturally
the social action of reference, without considering that it can be the occasion to integrate
into language didactics Dewey's Learning by doing and Piaget's "social pedagogy", is to
commit a great injustice with regard to their ideas and to those who still claim them today;
and it is also to foolishly deprive oneself of a concept rich in great pedagogical and didactic
potentialities, useful, precisely, to counterbalance the limits and drifts of the paradigm of
the inter-individual communication that has dominated during the three decades of the
exclusivist communicative approach. Limiting oneself to denouncing the supposed
managerial origins of the action-oriented perspective, or even accusing its promoters of
being neoliberal supporters, allows some people to adopt the nice postures of progressive
Page 6 of 23
intellectuals, but does a disservice to the learners, to the teachers, to the discipline... and
finally to the very image of these accusers.
3) International standardized assessments such as the PIRLS and PISA surveys (see final
bibliography) are not free of criticism as regards their scientific conception, and even more
so as regards the purely managerial logics that they can contribute to importing or
reinforcing in school education. Nevertheless, as we will show in our book, they show that
it is possible to design assessment systems that are as "scientific" - in the sense, here, of
being statistically equipped - as those of international certifications based on the scales
and descriptors of the CEFRL, but which are oriented towards the learning process and not
towards the product of use. Therefore, the former are likely not to reduce teaching and
learning practices - as the latter do under the effect of the famous teaching/learning to the
test -, but on the contrary to enrich these practices and to provide teachers and learners
with information that both will consider reliable, and that can serve as a basis for joint
reflections, negotiations and decisions in the service of the improvement of the joint
teaching-learning process.
“Dangers are also opportunities”: it is not because this idea is frequently found in the
writings of specialists in business management, that it does not have all its relevance in
didactics of language-cultures as elsewhere: a rational strategy with regard to worrying
changes which seem to have to be imposed in the teaching of languages is not to refuse
them in principle and in block, but to accompany them in order to arrange them, to reorient
them, or even if necessary to subvert them, by putting their dynamics and the means they
mobilize at the service of one's own values. We admit that this strategy is debatable, and
it will undoubtedly be immediately rejected without debate by those who do not conceive
that others can defend the same values as they do while promoting strategies other than
their own. The devil, they say, is in the details; he can just as easily hide in big ideas that
are as generous as they are exclusivist, as we have shown elsewhere in connection with
the ideological version of plurilingualism that has been the CoE’s-LPU since the early 2000s
(Maurer, 2011). We will see that the CEFRL and its Complementary Volume are another
good examples of what ultimately functions as a kind of intellectual terrorism.
The fifth part presents the main lines, along with several concrete examples of
implementation, of an "integrated plurilingual methodology" (henceforth "IPM"), known
until now in language-culture didactics as "integrated didactics". It also implements a
plurimethodological approach: the teaching methodologies of the different languages
learned –including that of the L1– are integrated in the sense that they are put together in
coherence and synergy in the service of the learning process. Mediation, of which the
authors of the CV present the evaluation grids as a great novelty, finds here a completely
different use, oriented towards the teaching-learning process, than that of communication:
in the IPM, in fact, the languages already known by the students ensure a mediation
function between them and the new language.
Seven years after the questioning of plurilingualism as a new dominant ideology (Maurer,
2011), which led one of our opponents to classify us among the champions of "the
necessary separation and impermeability of languages" (Forlot, 2012: 113), and to advise
not to put "[this] book in the hands of all language teachers" (ibid.: 112). This is a
misunderstanding, to say the least, and we hope that our proposal of IPM will convince
readers, including defenders and illustrators of other plurilingual approaches, who are well
Page 7 of 23
situated with different options on this same side because they refuse to abandon language
teaching-learning for a nebulous "language education".
The reader in a hurry –or simply already convinced of the uselessness or even the
harmfulness of the CEFRL– can go directly to the 4th and 5th parts, even if the reading of
the first three will allow him/her to better understand how the last two respond to the
CEFRL by formulating real counter-proposals. We hope that these will be convincing enough
to rally other didacticians, who will be able to develop them individually, collectively and
why not with us, starting from their own didactic environments.
The way out is clear.
Chapter 1.3.4.7. A deception and a stratagem
The authors of the CEFR had taken particular care to convince readers of the rigour of their
approach to the development of descriptor scales, and the first appendix is entirely devoted
to this (Appendix A "Development of Competence Descriptors", pp. 150-152). After
successively presenting no less than 12 development methods (the first of which, the
simplest, already calls upon the services of an evaluation "expert"), they indicate the
methods they used to construct their validation procedure, which begins with a very
technical method that calls upon a statistical analysis model (that of George Rasch's item
response
1
, which they then present on page 152):
Method 12 (the last one) is in fact the only one that calibrates the descriptors in a
mathematical sense. It is the one used in the development of the Common Core
State Standards, after Method 2 (intuitive) and Methods 8 and 6 (qualitative).
