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

As Canada increasingly uses the CEFR, Larry Vandergrift of the University of Ottawa has proposed Canadian adoption of the CEFR in his report Proposal for a Common Framework of Reference for Languages for Canada published by Canadian Heritage. This report contains a comparison of the CEFR to other standards in use in Canada and proposes an equivalence table.

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.

Language-specific scales

Language	Certificate	A1	A2	B1	B2	C1	C2
Multiple	European Consortium for the Certificate of Attainment in Modern Languages. ECL exams can be taken in English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Slovak, Russian, Spanish, Croatian, Czech, and Hebrew.	–	A2	B1	B2	C1	–
Multiple	UNIcert			UNIcert I	UNIcert II	UNIcert III	UNIcert IV
Multiple	TELC	A1	A2	B1	B2	C1	C2
Multiple	ALTE level	Breakthrough level	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5
Multiple	British General Qualifications	GCSE Foundation Tier	GCSE Higher Tier
Basque	IVAP-HAEE			HE 1 – IVAP-HAEE	HE 2 – IVAP-HAEE	HE 3 – IVAP-HAEE	HE 4 – IVAP-HAEE
Basque	HABE			Lehenengo maila – HABE	Bigarren maila – HABE	Hirugarren maila – HABE	Laugarren maila – HABE
Basque	EGA					Euskararen Gaitasun Agiria	-
Catalan	Catalan Language Certificates		Bàsic-A2	Elemental-B1	Intermedi-B2	Suficiència-C1	Superior-C2
Catalan	Simtest	A1	A2	B1	B2	C1	C2
Mandarin Chinese	Chinese Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi	HSK Level 1	HSK Level 2	HSK Level 3	HSK Level 4	HSK Level 5	HSK Level 6
Mandarin Chinese	Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language	TOCFL Level 1	TOCFL Level 2	TOCFL Level 3	TOCFL Level 4	TOCFL Level 5	TOCFL Level 6
Czech	Czech Language Certificate Exam	CCE-A1	CCE-A2	CCE-B1	CCE-B2	CCE-C1	–
Danish	Prøve i Dansk	Danskprøve A1	Prøve i Dansk 1	Prøve i Dansk 2	Prøve i Dansk 3	Studieprøven
Dutch	CNaVT – Certificaat Nederlands als Vreemde Taal		Profile tourist and informal language proficiency	Profile societal language proficiency	Profile professional language proficiency, Profile language proficiency higher education	Profile academic language proficiency
Dutch	Inburgeringsexamen	Pre-examination at the embassy of the home country	Examination in the Netherlands
Dutch	Staatsexamen Nederlands als tweede taal NT2			NT2 programma I	NT2 programma II		-
English	Anglia Examinations	Preliminary	Elementary	Intermediate	Advanced	Proficiency	Masters
English	Occupational English Test				200–340	350–440	450–500
English	TrackTest	A1	A2	B1	B2	C1	C2
English	TOELS: Wheebox Test of English Language Skills	11	20	25	30	33
English	International Test of English Proficiency	0–1.9	2–2.4	2.5–3.4	3.5–4.4	4.5–5.4	5.5–6
English	Oxford Test of English		A2	B1	B2
English	ESB		-	-	-	-	-
English	IELTS	1.0–2.5	3.0–3.5	4.0–5.0	5.5–6.5	7.0–8.0	8.5–9.0
English	TOEIC Listening & Reading Test	60–105 60–110	110–270 115–270	275–395 275–380	400–485 385–450	490–495 455–495
