Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment, abbreviated in English as CEFR, CEF, or CEFRL, is a guideline used to describe achievements of learners of foreign languages across Europe and, increasingly, in other countries. The CEFR is also intended to make it easier for educational institutions and employers to evaluate the language qualifications of candidates for education admission or employment. Its main aim is to provide a method of teaching, and assessing that applies to all languages in Europe.
The CEFR was established by the Council of Europe between 1986 and 1989 as part of the "Language Learning for European Citizenship" project. In November 2001, a European Union Council Resolution recommended using the CEFR to set up systems of validation of language ability. The six reference levels are becoming widely accepted as the European standard for grading an individual's language proficiency.
As of 2024, "localized" versions of the CEFR exist in Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Mexico, with the Malaysian government writing that "CEFR is a suitable and credible benchmark for English standards in Malaysia."
Development
An intergovernmental symposium in 1991 titled "Transparency and Coherence in Language Learning in Europe: Objectives, Evaluation, Certification" held by the Swiss Federal Authorities in the Swiss municipality of Rüschlikon found the need for a common European framework for languages to improve the recognition of language qualifications and help teachers co-operate. A project followed to develop language-level classifications for certification to be recognised across Europe.A preliminary version of the Manual for Relating Language Examinations to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages was published in 2003. This draft version was piloted in a number of projects, which included linking a single test to the CEFR, linking suites of exams at different levels and national studies by exam boards and research institutes. Practitioners and academics shared their experiences at a colloquium in Cambridge in 2007 and the pilot case studies and findings were published in Studies in Language Testing. The findings from the pilot projects then informed the Manual revision project from 2008 to 2009.
The Council of Europe's authoring team emphasized that the CEFR was not written primarily as a framework for assessment and test development. Similarly, linguists such as Alderson, Quetz and others criticized the lack of system in the descriptors and the context-free nature of these. Other critics invoked the danger of a rigid "pan-European" language testing system. Brian North, one of the authors of the CEFR team, addressed such criticisms in a Guardian article in 2004:
Theoretical background
The CEFR divides general competences in knowledge, skills, and existential competence with particular communicative competences in linguistic competence, sociolinguistic competence and pragmatic competence. This division does not exactly match previously well-known notions of communicative competence, but correspondences among them can be made.The CEFR has three principal dimensions: language activities, the domains in which the language activities occur, and the competencies on which a person draws when they engage in them.
Language activities
The CEFR distinguishes four kinds of language activities: reception, production, interaction and mediation.Domains
General and particular communicative competencies are developed by producing or receiving texts in various contexts under various conditions and constraints. These contexts correspond to various sectors of social life that the CEFR calls domains. Four broad domains are distinguished: educational, occupational, public and personal. These largely correspond to register.Competencies
A language user can develop various degrees of competence in each of these domains and to help describe them, the CEFR has provided a set of six Common Reference Levels.Common reference levels
The Common European Framework divides learners into three broad divisions that can each be further divided into two levels; for each level, it describes what a learner is supposed to be able to do in listening, reading, writing and speaking.These descriptors can apply to any of the languages spoken in Europe and there are translations in many languages.
Relationship with duration of learning process
Educational bodies for various languages have offered estimates for the amount of study needed to reach levels in the relevant language. This assumes learners with European languages as their native language, the typical profile within the European Union.Certification and teaching ecosystem enabled by the CEFR
Multiple organisations have been created to serve as an umbrella for language schools and certification businesses that claim compatibility with the CEFR. For example, the European Association for Language Testing and Assessment is an initiative funded by the European Community to promote the CEFR and best practices in delivering professional language training. The Association of Language Testers in Europe is a consortium of academic organisations that aims at standardising assessment methods. Eaquals is an international association of institutions and organisations involved in language education, active throughout Europe and following the CEFR.In France, the Ministry for Education has created a government-mandated certificate called CLES, which formalises the use of the CEFR in language teaching programmes in French higher education institutions.
In Germany, Telc, a non-profit agency, is the federal government's exclusive partner for language tests taken at the end of the integration courses for migrants, following the CEFR standards.
Comparisons with other scales
General scales
ACTFL
The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages has published a one-directional alignment table of levels according to its ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and the CEFR levels. It is based on the work of the ACTFL-CEFR Alignment Conferences that started in 2010. Generally, the ACTFL is stricter with regard to receptive skills than productive skills, compared to the CEFR. The following table may not be read as an indication of what ACTFL level follows from taking a CEFR-aligned test.For convenience, the following abbreviations will be used for the ACTFL levels:
- NL/NM/NH – Novice Low/Mid/High
- IL/IM/IH – Intermediate Low/Mid/High
- AL/AM/AH – Advanced Low/Mid/High
- S – Superior
- D – Distinguished
| ACTFL | Correspondence with CEFR |
| 0, NL, NM | 0 |
| NH, IL | A1 |
| IM | A2 |
| IH, AL | B1 |
| AM | B2 |
| AH, S | C1 |
| D | C2 |
Similar correspondence has been proposed for the other direction in a panel discussion at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies by one of the coauthors of the CEFR, Brian North. He stated that a "sensible hypothesis" would be for C2 to correspond to "Distinguished," C1 to "Superior," B2 to "Advanced-mid" and B1 to "Intermediate-high" in the ACTFL system.
This agrees with a table published by the American University Center of Provence giving the following correspondences according to "estimated equivalencies by certified ACTFL administrator":
| CEFR | ACTFL |
| A1 | NL, NM, NH |
| A2 | IL, IM |
| B1 | IH |
| B2 | AL, AM, AH |
| C1 | S |
| C2 | D |
The following table summarises three earlier proposed equivalences between CEFR and ACTFL. Some of them only refer to one activity.
ILR
The French Academy Baltimore suggests the following different equivalence:| CEFR | ILR |
| A1 | 0–1 |
| A2 | 1+ |
| B1 | 2–2+ |
| B2 | 3–3+ |
| C1 | 4 |
| C2 | 4+ |
A study by Buck, Papageorgiou and Platzek addresses the correspondence between the difficulty of test items under the CEFR and ILR standards. The most common ILR levels for items of given CEFR difficulty were as follows:
- Reading—A1: 1, A2: 1, B1: 1+, B2: 2+, C1: 3
- Listening—A1: 0+/1, A2: 1, B1: 1+, B2: 2, C1: 2+
Canada
| CEFR | ILR | ACTFL | NB OPS | CLB | PSC PSC |
| A1 | 0/0+/1 | Novice | Unrated/0+/1 | 1/2 | A |
| A2 | 1+ | Intermediate | 1+/2 | 3/4 | B |
| B1 | 2 | Advanced Low | 2+ | 5/6 | C |
| B2 | 2+ | Advanced Mid | 3 | 7/8 | |
| C1 | 3/3+ | Advanced High | 3+ | 9/10 | |
| C2 | 4 | Superior | 4 | 11/12 | |
| C2+ | 4+/5 |
The resulting correspondence between the ILR and ACTFL scales disagrees with the generally accepted one. The ACTFL standards were developed so that Novice, Intermediate, Advanced and Superior would correspond to 0/0+, 1/1+, 2/2+ and 3/3+, respectively on the ILR scale. Also, the ILR and NB OPS scales do not correspond despite the fact that the latter was modelled on the former.
A 2007 document by Macdonald and Vandergrift estimates the following correspondences between the Public Service Commission levels and the CEFR levels:
Language schools may also propose their own equivalence tables. For example, the Vancouver English Centre provides a comprehensive equivalence table between the various forms of the TOEFL test, the Cambridge exam, the VEC level system, and the CEFR.