(p. 150)
The authors of the VC present this procedure at length in Appendix 5, "Development and
validation of the new descriptors" (p. 183-192) with a full-page diagram already
reproduced earlier (p. 50), and emphasizing, even more than the authors of the CEFR, the
importance of the material and human resources mobilized:
Qualitative validation
137 institutions participated in the validation. 990 people participated in face-to-
face workshops at these institutions in February-March 2015. (p. 185)
Quantitative validation
189 institutions took part in the next stage, bringing together 1294 participants
from 45 countries.
The Rasch model is presented again, this time in a box on page 187 of Appendix A :
The Rasch model, named after the Danish mathematician George Rasch, is the most widely
used of the probability models that operationalize latent trait theory (also called item
response theory: IRT). The model analyzes the degree of correspondence of an item to the
underlying construct (= latent trait) that is measured. It also estimates, on a mathematical
scale, the difficulty values (= the difficulty of the item) and then the ability values (e.g.
1
To appreciate the technicality of this, one can consult (and why not take...) the distance learning
course by Roulin, (Université Savoie Mont-Blanc), "Leçons de psychométrie",
www.psychometrie.jlroulin.fr/. To appreciate the central place currently occupied by the item
response model in the development of standardized assessments, see Rocher 2015.
Page 8 of 23
the degree of competence of an individual with respect to the trait in question). This model
is used for two main purposes, among others:
–developing item banks for tests;
–analysis questionnaires.
[...]
The advantage of the Rasch model is that, unlike classical test theory, the values
obtained are generalizable to other groups within the same statistical population
(who share sufficiently the same characteristics).
The objective calibration and potential generalization of the values obtained make
this model particularly suitable for determining at which level to place the "I can"
descriptors on a common scale of the CEFR type.
Everything is done in this way in the CEFR, and even more so in the VC, to impress the
reader: what language teacher, alone and even with a few colleagues, without any
statistical competence or experience in the elaboration and validation of standardized
evaluation items, can feel able to contest the rigor displayed by such a procedure
guaranteeing the excellence of the descriptors?
Two disturbing contradictions, however, draw attention:
1) While the authors of the CEFR and the VC emphasize the importance of the material,
technical and human resources that were necessary for the rigorous development of their
descriptors, they invite teachers to develop their own:
Users of the CEFR are encouraged to select the CEFR levels and descriptors that
they believe meet the needs of their learners, to adapt the way they are formulated
to fit the particular context, and to add their own descriptors when they deem it
necessary. (VC: 43)
Confusing passages such as the two below, which are supposed to specify the terms and
conditions for using the descriptor scales, can only add to the perplexity of teachers:
However, it is not usually recommended that communicative activity descriptors be
included in the criteria given to an examiner to score a performance on a written or
oral test if the results are to appear in terms of proficiency level. Indeed, in order
to account for competence, the assessment should not focus on a particular
performance but rather tend to judge the generalizable skills evidenced by that
performance. Of course, there may be excellent educational reasons for focusing
on the success of a particular activity, but the generalization of results is not
normally the focus of attention in early language learning (CEFR, p. 137).
The descriptor scales are therefore reference tools. They are not intended to be used as
assessment tools, although they can be a resource for developing such tools, such as
checklists for one level or a grid for several categories at different levels (VC, p. 42).
2) As language specialists and not entirely ignorant of the rules of natural logic, teachers
can easily see in the descriptor statements, as we did ourselves above, many gaps and
problems that prevent them from designing their own evaluations in a rigorous manner:
approximation in the use of certain concepts, vagueness of certain descriptors, inadequacy
of the criteria used, lack of follow-up and inconsistencies in their distribution among the
different levels.
The explanation for these two contradictions is the implementation of what must be called
a real deception on the part of the organizations in charge of the CEFR and the VC
2
. The
statements of the descriptors can remain imprecise for certification professionals because
their precision is in fact given by the first items attached to them at the end of the long
2
On the subject of this paragraph, see also infra sub-chapter 4.1.3.2.
Page 9 of 23
and very technical initial calibration procedure. The reader cannot "understand" the
descriptors once they have been elaborated - in the sense that he/she cannot concretely
grasp the level of competence to which each of them corresponds - if he/she does not have
these items. As noted above (subchapter 1.2.1), "the mere fact that teachers then use the
descriptors of these level scales themselves to create their own items and 'correct' them
does not mean that their assessments ... are standardised, and it does not in itself
guarantee the validity or reliability of their extrapolations.
