Curricula and Evaluation
The Council of Europe has put together a number of tools to support the creation of curricula and the introduction of evaluations. The curriculum, as a learning support tool, offers a number of experiences to learners and a variety of evaluation systems.
The former guarantee that all students have access to high quality education that is appropriate to their needs. Evaluation contributes to that education by verifying that the objectives set are reached and that actual progress is being made. It also allows for the introduction of appropriate support measures, whenever necessary. The reflective dimension of learning experiences and evaluation systems encourage learner empowerment.
Reference texts
Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education (2016)
Jean-Claude Beacco, Michael Byram, Marisa Cavalli, Daniel Coste, Mirjam Egli Cuenat, Francis Goullier, Johanna Panthier. ISBN 978-92-871-8234-0
With two satellite studies [see below: A curriculum perspective on plurilingual education and Assessment in Plurilingual and Intercultural Education]
General Presentation of the Guide (Language Policy Portal)
Overview
This Guide text comprises three chapters. The first provides a general picture of the issues and principles involved in designing and/or improving curricula, and of pedagogical and didactic approaches which open the way to fuller realisation of the general aim of plurilingual and intercultural education. The next two chapters look more closely at two basic questions raised in the first: How can the specific content and aims of plurilingual and intercultural education be identified and integrated within the curriculum, while also respecting the specific content and aims of teaching individual languages? How can curriculum scenarios be used to project the spacing-out in time of this content and these objectives? Finally, several appendices provide tools and reference lists. All of this can also be supplemented by consulting the ancillary documents available on the above-mentioned platform.
Main chapters
- 1. Curriculum, competences, and plurilingual and intercultural education
- 2. Designing curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education
- 3. Elements for curriculum scenarios geared to plurilingual and intercultural education
Download the Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education (2016). ISBN 978-92-871-8234-0
Download the French version of the "Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education (Guide pour le développement et la mise en œuvre de curriculums pour une éducation plurilingue et interculturelle (2016)). ISBN 978-92871-8233-3
Download the Italian version of the "Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education" (Guida per lo sviluppo e l’attuazione di curricoli per una educazione plurilingue e interculturale -2016)
Download the Slovak version of the "Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education" (Príručka pre tvorbu a implementáciu plurilingválnych a interkultúrnych kurikúl - 2013) (translation of the 1st version 2010)
Executive version of the Guide (2010 version)
French version of the 'Executive Guide' (Résumé de la version 2010)
The Aims of Language Teaching and Learning (2010)
Mike Fleming
Download the text The Aims of Language Teaching and Learning
Download the French version of the text "The Aims of Language Teaching and Learning" (Les objectifs de l’enseignement et de l’apprentissage des langues)
Overview
The Languages in and for Education project has at its centre a commitment to an integrated approach to language teaching and learning. This means that in a school context all teachers, whether of the language of schooling taught as subject, second/foreign languages or other curriculum subjects, have a vested interest in and a responsibility for the pupils’ development of language competence. This paper discusses the aims of language as subject and foreign language teaching, and considers aims as they relate to the teaching in/of minority languages and language in other subjects, stressing the need to identify common goals.
A curriculum perspective on plurilingual education (2008)
Jan van den Akker, Daniela Fasoglio, Hetty Mulder
Satellite study of the Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education
Download the study A curriculum perspective on plurilingual education
Download the French version of the study "A curriculum perspective on plurilingual education" (Perspectives curriculaires sur l’éducation plurilingue)
Overview
A guide for the elaboration of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education cannot do without an introduction on the notion of curriculum. The authors of this study are convinced that a curricular perspective has a lot to offer, both in a conceptual approach of educational problems as well as in how to address concrete development activities. Their aim here is to ‘re-invent’ a broad curriculum perspective, illustrating the broad curriculum perspectives with applications for language learning and for plurilingual and intercultural education.
