Search results for "CEFR"

Comparing the outcomes of two different approaches to CEFR-based rating of students’ writing performances across two European countries

2018

This study investigated to what extent two teams of experienced raters from different European countries (Finland and Austria), using their own CEFR-based rating scale (one holistic and one analytic), agreed on the CEFR level of students’ writing performances. Both teams rated one hundred performances written by Austrian secondary school students based on two tasks. The Finnish raters (N = 3) applied a holistic CEFR-linked rating scale consisting of verbatim CEFR descriptors developed in Finland, while the Austrian team (N = 6) used an analytic CEFR-linked rating scale consisting of four criteria developed in Austria. The ratings were analysed using the Rasch model. Although there were indi…

Second language comprehensibility and accentedness across oral proficiency levels : A comparison of two L1s

2021

Second language comprehensibility and accentedness are highly complex phenomena, and numerous studies have been conducted to better understand these constructs. However, research has seldom addressed L2 comprehensibility and accentedness in relation to speakers' proficiency in the target language. This study explores L2 English comprehensibility and accentedness across three proficiency levels. The speakers were 60 teenaged Finns, half of them speaking Finnish as their L1 and half speaking Finland-Swedish as their L1. Using 20-s speech samples, the comprehensibility and accentedness of the speakers were rated by 34 English-speaking teenagers on a 9-point scale. Comparisons were made regardi…

Use your languages! : From monolingual to multilingual interaction in a language class

2015

This reflective paper presents a new course concept for multilingual interaction, which was piloted at the University of Jyväskylä Language Centre in the spring of 2014. The course, implemented as part of the centre’s action research, is the result of a development process aimed at enhancing students’ multilingual and multicultural academic communication competences along with promoting use of their entire linguistic repertoire. The course concept was inspired by the EU project Modularising Multilingual and Multicultural Academic Communication Competence (MAGICC), whose main intent is “to integrate multilingual and multicultural academic communication competences as graduate learning outcom…

The European sTANDEM project for certification in medical English: standards, acceptability and transgression(s)

2014

In the global world of international communication, employers or institutions that wish to determine the language skills of non-native speakers of English usually turn to generalist proficiency tests such as the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or the slightly more business-oriented TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication). These tests enable test takers to certify that they have reached a certain level in skills needed in everyday life and, sometimes, workplace situations, but they do not assess language skills for specific purposes.Aware of this vacuum, a consortium of European teachers/researchers and international experts in the domain of medical English unde…

Communicative english language skills improvement programme (CELSIP). Vol. 2

2019

The digital revolution of the recent years has led to new ways of learning through combining innovative and traditional methods. In order to engage our students in this new methods, we have designed a project called “Communicative English Language Skills Improvement Program” (CELSIP) so our learners will be able to achieve a higher communicative level in English through a wide range of multimedia resources as, for instance, audio-books, learning apps, educational websites, TV series, films, board games, and music. These multimodal tools are of easy access to students since the vast majority are friendly-user. Our duty through this project was to select the most useful ones for all kind of l…

Does spoken language proficiency reflect foreign accent and ease of understanding?

2021

Communicative english language skills improvement programme (CELSIP). Vol. 1

2018

The digital revolution of the recent years has led to new ways of learning through combining innovative and traditional methods. In order to engage our students in this new methods, we have designed a project called “Communicative English Language Skills Improvement Program” (CELSIP) so our learners will be able to achieve a higher communicative level in English through a wide range of multimedia resources as, for instance, audio-books, learning apps, educational websites, TV series, films, board games, and music. These multimodal tools are of easy access to students since the vast majority are friendly-user. Our duty through this project was to select the most useful ones for all kind of l…