The creation of new items - necessary for renewing the tests - is not done by the
certification bodies on the basis of descriptors, which are far too imprecise for that, but on
the basis of already calibrated items: the new items are, for example, mixed with the old
ones in the validation tests, so as to eliminate from among the new items those for which
the students obtain a score that is too far removed - plus or minus - from the scores they
obtain on the old, already calibrated items. This is why the banks of validated items are
protected by the certification bodies as carefully as the manufacturing secrets of an
industrial company: we invite our readers, in order to see for themselves, to compile, as
we had to do (Puren) for an expertise work with the Algerian MEN, the so-called "liberated"
items
3
of the PISA reading comprehension tests from the set of French documents
published by the OECD
4
. It will be seen that nothing is done to facilitate this work: random
dispersion of item reproductions between the different documents, no complete set of
items proposed for any test, even greater limitation of examples of item correction guides.
One wonders, then, why the authors of the CEFR and the VC are inviting teachers to do a
job that they know they have neither the training nor the means to do
5
. The only possible
answer is the following, and we have already given it in sub-chapter 1.1.1: it is the
certification bodies that are effectively "in charge", and they are implementing a clever
stratagem. The aim is to promote their own qualifications to these teachers, and to the
managers and decision-makers of the school systems, while ensuring that they are unable
to compete with them. This inability can only convince education officials, policy makers in
their countries, and ultimately the teachers themselves, that the only reasonable decision
is to entrust these organizations with the certification of their students in parallel with the
national examinations, and probably then in replacement of these examinations, since
these certifications are the only ones that can claim international recognition.
The operation to conquer the French market, which is based on this stratagem, is already
well under way, as we have shown in this same sub-chapter 1.1.1, with the active
cooperation of the French Ministry of Education, which is trying to convince public opinion
that the results of language teaching are bad and those of national exams are not credible,
that the alignment of school evaluations with "international standards" is indispensable,
and that the only effective way to do so is to register all students for international
certifications
6
.
3
That is to say, made public: you will appreciate the metaphor...
4
All these documents are available on the same page at www.oecd-
ilibrary.org/education/pisa_19963785.
5
Language inspectors do not have the means to do so either, as can be seen from an analysis of the
"Reading" grid, p. 4, of the official document "Descriptors of abilities from levels A1 to C1", B.O.
special n° 9 of 30 September 2010, French Ministry of Education, . B.O. special n° 9 of September
30, 2010, French Ministry of Education,
https://cache.media.education.gouv.fr/file/special_9/20/7/langues_vivantes_155207.pdf.
6
The PIRLS and PISA assessment tests are not designed to assess individual students, but to
collectively assess cohorts of students.
Page 10 of 23
There is, however, at least one other solution, which would consist, for example, within
the French national education system, of developing competency scales with their banks
of items that could be used by teachers for institutionalized continuous assessments during
the course of the curriculum and for the final baccalaureate examination, as Luxembourg
has done with the EpStAN, "standardized tests"
7
. The French national education system
has the necessary scientific and technical skills, as demonstrated by the development,
implementation and processing of the standardized CEDRE assessments (Cycle des
Évaluations Disciplinaires Réalisées sur Échantillons), and the fact that their author, the
DEPP (Direction de l'Évaluation, de la Prospective et de la Performance), is also in charge
of the PIRLS and PISA surveys for France
8
. However, the political will to do so by mobilizing
the necessary resources and means is still required, and it is clearly this political will that
is lacking in France
9
.
7
"Standardized Tests," NAPS, https://epstan.lu/fr/landing-page-fr/. Many examples of assessment
tasks can be found at www.epstan.lu/cms/fr/materiel-d-information.
8
Presentation of CEDRE on the M.E.N. website: "The cycle of disciplinary evaluations carried out on
samples (CEDRE), which began in 2003, measures the skills of students at the end of school and at
the end of secondary school. It covers most of the subject areas in reference to the programs:
mastery of language (school), general and language skills (middle school), foreign languages,
history-geography and civic education, experimental sciences, mathematics. The presentation of the
results makes it possible to situate the performance of the students on a scale of levels. Renewed at
regular intervals, these evaluations allow the evolution of the "level of the students" to be followed
over time. The detailed analysis of skills in the various disciplines is in itself a very rich material for
teachers."
(www.education.gouv.fr/cid81218/methodologie-du-cycle-des-evaluations-disciplinaires-realisees-
sur-echantillon-cedre-en-fin-d-ecole-et-fin-de-college.html).
