Using CEFR level descriptors to raise university students’ awareness of their speaking skills

Abstract

The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) aims to encourage language learners to think about what they do when communicating, and to think about what they can do to help themselves and others to learn a language better. This paper considers to what extent the CEFR supports language learning by looking at how a group of learners, in the course of a term, used parts of the Common Reference Levels (CRLs) of the CEFR for self-assessment. The paper discusses the extent to which the CRL helped to raise the learners’ awareness of their language use and learning, and looks in detail at how the learners described their speaking skills and how their use of CRL statements and their perceptions of self-assessment changed during the term. Findings show that the students used CRL statements to write longer, more relevant, and more detailed and critical descriptions of their speaking skills.

Keywords:

• learner autonomy
• speaking skills
• self-assessment
• Common European Framework