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

parts of the process relevant to the development of language proficiency.
4.5.1
Planning
The selection, interrelation and co-ordination of components of general and communi-
cative language competences (see Chapter 5) to be brought to bear on the communica-
tive event in order to accomplish the user/learner’s communicative intentions.
4.5.2
Execution
4.5.2.1
Production
The production process involves two components:
The formulation component takes the output from the planning component and assem-
bles it into linguistic form. This involves lexical, grammatical, phonological (and in the
case of writing, orthographic) processes which are distinguishable and appear (e.g. in
cases of dysphasia) to have some degree of independence but whose exact interrelation
is not fully understood.
The articulation component organises the motor innervation of the vocal apparatus to
convert the output of the phonological processes into co-ordinated movements of the
speech organs to produce a train of speech waves constituting the spoken utterance, or
alternatively the motor innervation of the musculature of the hand to produce hand-
written or typewritten text.
4.5.2.2
Reception
The 
receptive process involves four steps which, while they take place in linear sequence
(bottom-up), are constantly updated and reinterpreted (top-down) in the light of real
world knowledge, schematic expectations and new textual understanding in a subcon-
scious interactive process.
•
the perception of speech and writing: sound/character and word recognition (cursive
and print);
•
the identification of the text, complete or partial, as relevant;
•
the semantic and cognitive understanding of the text as a linguistic entity;
•
the interpretation of the message in context.
Language use and the language user/learner 
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The skills involved include:
•
perceptual skills;
•
memory;
•
decoding skills;
•
inferencing;
•
predicting;
•
imagination;
•
rapid scanning;
•
referring back and forth.
Comprehension, especially of written texts, can be assisted by the proper use of aids,
including reference materials such as:
•
dictionaries (monolingual and bilingual);
•
thesauruses;
•
pronunciation dictionaries;
•
electronic dictionaries, grammars, spell-checkers and other aids;
•
reference grammars.
4.5.2.3
Interaction
The processes involved in spoken interaction differ from a simple succession of speaking
and listening activities in a number of ways:
•
productive and receptive processes overlap. Whilst the interlocutor’s utterance, still
incomplete, is being processed, the planning of the user’s response is initiated – on
the basis of a hypothesis as to its nature, meaning and interpretation.
•
discourse is cumulative. As an interaction proceeds, the participants converge in
their readings of a situation, develop expectations and focus on relevant issues. These
processes are reflected in the form of the utterances produced.
In written interaction (e.g. a correspondence by letter, fax, e-mail, etc.) the processes of
reception and production remain distinct (though electronic interaction, e.g. via the
Internet, is becoming ever closer to ‘real time’ interaction). The effects of cumulative dis-
course are similar to those for spoken interaction.
4.5.3
Monitoring
The strategic component deals with updating of mental activities and competences in
the course of communication. This applies equally to the productive and receptive pro-
cesses. It should be noted that an important factor in the control of the productive pro-
cesses is the feedback the speaker/writer receives at each stage: formulation, articulation
and acoustic.
In a wider sense, the strategic component is also concerned with the monitoring of the
communicative process as it proceeds, and with ways of managing the process accord-
ingly, e.g.:
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: learning, teaching, assessment
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dealing with the unexpected, such as changes of domain, theme schema, etc.;
•
dealing with communication breakdown in interaction or production as a result of
such factors as memory lapses;
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inadequate communicative competence for the task in hand by using compensating
strategies like restructuring, circumlocution, substitution, asking for help;
•
misunderstandings and misinterpretation (by asking for clarification);
•
slips of the tongue, mishearings (by using repair strategies).