Note the central place of work on items (and not on descriptors) in the presentation, on this page,
of the "implementation of evaluation". See also "Méthodologie du cycle des évaluations disciplinaires
réalisées sur échantillon (CEDRE) en fin d'école et fin de collège" (Methodology of the cycle of
disciplinary evaluations carried out on a sample basis (CEDRE) at the end of school and the end of
collège), www.education.gouv.fr/cid81218/methodologie-du-cycle-des-evaluations-disciplinaires-
realisees-sur-echantillon-cedre-en-fin-d-ecole-et-fin-de-college.html, and "La maîtrise du langage et
de la langue française en fin d'école primaire" (Mastery of language and the French language at the
end of elementary school), Note Évaluation 04.10 October 2003,
https://cache.media.education.gouv.fr/file/21/9/5219.pdf. This second document is older than the
first, but it has the advantage of presenting the "Scale of Comprehension" used at that time. For the
English language, one may also consult the presentation by Beuzon S., Garcia É. & Marchois C.
(2015).
9
In its 2017 report (available online: see final bibliography), the Cour des Comptes deplored the fact
that CEDRE did not have the resources to organize these assessments in all school disciplines with
the frequency required to make effective use of their results.
Page 11 of 23
Chapter 3.6.2 Communicative approach and Action-Oriented
Approach e in the CEFRL and CV proficiency grids (extract)
[...] the authors of the CV do not make any changes to the CEFRL descriptors, or even any
additions, that could be analyzed as an introduction of actional criteria.
–“Notes, messages and forms", CEFRL p. 84
Below is the long analysis we made of this CEFRL grid in Puren 2009c:
One will recognize, I hope, that an evaluation grid with six levels, four of which are
defined by the same descriptors, constitutes a real docimological aberration: it
means indeed that for the same observed performance (the one indicated here in
B1), the evaluator could attribute to the productions of candidates for the
certification, as regards the competence of written interaction (since it is about
written interaction), as well the level B1 as the level B2, C1 or C2! But on what
criteria? On the basis of which criterion: " on the basis of the client ", as we say
colloquially?! [...]
10
[First question:] Why is it that the authors of the CEFRL, in their scale of six levels
of competence, cannot find specific descriptors for the three higher levels of
competence?
The answer lies, in my opinion, in their unconscious and systematic application of
the information-communication paradigm: all the descriptors they use here
concern, as we can see, the punctual transmission of information content. However,
10
[In reality, it is the teachers who are confronted with such a docimological aberration when they
want to use these descriptors directly for their own correction of students' productions. This is not
the case, on the other hand, for the designers of standardized assessments working in certification
agencies, who will simply propose in their tests calibrated items of maximum level B1 to which they
will attribute the same score, without then needing to worry at all about the definition of the higher
levels. This is an illustration of what we denounced in sub-chapter 1.3.4.4 as a deception of teachers,
to whom the competency scales are presented as scientific assessment models available to them,
whereas they are unusable as they stand.
Page 12 of 23
this paradigm proves inadequate in texts such as notes and messages, which as
"working documents" are by nature part of a logic of social action, that is to say,
collaborative and durable.
In this type of texts, in fact, the information must be treated, from its elaboration
to its transmission, in relation to its foreseen or foreseeable use by the
addressee(s), in relation to what he/she/they will have to or will be able to do with
it. In other words, the notes and messages imply an action on the information that
the informant must carry out according to the action by the information that he/she
foresees that the recipient(s) will have to carry out. It is precisely in the joint
consideration of these two actions (the action on and by the information) in different
temporalities that lies the difference between what I will call "informational co-
action", on the one hand, and communicative interaction, on the other.
Second question: One really wonders what forms have to do with this mess (in this
case, with this group of texts), even if, if one looks hard enough, one can say that
a form is a document characterized by a very strong upstream action on the
information as one wishes the user to communicate it, by means of a very directive
formatting (lines to be filled in, boxes to be ticked, etc.) conceived precisely as a
function of the action one wishes to carry out with the information thus collected.
But there is still no interaction in the sense of reciprocity, and even less common
action on and through the information thus transmitted.
The most plausible answer to this second question is that this is another effect of
the information-communication paradigm on which the authors of the CEFRL have
remained. What has united notes, messages and forms in their minds, as it seems
to me in the descriptors they use, is the simplicity of the information
requested/transmitted (they assume that it is few and factual) and the simplicity of
the language used to transmit it (they assume that it is written in short sentences
or even in telegraphic style). Hence, very logically, they found it impossible to
propose in this grid more complex criteria and performance indicators for the three
higher levels B2, C1 and C2, for which it would have been necessary to resort to
criteria of informational competence such as relevance in the choice or design of
the medium, the information content, the recipient and the moment of transmission.
(Puren, 2009: 25-26)
It is in application of the idea expressed at the very end of the above excerpt that we
presented, a few years later, the following examples of possible actional criteria for this
grid, limited to notes and messages (Puren, 2016g: 58):
NOTES and MESSAGES
C2
Can evaluate the effectiveness of his/her overall activity in order to benefit from
it in the future.