Language and school subjects - Linguistic dimensions of knowledge building in school curricula (2010)
Jean-Claude Beacco, Daniel Coste, Piet-Hein van de Ven, Helmut Vollmer
Download the French version of the text "Language and school subjects - Linguistic dimensions of knowledge building in school curricula" (Dimensions linguistiques de la construction des connaissances dans les curriculums)
Download the Italian version: Lingua e discipline scolastiche – Dimensioni linguistiche nella costruzione delle conoscenze nei curricoliduction
Whatever the subject, all knowledge building in the school context involves working with language. The purpose of this text is to suggest a general approach enabling different levels of specification of these language dimensions to be classed in transversal descriptive categories. The aim is to describe the process leading from units for analysis of actual uses to the identification of linguistic forms and mechanisms appropriate to those uses. It is aimed not only at the authors of curricula and textbooks and the designers of tests, but also at teachers, and especially teachers of subjects sometimes quite wrongly described as “non-linguistic”, to draw their attention to the language components of work in their subject. It is also relevant to teacher trainers, particularly those responsible for the teaching of disciplines other than languages taught as a subject.
Related studies available in "Language(s) in other subjects" on this Platform
Reference texts
The use of descriptors in learning, teaching and assessment (2009)
Michael Fleming
Download the text The use of descriptors in learning, teaching and assessment
Download the French version of "The use of descriptors in learning, teaching and assessment" (L'usage de descripteurs dans l'apprentissage, l'enseignement et l'évaluation)
Introduction
The purpose of this section of the platform is to provide an overview of a range of issues related to the use of descriptors, particularly in the languages of schooling, when used either as a focus for assessment or to support teaching and learning. The discussion also provides an introduction to concrete examples of descriptors provided by different countries and regions.
Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Describing achievement in language
- 3. Descriptors as a focus for assessment
- 4. Descriptors as a focus for education as a right
- 5. Terminology
- 6. Developing and using descriptors
- 7. Summary
Languages in and for Education: a role for portfolio approaches? (2010)
Michael Fleming, David Little
Download the text Languages in and for Education: a role for portfolio approaches?
Download the French version of "Languages in and for Education: a role for portfolio approaches?" (Langues dans et pour l’éducation : apports éventuels des « approches portfolios »)
Introduction
The European Language Portfolio (ELP) was introduced as a concept in 1997 and formally launched in 2001. It has been taken up in almost thirty Council of Europe member states and 107 models had been accredited by the spring of 2010. The ELP is concerned with the learning and use of second and foreign languages (L2s), which is just one focus of the Languages in Education/Languages for Education (LE) project. But can the LE project benefit from the pedagogical experience that has accumulated over ten years of ELP implementation?
Assessment in Plurilingual and Intercultural Education (2010)
Peter Lenz, Raphael Berthele
Satellite study of the Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education (in this section)
Download the study Assessment in Plurilingual and Intercultural Education
Download the French version of the study "Assessment in Plurilingual and Intercultural Education" (Prise en compte des compétences plurilingue et interculturelle dans l’évaluation)
Download the Italian version of the study "Assessment in Plurilingual and Intercultural Education" (La valutazione delle competenze plurilingui e interculturali)
Introduction
This satellite to the Guide for the Development and Implementation of Curricula for Plurilingual and Intercultural Education focuses on assessment aspects. First, a brief overview is given of the various aims of assessment in plurilingual and intercultural education. The authors' understanding of assessment is then briefly outlined. Finally, the assessment of selected competences having to do with core aspects of plurilingual and intercultural education is presented and discussed.
Further Language Policy Programme Ressources
Examples of descriptors
Consult section "Language(s) of schooling" on this Platform (Contributions from member states):
Nederlandse Taalunie
Descriptors developed under the auspices of the Nederlandse Taalunie for ISCED Level 0. The objectives are described at three levels – macro (fields), meso (language acts/tasks) and micro (elements).
Norway
Descriptors from the curriculum for Basic Norwegian for language minorities (translated from Norwegian into English) - ISCED 1
European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML)
Towards whole-school language curricula. Examples of practice in schools (2015)
Elisabeth Allgäuer- Hackl, Ute Henning, Joachim Schlabach, Kristin Brogan, Britta Hufeisen
Available also in German: Erste Schritte zur Entwicklung von Gesamtsprachencurricula. Beispiele aus der schulischen Praxis