English	TOEIC Speaking & Writing Test	50–80 30–60	90–110 70–110	120–150 120–140	160–170 150–170	180–200 180–200
English	CLB (Canadian Language Benchmarks)		3/4	5	6/7	8/9	10–12
English	Versant	26–35	36–46	47–57	58–68	69–78	79–80
English	Speexx Language Assessment Center	10–19	20–29	30–49	50–79	80–89	90–100
English	Duolingo English Test	10–20	25–55	60–85	90–115	120–140	145–160
English	Password English Tests	2.0 – 2.5	3.0 – 3.5	4.0 – 5.0	5.5 – 6.5	7.0 or above
English	TOEFL		10–15 7–12	42–71 4–17 9–16 16–19 13–16	72–94 18–23 17–21 20–24 17–23	95–113 24–28 22–27 25–27 24–28	114–120 29–30 28–30 28–30 29–30
English	TOEFL		337	460	543	627
English	TOEFL Junior Standard		225–245 210–245 210–240	250–285 250–275 245–275	290–300 280–300 280–300
English	EF Standard English Test	1–30	31–40	41–50	51–60	61–70	71–100
English	City and Guilds English examinations	Preliminary	Access	Achiever	Communicator	Expert	Mastery
English	Regulated Qualifications Framework (UK Only)	Entry Level	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Levels 4–6	Level 7–8
English	Cambridge Assessment English		A2 Key	B1 Preliminary	B2 First	C1 Advanced	C2 Proficiency
English	Michigan Language Assessment	MET Go! Basic User	Michigan English Test (MET) / MET Go! Elementary User	Michigan English Test (MET) / MET Go! Intermediate User	ECCE / Michigan English Test (MET)	Michigan English Test (MET)	ECPE
English	WIDA ACCESS – Listening and Reading, Speaking, Writing	A1 Preliminary	A2 Access	B1 Achiever	B2 Communicator	C1 Expert	C2 Mastery
English	LanguageCert International ESOL – Listening, Reading, Writing 6 levels spanning A1 to B2?	? 1.0-	?	? 4.5-5.7	? 5.8-6.0
English	LanguageCert Academic – Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking			B1 Achiever	B2 Communicator	C1 Expert	C2 Mastery
English	LanguageCert General – Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking		A2 Access	B1 Achiever	B2 Communicator	C1 Expert
English	PTE Academic	10–29	30–42	43–58	59–75	76–84	85–90
English	PTE General	Level A1	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5
English	Trinity College London Integrated Skills in English / Graded Examinations in Spoken English	GESE 2	ISE 0 GESE 3, 4	ISE I GESE 5, 6	ISE II GESE 7, 8, 9	ISE III GESE 10, 11	ISE IV GESE 12
English	Learning Resource Network	CEF A1	CEF A2	CEF B1	CEF B2	CEF C1	CEF C2
English	Eiken	5,4,3	Pre-2	2	Pre-1	1
Esperanto		A1	A2	B1	B2	C1	C2
Finnish	YKI	1	2	3	4	5	6
French	CIEP / Alliance française diplomas	TCF A1 / DELF A1	TCF A2 / DELF A2 / CEFP 1	TCF B1 / DELF B1 / CEFP 2	TCF B2 / DELF B2 / Diplôme de Langue	TCF C1 / DALF C1 / DSLCF	TCF C2 / DALF C2 / DHEF
French	CLB/NCLC Canadian Language Benchmarks		3/4	5	6/7	8/9	10–12
French	Speexx Language Assessment Center	10–19	20–29	30–49	50–79	80–89	90–100
Galician	Certificado de lingua galega		CELGA 1	CELGA 2	CELGA 3	CELGA 4	CELGA 5