C1
Can communicate information to the right person(s) at the right time.
B2
Can select and present information according to the needs of the recipient(s).
...
...
Page 13 of 23
The implementation of such criteria, as we can see, requires placing the candidates, during
the evaluation tests, in a kind of "global micro-simulation" - they are given an identity, a
function, a working environment and a mission as recipients, as well as recipients
characterized in the same way, as is the case in the two French institutional certifications
"compatible with the action perspective the DCL, Diplôme de Compétence en Langue, and
the CLES, Certificat de Compétences en Langues de l'Enseignement Supérieur, which
assess a person's competence to work in a foreign language-culture respectively as an
employee in a company and as a university student (see "DLC" and "CLES" in the final
bibliography).
–“Notes, messages and forms”, Companion Volume, p. 95
Reminder: the descriptors present in the CEFRL and included in the CV are in blue type,
the descriptors added in the CV are in black type.
This 2018 version of the CV does indeed make "additions" to the 2001 CEFRL version in
terms of levels (addition of "Pre-A1"), examples, indication of the three types of texts,
domains as well as difficulty and performance criteria; level B2 is this time described in a
specific way, so that it is now the three higher levels, and not the four, that are described
in an identical way. As in many CEFRL grids taken up and completed in the CV, it would be
Page 14 of 23
possible to point out inaccuracies and inconsistencies
11
, but the main point here is that no
substantive corrections have been made: forms are still integrated into the other two types
of documents (this time they are even specified in some descriptors, like the other two),
and the action criteria do not appear at the higher levels, with the possible exception of
the performance criterion "leaving messages" (cf. The action criteria do not appear at the
higher levels, with the possible exception of the performance criterion "leaving messages"
(cf. "leaving messages" in B2), which one wonders, however, to what extent it could be
concretely applied in non-scripted evaluation tests other than to written production, which
is already covered by the performance "taking messages".
-“Co-operating” (CEFRL, p. 86)
Below we repeat the long analysis we made of this CEFRL grid in Puren 2009c.
It is to be expected that the collective dimension will be strongly emphasized in the
proposed scale of "cooperation".
And indeed, it appears clearly at levels B1 ("facilitate focus on the topic", "facilitate
further conversation or discussion") and B2 ("invite others to participate", "facilitate
the development of the discussion").
But the descriptor chosen for the highest level of competence (C1-C2, "Can skilfully
link his/her own contribution to that of other interlocutors", emphasis added)
focuses on individual competence and not on the effectiveness of participation in
joint work. On the scale of competences of a social actor, the descriptors proposed
11
The qualifiers "usual" (B1) and "complex" (B2) are heterogeneous in nature, and therefore cannot
be used to characterize progressive levels of difficulty in the same type of document (here,
messages). The "academic" messages in B1 disappear in B2, as if they could not be of a level as
complex as the "professional" messages, and more complex than the personal messages, which are
found alone in B2. These "academic" messages in B2, which correspond to the fourth "domain"
proposed by the authors of the CEFRL - the "educational" domain - are not preceded by "academic"
messages at A1 level, which is indicative of the little importance given to learning in this document.
Page 15 of 23
here for levels B1 and B2 are certainly more important than this personal language-
only know-how proposed in C1 and C2.
This scale also takes into account another personal "skill" such as the one already
retained in the C2 level descriptor of the "General oral interaction" grid ("Can come
back to a difficulty and restructure it so skillfully that the interlocutor barely notices
it"). The valuing of these two skills - placed as descriptors for the higher levels -
apparently stems from a conception of collective work in which the main issue would
be to facilitate language communication and make it effective.
But here we are really in the middle of a communicativist ideology, which the
authors of the CEFRL have decidedly failed to overcome: in order to cooperate well,
it is not enough to communicate well; knowing how to communicate obviously
makes it possible to solve communicational problems, but it does not make it
possible to solve, and may on the contrary have the effect of concealing, the actional
problems (i.e. the different conceptions of action) and the different stakes
(personal, collective and social). Actional efficiency requires that these problems
and stakes be made explicit and debated by the social actors, to the point of
assuming the risks of confrontation and even rupture: it is precisely the
competences necessary to these activities of explicitation, debate (confrontation of
ideas) and management of what was formerly called the "group dynamics"
(confrontation of persons and groups) that are the "high level" competences
expected of a social actor. [...]
Finally, to finish with this "cooperative" grid, let us note the perverse effect caused
by the ideology of Anglo-Saxon "political correctness", which certainly explains in
part the decision taken by the authors of the CEFRL to avoid, as a matter of
principle, any "negative" descriptor in their scales.
