The Common European Framework in its political and educational context What is the Common European Framework?

linguistic competences is a central, indispensable
aspect of language learning. How may it best be facilitated in relation to vocabulary,
grammar, pronunciation and orthography?
6.4.7.1
In which of the following ways should learners be expected or required to
develop their 
vocabulary?
a)
by simple exposure to words and fixed expressions used in authentic spoken and
written texts?
b)
by learner elicitation or dictionary, etc. look-up as needed for specific tasks and activ-
ities?
Users of the Framework may wish to consider and where appropriate state the steps they take
to promote the development of pupils/students as responsibly independent language learners
and users.
Users of the Framework may wish to consider and where appropriate state 
•
which of the above (or other) means they use to develop general competences; 
•
what differences arise if practical skills are a) talked about as themes, b) exercised,
c) demonstrated through actions accompanied by language or d) taught using the target
language as the medium of instruction.
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c)
through inclusion in context, e.g. in course-book texts and subsequent recycling in
exercises, exploitation activities, etc.?
d)
by presenting words accompanied by visuals (pictures, gestures and miming, demon-
strative actions, realia, etc.)?
e)
by the memorisation of word-lists, etc. with translation equivalents?
f )
by exploring semantic fields and constructing ‘mind-maps’, etc.?
g)
by training in the use of monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, thesauruses and
other works of reference?
h)
by explanation and training in the application of lexical structure (e.g. word forma-
tion, compounding, collocations, phrasal verbs, idioms, etc.)?
i)
by a more or less systematic study of the different distribution of semantic features
in L1 and L2 (contrastive semantics)?
6.4.7.2
Size, range and control of vocabulary are major parameters of language acqui-
sition and hence for the assessment of a learner’s language proficiency and for the plan-
ning of language learning and teaching.
6.4.7.3
Lexical selection
Constructors of testing and textbook materials are obliged to choose which words to
include. Curriculum and syllabus designers are not obliged to do so, but may wish to
provide guidelines in the interests of transparency and coherence in educational provi-
sion. There are a number of options:
•
to select key words and phrases a) in thematic areas required for the achievement of
communicative tasks relevant to learner needs, b) which embody cultural difference
and/or significant values and beliefs shared by the social group(s) whose language is
being learnt;
Users of the Framework may wish to consider and where appropriate state:
•
what size of vocabulary (i.e. the number of words and fixed expressions) the learner will
need/be equipped/be required to control;
•
what range of vocabulary (i.e. the domains, themes etc. covered) the learner will need/be
equipped/be required to control;
•
what control over vocabulary the learner will need/be equipped/be required to exert;
•
what distinction, if any, is made between learning for recognition and understanding,
and learning for recall and productive use?;
•
what use is made of inferencing techniques? How is their development promoted?
Users of the Framework may wish to consider and where appropriate state the ways in which
vocabulary items (form and meaning) are presented to and learned by pupils and students.
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•
to follow lexico-statistical principles selecting the highest frequency words in large
general word-counts or those undertaken for restricted thematic areas;
•
to select (authentic) spoken and written texts and learn/teach whatever words they
contain;
•
not to pre-plan vocabulary development, but to allow it to develop organically in
response to learner demand when engaged in communicative tasks.
6.4.7.4
Grammatical competence
, the ability to organise sentences to convey meaning,
is clearly central to communicative competence and most (though not all) of those
concerned with language planning, teaching and testing pay close attention to the man-
agement of the process of learning to do so. This usually involves a selection, ordering
and step-by-step presentation and drilling of new material, starting with short sentences
consisting of a single clause with its constituent phrases represented by single words
(e.g. Jane is happy) and finishing with multiclause complex sentences – their number,
length and structure being of course unbounded. This does not preclude the early intro-
duction of analytically complex material as a fixed formula (i.e. a vocabulary item) or as
a fixed frame for lexical insertion (please may I have a . . .), or as the globally learnt words
of a song (In Dublin’s fair city, where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly
Malone, as she wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow, crying ‘Cockles and
Mussels alive alive-oh’).
6.4.7.5
Inherent complexity is not the only ordering principle to be considered.
1.
The communicative yield of grammatical categories has to be taken into account, i.e.
their role as exponents of general notions. For instance, should learners follow a pro-
gression which leaves them unable, after two years’ study, to speak of past experi-
ence?
2.
Contrastive factors are of great importance in assessing learning load and hence
cost-effectiveness of competing orderings. For instance, subordinate clauses in
German involve greater word-order problems for English and French learners than
for Dutch learners. However, speakers of closely-related languages, e.g. Dutch/
German, Czech/Slovak, may be prone to fall into mechanical word-for-word trans-
lation.
3.
Authentic discourse and written texts may to some extent be graded for grammati-
cal difficulty, but are likely to present a learner with new structures and perhaps cat-
egories, which adept learners may well acquire for active use before others
nominally more basic.
4.
The ‘natural’ acquisition order observed in L1 child language development might
also perhaps be taken into account in planning L2 development.
Users of the Framework may wish to consider and where appropriate state:
•
according to which principle(s) lexical selection has been made.
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The Framework cannot replace reference grammars or provide a strict ordering (though
scaling may involve selection and hence some ordering in global terms) but provides a
framework for the decisions of practitioners to be made known.
6.4.7.6
The sentence is generally regarded as the domain of grammatical description.
However, some intersentential relations (e.g. anaphora: pronoun and pro-verb usage and
the use of sentence adverbs) may be treated as part of linguistic rather than pragmatic
competence (e.g. We didn’t expect John to fail. However, he did).
6.4.7.7
Learners may (be expected/required to) develop their