German	Goethe-Institut	Goethe-Zertifikat A1 Start Deutsch 1	Goethe-Zertifikat A2 Start Deutsch 2	Goethe-Zertifikat B1 Zertifikat Deutsch	Goethe-Zertifikat B2 Zertifikat Deutsch für den Beruf	Goethe-Zertifikat C1 Zentrale Mittelstufenprüfung	Goethe-Zertifikat C2 – Großes Deutsches Sprachdiplom Zentrale Oberstufenprüfung / Kleines Deutsches Sprachdiplom
German	Speexx Language Assessment Center	10–19	20–29	30–49	50–79	80–89	90–100
German	Österreichisches Sprachdiplom Deutsch	A1 ÖSD Zertifikat A1	A2 ÖSD Zertifikat A2	B1 ÖSD Zertifikat Deutsch Österreich ; B1 ÖSD Zertifikat B1	B2 ÖSD Zertifikat B2	C1 ÖSD Zertifikat C1	C2 ÖSD Zertifikat C2 ; C2 ÖSD Zertifikat C2 / Wirtschaftssprache Deutsch
German	Deutsch als Fremdsprache in der Wirtschaft	–	0–246	247–495	496–735	736–897	898–990
German	TestDaF				TDN 3—TDN 4	TDN 4—TDN 5
Greek	Πιστοποίηση Ελληνομάθειας	Α1	Α2	Β1	Β2	Γ1	Γ2
Hebrew	Ulpan	A1.1 Aleph Beginner A1.2 Aleph Advanced	A2 Bet	B1 Gimel	B2 Dalet	C1.1 Hé C1.2 Vav	C2 Native Speaker
Icelandic	Íslenskupróf vegna umsóknar um íslenskan ríkisborgararétt	Pass
Irish	Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge	A1 Bonnleibhéal 1	A2 Bonnleibhéal 2	B1 Meánleibhéal 1	B2 Meánleibhéal 2	C1 Ardleibhéal 1
Italian	CELI	Impatto	1	2	3	4	5
Italian	Roma Tre cert.it	A1-cert.it	A2-cert.it	B1-cert.it	B2-cert.it	C1-cert.it	C2-cert.it
Italian	CILS	A1	A2	Uno	Due	Tre	Quattro / DIT C2
Italian	PLIDA	PLIDA A1	PLIDA A2	PLIDA B1	PLIDA B2	PLIDA C1	PLIDA C2
Japanese	Japanese-Language Proficiency Test	N5 Total Score	N3 Total Score N4 Total Score	N2 Total Score N3 Total Score	N1 Total Score N2 Total Score	N1 Total Score	N/A
Japanese	J-Test	F	E	D	C	Pre-B B Pre-A	A Special A
Japanese	Japan Foundation Test for Basic Japanese		Pass
Japanese	Certificate of Japanese as a Foreign Language	N/A	A2.1 A2.2	B1	B2	C1	C2
Luxembourgish	Institut National des Langues		A2	B1	B2	C1
Norwegian	Norskprøve	A1	A2	B1	B2	C1 – høyere akademisk nivå
Polish	Egzaminy Certyfikatowe z Języka Polskiego jako Obcego			B1	B2		C2
Portuguese	CAPLE	ACESSO	CIPLE	DEPLE	DIPLE	DAPLE	DUPLE
Portuguese	CELPE-Bras	Intermediate	Intermediate	Superior Intermediate	Superior Intermediate	Advanced	Superior Advanced
Russian	ТРКИ – Тест по русскому языку как иностранному (TORFL – Test of Russian as a Foreign Language)	ТЭУ Элементарный уровень	ТБУ Базовый уровень	ТРКИ-1	ТРКИ-2	ТРКИ-3	ТРКИ-4
Romanian	at the	Nivel A1	Nivel A2	Nivel B1	Nivel B2	Nivel C1	Nivel C2 ]
Spanish	DELE	A1	A2	B1	B2	C1	C2
Spanish	Speexx Language Assessment Center	10–19	20–29	30–49	50–79	80–89	90–100
Spanish	LanguageCert USAL esPro BULATS	10–19	20–39	40–59	60–74	75–89	90–100
Swedish	TISUS	–	–	–	–	Pass	–
Swedish	Swedex	–	A2	B1	B2	–	–
Swedish	YKI	1	2	3	4	5	6
Taiwanese	GTPT – General Taiwanese Proficiency Test	151–220	221–290	291–340	341–380	381–430	431–500
Taiwanese	Bân-lâm-gú Gú-giân Lîng-li̍k Jīn-tsìng	A1	A2	B1	B2	C1	C2
Turkish	TYS				B2	C1	C2
Ukrainian	UMI/ULF – Ukrainian as foreign language	UMI 1	UMI 2	UMI 3	UMI 4	UMI 5	UMI 6
Welsh	WJEC Defnyddio'r Gymraeg	Mynediad	Sylfaen	Canolradd	Uwch	–	–