12
In the example above, if they
write "No descriptor available" in A1, and "[the candidate] can indicate that he/she
is following what is being said" in A2, it is obviously because they forbid themselves
to write in A1 "Cannot indicate that he/she is following what is being said", or "Has
difficulty in indicating that he/she is following what is being said"... The same type
of remark applies to all the scales proposed in the CEFRL, where it is announced
that "no descriptor is available" for the first levels of competence (Puren, 2009c:
22-23)
In our 2016 article (Puren 2016g: 58), we had proposed, consistent with our 2009c
analysis, the following additions (in bold).
COOPERATE
C2
Can propose a halt to the discussion in order to make the necessary decisions
to continue the cooperation.
[...]
[...]
A2
Can indicate that he/she follows what is said. Can indicate that he/she is not
following what is being said at any given time.
12
[Note for the present work] We have dealt with this issue in a specific sub-chapter above: 1.3.3
"The issue of positive descriptors".
Page 16 of 23
A1
Can decline an invitation to cooperate in language if he/she does not feel able
to, so as not to disturb others.
(CEFRL p. 71, my additions in bold)
The authors of the Framework write, in justification of the frequent absence of specific
descriptors in their example grids:
There may not be descriptors for all subcategories at each level since some activities cannot
be undertaken until a given level of proficiency is achieved, while others are no longer a
goal above a certain level. (p. 29, emphasis added)
But this is because they only take into consideration communicative objectives. Taking the
action into account leads us to consider the cases, which are frequent, where it requires
declining the invitation to participate in the exchange or explicitly putting an end to it.
–“Co-operating” (CV, p. 101)
Reminder: the descriptors present in the CEFRL and included in the CV are in blue type,
the descriptors added in the CV are in black type.
It can also be seen from this grid that the CV authors' intention was only to complete the
CEFRL grids, without correcting them –paradoxically, the introduction of an entire section
entitled "Implementation of the action approach" in the CV (p. 27-28) did not lead to this
perspective being taken into account in the grids that were taken up again, which remain
Page 17 of 23
at the sole communicative paradigm to which the CEFRL was limited. The mention "No
descriptor available" is extended to the new Pre-A1 level, whereas the authors had a good
opportunity to implement the idea of the authors of the CEFRL, often presented as original
by its commentators, according to which communication can be non-language
13
. They
could have proposed the following descriptor:
Pre-A1
Can indicate, if necessary by mimicry and gesture, that he/she cannot
cooperate.
Just as communication competence, in the perspective of information management by a
responsible social actor, includes knowing why, when and with whom not to communicate,
so action competence includes "knowing not to participate in the action in progress", or
"putting oneself in a position of observation or waiting". In other words, to implement one's
competence is also to know and take into account one's level of incompetence. But it is
clear that the evaluation of this aspect of the social action competence cannot be done
outside of scenarios or collective mini-projects, and that it would also imply integrating a
part of formative self-assessment and co-assessment, which is not foreseen in the
certifying evaluations proposed by the organizations controlling the UPL-CoE.
Conclusion of the first part (extract)
An examination of the descriptors, particularly those in grids other than the "general grids",
shows that they are often very poorly constructed and in fact unusable as they stand:
approximation in the use of certain concepts, vagueness of certain descriptors, inadequacy
of the criteria used and inconsistencies in their distribution are their fatal flaws. When the
authors of the CEFR invite teachers to use these descriptors to create their own tests, it is
a real strategy of smoke and mirrors: Neither teachers nor inspectors actually have the
means or the technical skills, which will "logically" lead education officials to turn in the
end to organizations that have experience in the field... One is even entitled to wonder
whether the mediocrity of the proposed descriptors is not part of a deliberate strategy
designed to protect a market that has been created by proposing a "European Framework
of Reference for International Language Certification", which should be the true title of the
CEFR.
We can now understand why the authors of the CEFR emphasize, in their "Warning", the
priority they give to learning and teaching. When they announce as their second main
objective that their descriptors should "facilitate the exchange of information
between practitioners and learners so that the former can tell the latter what they
expect of them in terms of learning and how they will try to help them" (p. 4, emphasis
added) would be a nice joke if it were not in fact part of a well-thought-out strategy whose
13
Cf. CEFRL chap. 4.4.5 “Non-verbal communication”, pp. 88-90, and the repetition of the idea in
CV, p. 28.
Page 18 of 23
performance would certainly merit being ranked at C2 in a management school's "Market
Conquest" competency scale.
To develop long critiques of the CEFR and VC descriptors from the sole didactic point of
view, as we have often done ourselves (Puren), is not only irrelevant to the bodies "in
charge", but on the contrary reinforces the image of a text that would be important for
educational leaders, teachers and trainers. The language educators involved in the Council
of Europe have been either useful idiots or cynical profiteers, or a mixture of both, with all
the nuances that the complexity of human psychology allows. We acknowledge that we
ourselves have deserved to be condemned to bear the first, unenviable title
14
, even if we
ask for a reduction in sentence for having been so without any personal gain, and for
having realized for some years now that we were wrong (cf. the title of our 2012 review
article, "Pour en finir avec le CECR" (Puren, 2012b).
