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

8.4
Assessment and school, out-of-school and post-school learning
If the curriculum is defined, as suggested by its primary meaning, in terms of the path
travelled by a learner through a sequence of educational experiences, whether under the
control of an institution or not, then a curriculum does not end with leaving school, but
continues in some way or other thereafter in a process of life-long learning.
In this perspective, therefore, the curriculum of the school as institution has the aim
of developing in the learner a plurilingual and pluricultural competence which at the
end of school studies may take the form of differentiated profiles depending on individ-
uals and the paths they have followed. It is clear that the form of this competence is not
immutable and the subsequent personal and professional experiences of each social
agent, the direction of his or her life, will cause it to evolve and change its balance
through further development, reduction and reshaping. It is here that adult education
and continuing training, among other things, play a role. Three complementary aspects
may be considered in relation to this.
8.4.1
The place of the school curriculum
To accept the notion that the educational curriculum is not limited to school and does
not end with it is also to accept that plurilingual and pluricultural competence may
begin before school and continue to develop out of school in ways which proceed parallel
with its development in school. This may happen through family experience and learn-
ing, history and contacts between generations, travel, expatriation, emigration, and
more generally belonging to a multilingual and multicultural environment or moving
from one environment to another, but also through reading and through the media.
While this is stating the obvious, it is also clear that the school is a long way from
always taking this into account. It is therefore useful to think of the school curriculum
as part of a much broader curriculum, but a part which also has the function of giving
learners:
•
an initial differentiated plurilingual and pluricultural repertoire (with some pos-
sible ways being suggested in the two scenarios outlined above);
•
a better awareness of, knowledge of and confidence in their competences and the
capacities and resources available to them, inside and outside the school, so that they
may extend and refine these competences and use them effectively in particular
domains.
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: learning, teaching, assessment
174

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8.4.2
Portfolio and profiling
It follows, therefore, that the recognition and assessment of knowledge and skills should
be such as to take account of the circumstances and experiences through which these
competences and skills are developed. The development of a European Language Portfolio
(ELP) enabling an individual to record and present different aspects of his or her language
biography represents a step in this direction. It is designed to include not only any offi-
cially awarded recognition obtained in the course of learning a particular language but
also a record of more informal experiences involving contacts with languages and other
cultures.
However, in order to stress the relationship between the school curriculum and the
out-of-school curriculum, when language learning is assessed on the completion of sec-
ondary education, it would be valuable to try to provide formal recognition for plurilin-
gual and pluricultural competence as such, perhaps by specifying an exit profile which
can accommodate varying combinations rather than using as a basis a single predeter-
mined level in a given language, or languages, as the case may be.
‘Official’ recognition of partial competences may be a step in this direction (and it
would be helpful if the major international qualifications were to show the way by adopt-
ing such an approach, for example by acknowledging separately the four skills covered
by comprehension/expression and written/spoken, and not necessarily all of them
grouped together). But it would be helpful if the ability to cope with several languages
or cultures could also be taken into account and recognised. Translating (or summaris-
ing) a second foreign language into a first foreign language, participating in an oral dis-
cussion involving several languages, interpreting a cultural phenomenon in relation to
another culture, are examples of mediation (as defined in this document) which have
their place to play in assessing and rewarding the ability to manage a plurilingual and
pluricultural repertoire.