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SUMMARY:The English Profile (2): Identifying criterial features in learner
  languages - Henriëtte Hendriks\, University of Cambridge\, RCEAL
DTSTART:20091123T170000Z
DTEND:20091123T183000Z
UID:TALK19569@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Ewa Illakowicz
DESCRIPTION:Since 2001 the Common European Framework of Reference for Lang
 uages: learning\, teaching and assessment (CEFR) has been disseminated wid
 ely and has been translated into approximately 30 languages. It has now be
 come a common reference instrument for organising language teaching and ce
 rtification in many member states of the Council of Europe and there is al
 so growing interest in many other parts of the world. \nHowever\, immediat
 ely after its publication there was criticism of the CEFR with regard to i
 ts empirical basis\; the validity and psychological reality of the profici
 ency levels\; and the cross-linguistic alignment of proficiency levels. Th
 e English Profile Programme\, which started in 2005\, provides a scientifi
 cally underpinned reaction to such comments. Its main goal is to gain a mo
 re refined understanding of English proficiency levels which are described
  in the CEFR in terms of general “can-do” statements. It is a long-ter
 m endeavour to develop and refine Reference Level Descriptions for English
  covering all six levels of the CEFR from A1 to C2\, in line with the Coun
 cil of Europe’s recommendations.\nIn this paper we propose to give some 
 information about the research topics studied by the researchers within th
 e RCEAL strand. In particular we will focus on the projects using data fro
 m the Cambridge Learner Corpus to look for criterial features in the writt
 en language of L2 learners from a wide variety of backgrounds (L1s and cou
 ntries of origin). Results have been gathered over the last few years in t
 he domains of morphology (tense marking\, marking the progressive\, use of
  articles)\, syntax (word order and complexity)\, and\, at a different lev
 el of language\, semantics (choice of verbs versus satellites to mark chan
 ge of location)\, pragmatics and discourse phenomena (appropriate use of p
 ersonal pronouns to track reference\, etc.) and will form the main constit
 uent of this talk.\n
LOCATION:Faculty of Education\, 184 Hills Road\, Cambridge  Room GS5
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