(pp. 83-84)
General conclusion
We have come to the end of this long journey, which began with the reading of the
Companion Volume (CV) and ended with a thorough re-examination of the CEFRL, followed
by two complementary counter-proposals. The CV, in fact, served as a gateway to the
CEFRL, which many of the educationalists with whom we discussed the project wondered
whether it was still worthwhile to continue criticizing it. Wasn't this, in fact, a rearguard
action? Wasn't everyone already in agreement about its shortcomings? This would have
been the case if the CEFRL had been outdated, weighed down by its cumbersome writing
style, discredited by its approximations, and plagued by its total lack of reflection on
methodology; if an alternative had emerged since its publication... But none of this has
happened: on the contrary, every day the CEFRL occupies a growing place in educational
systems, to the point that in the skeptical reactions of colleagues to any critical
undertaking, there is often more discouragement than disapproval: "There is no
alternative".
The publication of the CV tells us at least one thing: for the few authors who are still with
us and for the new ones who have joined us, nothing has changed since 2001. The CV
bears no trace of any critical look at the CEFRL, as if the object were totally untouchable,
sacred, and it makes no room for any new proposal in terms of teaching-learning-
evaluation, as if didactic time had stopped in 2001 and that, in this castle of the didactic
Sleeping Beauty, it was only a matter of opening a few new salons: here the one of
Mediation, there the one of Sign Languages.
The CV and the CEFRL retreated to the heights of splendid isolation, several feet above
any academic debates.
Splendid isolation that has the appearance of autism. Ignoring what is being written in the
fields of learning psychology, linguistics, and language didactics, the result is a CV that
suffers from the same theoretical weaknesses as the 2001 CEFRL, sometimes even more
pronounced and more glaring with the passing of time. And the heart of the project –to
14
In 2006 (Puren, 2006b), we published an article entitled "The Common European Framework of
Reference and methodological reflection in language and culture teaching: a work in progress".
Page 19 of 23
enclose mediation and plurilingualism in scales of descriptors, even though they are
extremely complex– then appears in all its absurdity, like a technicist mirage.
Let us nevertheless give the CV credit for having drawn our attention when it was published
in 2018, and for having revived the critical look at the CEFRL, which had become
untouchable over the years, imposed as much by the weight of the institutions (initially
European and then national, but always without any critical look) as by the force of habit
and the difficulty of conceiving a new, different path. In the light of this new perspective,
the CEFRL-CV appears as it is at last, as a work that has skillfully diverted attention from
what should always have remained the essential in language-culture didactics –the
teaching-learning pair– to the benefit of evaluation alone, and even more so, of an
evaluation reduced to the sole certification dimension, so particular, so little useful to the
whole of the educational community, and only profitable for a few organizations that
happen to be at the origin of the project. The CEFRL has succeeded in making its readers
believe that it was interested in the problem of teaching-learning because it has produced
a few pages on this side, but in fact they are only a few soothing speeches on
plurilingualism and the plurilingual repertoire of learners; as soothing as they are
irrefutable because they never go beyond a few assertions of principle and never concern
themselves with giving them a real methodological content. It is up to the exegetes of
CEFRL thinking, the "useful idiots", to take care of this! The authors of the CEFRL did the
same for the action perspective, which was thrown out in a hurry, reduced to a few
debatable examples of "tasks" (including the unforgettable "putting together a cupboard":
the initiated will understand, the others will have the pleasure of discovering it) and to
vague slogans that are politically correct ("the learner is a social actor") but which remained
hollow for lack of specifying the conditions of their implementation. But these few touches
were enough to give the illusion that the CEFRL was actually interested in teaching-
learning, whereas –as we think we have sufficiently shown here– the real issue was
elsewhere, in the certification activities alone. The CEFRL is an academic shell game.
You think you are lifting the pot and discovering the "teach" card, but you invariably come
back to "certify". You think you've lifted the pot and found the "learn" card, but "certify"
appears again. You think you've found "evaluate"... and "certify" appears again! Let's
remember that in this game, it is the master of the game who inevitably wins. He only
needs the credulity of others.
What the conditions for the elaboration of the CV confirm is that the CEFRL is not in reality
the product of the Council of Europe, or if it is, it is only because the "Council of Europe"
is only a label of respectability, of democratic appearance, a nominee, a convenient
guarantee of untouchability. The CV, and before it the CEFRL but in a less obvious way, is
the work of two organizations, two private profit-making companies, the Cambridge English
Learning Assessment and the Eurocentres Foundation. The authors, whose names are
listed in the acknowledgements but not on the cover, are all employees of these
organizations. Things could not be clearer. That their private employers benefit in this
context is not surprising. That they claim to be building public educational language policies
on this basis is much more so.
