The cefr document is the result of a need for a common international framework for language learning facilitated co­ operation among educational institutions in different countries

Part 2 – Approach adopted
This chapter is designed to prepare the reader to use the descriptive apparatus which follows in chapters 4 and 5. It presents the analysis of language use and the language user on which the more detailed taxonomy, or scheme of classification, used later, has been based. Accordingly, it is rather technical, but the important terms used are carefully explained. It is well worth taking time to 'read, mark and inwardly digest' this chapter before working through the detail of later chapters. This chapter is largely self-explanatory, but a few further words may help to avoid misunderstandings along the way.
2.1 An action-oriented approach
An action-orientation has marked the Council of Europe approach since the early 1970s, regarding language learning as preparation for the active use of the language for communication. However, this does not mean that we are only interested in overt activity. Of the people sitting opposite one in a train, the person immersed in a book is no less active than the pair next door engaged in animated conversation. Even the one gazing into space may be imagining what to expect in a crucial interview and planning not only self-preservation but also responses to the questions that may come.
Preparing people for active language use involves the full range of human capacities -the intellect, the emotions and the will as well as the exercise of practical skills. A complete view of language use and the language user must find a place for the whole person, but a whole person acting in a social context, as a 'social agent'. Of course, the use of this term does not mean reducing the full richness of the human personality to a dehumanised role-bearer, but rescues it from the complementary danger of individualistic, even solipsistic isolation.
The condensed statement of language use in the shaded box on p.9 and the definitions of the terms used which follow are basic to the understanding and use of CEFR, as is the breakdown of these main categories, or parameters, into sub-categories. They provide the main structure forchapter 4 and a number of the scales proposed in the appendix. They should be read with care and can be referred to if the meaning of the terms used in chapter 4 is not clear in that context. Inversely, the examples and the proposed scalings given in chapter 4 may help in understanding the dense and detailed text of chapter .