This workshop targets practitioners who wish to intervene and improve current practices following core concepts and philosophy of the CEFR and using various scaled descriptors of the CEFR but have not initiated action. The workshop begins with the talk by Dr. Neus Figueras, who is a co-author and co-editor of recent books, Aligning language education with the CEFR: A handbook (to appear) and Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Towards a Road Map for Future Research and Development by Multilingual Matters (2021) and then discusses participants concerns about their practices in small groups.
Workshop schedule
15:00 Welcome, Introduction to the project and the tools
15:10 Talk by Neus Figueras
15:55 Q&A
16:10 Themed Discussion
Summary of each group discussion
Comments, Q & A
17:30 Closing
The workshop addresses the needs of practitioners with some and with little knowledge of the CEFR.
Dr. Neus Figueras started her career in 1981 as a teacher of English and was seconded in 1996 to the Catalan Ministry of Education, Spain, where she coordinated the development of foreign language curricula and certificate examinations for adult learners for over 20 years.
She has been involved in a number of international research and development projects related to assessment at different education levels (Dialang, Speakeasy, Ceftrain, Dutch CEFR construct project, EBAFLS) and has given courses and presented in universities in Spain, in various European countries, in Asia and in the USA. She has carried out consultancy work in assessment (University of Bilkent, Turkey; BIFIE -Centre for Assessment and Innovation-, Austria; University of Saint Petersburg, Russia, Quiyas, Saudi Arabia, British Council, UK., Trinity College London, UK).and in curriculum design (U.N. New York and Geneva).
She collaborates regularly with the Council of Europe in the uses and the dissemination of the CEFR in language testing and assessment and is one of the authors of the Manual for Relating examinations to the CEFR (Council of Europe, 2009).
She is a founding member of EALTA (European Association for Language Testing and Assessment, www.ealta.eu.org), and was the first President (2004-7) of the Association. She is currently the coordinator of the EALTA CEFR SIG.