Behind this mechanism, it is the whole process of expertise that should be questioned: the
procedure for choosing experts, the construction of the framework of their mission, the
mode of work by compilation within the framework of a carefully maintained inter-society;
upstream, it is even the mission entrusted to the CoE’s-LPU that should be questioned:
Page 20 of 23
what mandate, what real political project? Downstream, we should question without taboo
the permeability of educational institutions, those of France in the lead, with a Ministry of
Education which, without the slightest critical eye, has made the CEFRL the cornerstone of
its language teaching system in a few years, and which, now that the enterprise is well
advanced, creates certifications within its public education system, only to hastily entrust
them, for a fee, to the Cambridge English Learning Assessment. The loop is perfectly
closed: "L'affaire est dans le sac" (“The matter is settled”), to put it in the terms of bad
French-language thrillers.
We believe that our critical work was already necessary in itself, because it provides
teachers with the means to resist injunctions to use the CEFRL which, because of the weight
of hierarchies, they find difficult to oppose; it gives them the necessary arguments to
denounce the private interests of the organizations at work in the CEFRL project, to show
the practical uselessness and even the harmfulness of its proposals for teaching and
learning, because of its exclusively certification logic, to demonstrate the weak scientific
validity of this document.
But we wanted to go further and propose ways out. The undertaking is not without risk:
we too may be open to criticism. But this is the academic game and it is the only one worth
playing, because it is at the heart of our discipline of human sciences. We have opened up
two avenues that have in common the dimension of integration, understood as bringing
coherence and synergy to the different didactic traditions from one language to another.
The first track concerns precisely evaluation, the only real issue of the CEFRL, and we have
taken it to show that another way is possible, another conception of evaluation, which we
have called "integrated". An integrated evaluation is, in particular, in school teaching, an
evaluation that is integrated with education, that is to say, that considers the different
school functions of language: a means of working on documents (as in MA, Active
Methodology), a means of communication (as in CA, Communicative Approach), a means
of learning other languages (as in IMM, Integrated Multilingual Methodology) and a means
of action (as in SAOA, Social Action-Oriented Approach). It is through this breach in the
mono-methodological conception of the CEFRL, based on CA alone, that the second open
avenue, that of the integrated plurilingual methodology, also passes. Here again, we show
that another path is possible, non-dogmatic, non-doctrinaire, plurilingual and pluri-
methodological-plurimethodological because plurilingual–, adaptable according to the
languages and the didactic environments. The plurilingualism of the IMM builds the
teaching-learning of a new language on what is already there in terms of language
repertoire and on what is already built in terms of knowledge about languages and
language learning competencies.
With the opening of these two methodological paths, we hope to have indicated to all actors
–educational leaders, didacticians, program designers, trainers and teachers– where the
exit was.
In particular, we hope that this book will help the French Ministry of Education and all the
actors involved in school language teaching in the different countries, by providing them
with new, realistic avenues, adaptable to each national or regional situation, for the
different levels of the curricula and for different teaching devices. Our short analysis of an
extract of the French programs of 2019, presented in the conclusion of the 5th part, shows
that this institutional text is already working on different orientations, not yet articulated
Page 21 of 23
and combined as they could and should be, with for the moment an anchorage to the
CEFRL as massive as it is inadequate and inapplicable, but with also –reason to hope– a
real plurilingual opening which could easily be developed and implemented from our
proposals.
Our wish at this stage is not to remain alone, scientifically speaking. These first two
proposals must now be translated and adapted for different didactic configurations: they
are sufficiently open to allow this. If ways out of the CEFRL have been traced, they still
remain to be developed, and to be taken collectively.
When it comes time to conclude for good, we know that despite all this critical work and
these counter-proposals, the CEFRL will continue to be a "reference" for at least a while.
In what way, exactly? Its mark will undoubtedly continue to be affixed to language course
offers and certification tests, in the form of a few well-known letters and numbers: A1, A2,
B1, B2, C1, C2. These are symbols, codes that suit language schools and textbook authors
well, and this is the only real use that is currently made of the CEFRL: while it is now
obvious that the descriptors are not usable by teachers, these few signs constitute a
common language that it seems that the community of language teachers still needs for a
while to communicate.
This is true. But we hope that the reference to the CEFRL will be limited to this, that the
CEFRL will be used for everything else, and that methodological reflection will be
relaunched, with the objective of developing plurilingual learning and, as a means, the
elaboration of effective teaching-learning-evaluation methods that are both diversified and
integrated.
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