Cambridge ESOL exams and the CEFR
Testing Cycles and Manual Linking Stages
The Cambridge ESOL Testing Cycle and the draft Manual for relating exams to the Common European Framework of Reference
The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) was published by the Council of Europe in 2001 as a common basis for the description and elaboration of learning, teaching and assessment. It has within a short period of time become highly influential in Europe and beyond.
As a result, many language testers now seek to align their exams to the CEFR. The Council of Europe has attempted to facilitate this by providing a “toolkit” of resources, including a draft pilot Manual for relating language examinations to the CEFR, a technical reference supplement to this and exemplar materials illustrating the CEFR levels (Council of Europe 2003, 2004). Cambridge ESOL is one of many language testers to have piloted the Manual, and in December 2007 hosted a seminar in Cambridge on behalf of the Council of Europe where many of these case studies were reported, and experiences and recommendations shared.
One issue to emerge from the above seminar was the following: what kind of evidence is relevant to demonstrating alignment, and how can it be collected? The Manual envisages a specific alignment project being organised, possibly on a one-off basis: participants are trained to carry out a set of activities, and reports are generated which constitute the evidential outcomes. However, from Cambridge ESOL’s viewpoint the alignment of tests to the CEFR, being a key aspect of their validity, should not be seen as a one-off exercise, but rather as integrated into every stage of the design and administration cycle.
Read more about the Cambridge ESOL test development cycle, where we explain the relationship between these two approaches, seeing how we can build an argument based on the high quality of our existing processes, while generating evidence in line with the aims of the Manual. Bringing explicit CEFR reference into Cambridge ESOL’s current processes and documentation is work in progress, coordinated for practical purposes with revisions and updates. However, the close developmental links between Cambridge ESOL levels and the CEFR (see Taylor & Jones, 2006) already attest to a clear connection.
Further information
