History & Use of CEFR

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The CEFR—history, purpose, and uses around the world ⏲️⚙️🌍

The CEFR has had a considerable impact on language education, especially in relation to its levels and descriptors and move towards a more action-based approach to language teaching. Though originally intended for Europe, it has been widely used to inform language education worldwide. This popularity with ministries of education is probably due to the fact that, as pointed out by respondents in a book surveying its impact around the world, it combines competence-based teaching with definitions of tangible ‘can do’ outcomes with the levels and descriptors—an aspect attractive to politicians, policy makers, and curriculum designers—with a humanistic educational philosophy applicable across languages, promoting plurilingual and intercultural education—an aspect attractive to educational administrators and educators.

To get a broader view of the way the CEFR is seen, read this article by Enrica Piccardo, one of the authors of the new edition, the CEFR Companion Volume:

Piccardo, E. (2020). The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) in language education: Past, present, and future. TIRF Language Education in Review (LEiR) Series

The CEFR Companion Volume 📚

As mentioned before, the CEFR was updated and extended in 2020 with the CEFR Companion Volume (CEFRCV). Apart from containing all the CEFR descriptors – those from 2001, updated, plus new descriptors for online interaction, various aspects of mediation, and plurilingual/pluricultural competence – Chapter 2 provides a 25-page illustrated text that gives a good overview of the CEFR vision, core concepts and implications for education.

Read CEFR Companion volume – Chapter 2 (pages 27-45).

If you would like to read more, the implications of the CEFRCV for language education are explained in the article: Broadening the scope of language education: mediation, plurilingualism, and collaborative learning: The CEFR Companion volume(2019: Enrica Piccardo, Brian North & Tim Goodier)

Finally, to round things off, why not watch a 19-minute informal interview with Brian North, one of the authors of the CEFR and CEFRCV, reflecting on the latter and the entire CEFR project: The Common European Framework of Reference – Companion volume: An interview with Brian North(2019: Wolfgang Hallett) (19:24) 

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