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

Predictability:
Regular changes in task parameters during task execution are likely to increase demands
on interlocutors.
•
in an interaction task, the introduction of an unexpected element (event, circum-
stances, information, participant) obliges the learner to activate relevant strategies
to cope with the dynamics of the new and more complex situation; in a production
task the development of a ‘dynamic’ text (e.g. a story involving regular changes of
characters, scenes and with time shifts) is likely to be more demanding than produc-
ing a ‘static’ text (e.g. describing a lost or stolen object). 
•
Physical conditions: 
Noise can add to the processing demands in interaction:
•
interference: background noise or a poor telephone line, for example, may require par-
ticipants to draw on prior experience, schematic knowledge, inferencing skills, etc.
to compensate for ‘gaps’ in the message.
•
Participants:
In addition to the above parameters, a variety of participant-related factors, although
they cannot normally be manipulated, need to be taken into account when considering
conditions influencing the ease of difficulty of real life tasks involving interaction.
•
co-operativeness of interlocutor(s): a sympathetic interlocutor will facilitate successful
communication by ceding a degree of control over the interaction to the user/learner,
e.g. in negotiating and accepting modification of goals, and in facilitating compre-
hension, for example by responding positively to requests to speak more slowly, to
repeat, to clarify;
•
features of speech of interlocutors, e.g. rate, accent, clarity, coherence; 
•
visibility of interlocutors (accessibility of paralinguistic features in face to face commu-
nication facilitates communication); 
•
general and communicative competences of interlocutors, including behaviour (degree of
familiarity with norms in a particular speech community), and knowledge of the
subject matter.
7.3.2.2
Reception
Conditions and constraints affecting the difficulty of comprehension tasks:
•
Task support
•
Text characteristics
•
Type of response required
•