Using error-tagged learner corpora to create English-specific CEF descriptors
(2006) Third Annual Conference of EALTA — Location: Krakow (19.May.2006)
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- Authors
Granger, Sylviane 
- Abstract
- (en) As its name indicates, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001) (CEF) provides 'can-do' proficiency descriptors common to all languages. According to North (2000), the CEF descriptors must be relevant across languages, educational sectors and users. Because of its broad focus, the framework has sometimes been criticised for being too general: "the CEFR is not sufficiently comprehensive, coherent or transparent for uncritical use in language testing" (Weir 2005). To overcome this weakness, languages such as French and German have elaborated language-specific descriptors that focus on formal aspects of the target language (Beacco 2004 for French, Profile Deutsch for German). However, creating language-specific descriptors for the different CEF levels presupposes a high degree of homogeneity among the learners of a particular target language, a presupposition which is not necessarily warranted in view of the importance of L1 transfer in SLA. This question will be investigated in relation to the creation of English-specific descriptors. To assess whether it is possible to create an English-specific framework, we have analyzed a sample of texts from the International Corpus of Learner English (Granger et al 2002), which covers three different learner populations, viz. Italian, Spanish and Czech learners of English, and two proficiency levels: B2 and C1. The texts, which were independently rated and error tagged, will be compared in terms of number and types of errors. The results will allow us to establish the degree of commonality between the learner populations and thereby assess the potential validity of common descriptors for English.
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Citations
Thewissen, J., Bestgen, Y., & Granger, S. (2006). Using error-tagged learner corpora to create English-specific CEF descriptors. Third Annual Conference of EALTA, Krakow. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/231445