Difficulty in aligning the CEFR with teaching programmes

Language schools and certificate bodies evaluate their equivalences against the framework. Differences in estimation have been found to exist, for example, with the same level on the PTE A, TOEFL, and IELTS, and is a cause of debate between test producers.

Non-Western areas and languages

The CEFR, initially developed to ease human mobility and economic growth within the highly multilingual European Union, has since influenced and been borrowed by various other areas.

Non-Western learners

In Japan, the adoption of CEFR has been encouraged by academics, institutional actors, politicians, business associations, and by learners themselves. Adoption in Malaysia has also been documented. In Vietnam, adoption of the CEFR has been connected to recent changes in English language policy, efforts to reform higher education, orientation toward economic opportunities and a tendency for administrators to look outwards for domestic solutions.
Noriyuki observes the "mechanical" reuse of the European framework and concepts by Japanese teachers of mostly Western languages, missing the recontextualisation part: the need to adapt the conceptual vocabulary to the local language and to adapt the framework to the local public, its language and practices.
Around 2005, the Osaka University of Foreign Studies developed a CEFR-inspired project for its 25 foreign languages, with a transparent and common evaluation approach. While major languages had long had well-defined tools for the Japanese public, able to guide teachers in teaching and performing assessments in a methodic way, this project pushed the adoption of similar practices to smaller languages, as requested by students.
In late 2006–2010, the Keio University led the ambitious CEFR-inspired Action Oriented Plurilingual Language Learning Project to favour multi-campus and inter-language cooperation in creating teaching materials and assessment systems from child to university levels. Since 2015, the "Research on Plurilinguistic and Pluricultural Skill Development in Integrated Foreign Language Education" has followed up.

Non-European languages

The framework was translated into Chinese in 2008. In 2011, French sinologist Joël Bellassen suggests the CEFR together with its metalanguage could and should be adapted to distant languages such as Chinese, with the necessity to adapt and extend it with relevant concepts proper to the new language and its learners. Various efforts on adaptation to Chinese have been made. In 2018, Italian linguist Annamaria Ventura proposed an A0 level for Arabic language taking into consideration diglossia in Arabic, introducing the concept of diglossic switching.

Companion Volume

The CEFR Companion Volume is an extension and update of the original CEFR. It provides new and extended illustrative descriptors covering a wider range of communicative activities, including online interaction, mediation, plurilingual/pluricultural competence, and sign language competencies. It also introduces various communicative language activities and strategies. Additionally, existing descriptors have been refined to more accurately reflect the nuances of language use and to address any identified gaps since the original CEFR publication. The Companion Volume also emphasizes inclusivity, and includes descriptors for online interaction. The Council of Europe gave the new version of the CEFR the title "Companion Volume", as it quotes central passages from the original CEFR and explains them. At the same time, it redefines the underlying construct.

"Mediation"

In the 2001 edition, "mediation" meant translating, interpreting, summarizing, reporting, etc. As such, it had become part of the foreign language curricula of secondary schools in Germany, Austria and other European states. In the CEFR-CV, however, mediation now refers to processes employed by multiple language users when jointly constructing meaning.
A distinction is made between "Cognitive Mediation" and "Relational Mediation". The scales on Cognitive Mediation describe the process of facilitating access to knowledge and concepts. In contrast, the scales under Relational Mediation focus on the processes of establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships to create a cooperative environment.

No native speaker standards

Unlike in 2001, all references to a native speaker standard have disappeared in the CEFR-CV. In the 2001 edition, the use of 'native speaker' sometimes led to misunderstandings. In the CEFR-CV, pronunciation at C2, for example, is described as follows:

Can employ the full range of phonological features in the target language with a high level of control – including prosodic features such as word and sentence stress, rhythm and intonation – so that the finer points of their message are clear and precise. Intelligibility and effective conveyance and enhancement of meaning are not affected in any way by features of accent that may be retained from other language.

Descriptor scales

The CEFR's 54 descriptor scales had been reduced to a single scale, i.e. the "Global Scale". This misunderstanding is documented by the use of a six-step staircase to illustrate the competence model suggested by the CEFR. In the CEFR-CV, the descriptor scales are intended to describe context-specific, differentiated competence profiles.

Works cited

Literature

Alderson, J. C., Figueras, N., Kuijper, H., Nold, G. Takala, S., Tardieu, C. : The development of specifications for item development and classification within The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment: Reading and Listening: Final report of The Dutch CEF Construct Project. Lancaster University.
Council of Europe : A Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Strasbourg. Deutsch: Goethe-Institut, et al. : Gemeinsamer europäischer Referenzrahmen für Sprachen: Lernen, lehren, beurteilen. Munich, Berlin. J. Trim, B. North, D. Coste, J. Sheils. Translated by J. Quetz, et al.
Debray, C.; Spencer-Oatey; H. : Co-constructing good relations through troubles talk in diverse teams. Journal of Pragmatics, 85–97.
Vogt, K. and Quetz, J. : Der neue Begleitband zum Gemeinsamen europäischen Referenzrahmen für Sprachen. Berlin, Germany.