Reference Level Descriptions (RLD) for national and regional languages

Some of the instruments produced within the Council of Europe have played a decisive role in the teaching of so-called “foreign” languages by promoting methodological innovations and new approaches to designing teaching programmes. They have facilitated a fresh approach to communicating these teaching methods in a manner potentially more conducive to operational appropriation of unknown languages and therefore to “freedom of movement of persons and ideas”. Accordingly, from around the mid-1970s onwards, specialists worked out an operational model for abilities which specific groups of learners (tourists, businesspersons, migrants, etc) require for using a language for independent communication in a country in which this language is the everyday medium for communication. By thus identifying these groups’ language needs they were able to pinpoint the knowledge and know-how required for attaining this communication “threshold”.

Brief background

· Instruments for language description: the concept of threshold level
· Compilation of Introductions and Prefaces to the series of level descriptions
· Beyond the ‘threshold level’

From ‘threshold levels’ to Reference Level Descriptions (RLD)

· The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR): an instrument for plurilingual education
· Reference Level Descriptions (RLDs) for national and regional languages
· Relationship between Council of Europe reference instruments for language teaching/learning

Current Developments

List of Reference Level Descriptions (finalised or currently being developed)
Compilation of Introductions and Prefaces to the series of level descriptions

Guide for the production of RLD. Plus...