DEVELOPING CEFR ILLUSTRATIVE DESCRIPTORS OF ASPECTS OF MEDIATION

Abstract

This article reports on a project commissioned and coordinated by the Council of Europe to develop descriptors for the category ‘Mediation’ in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Mediation is the fourth communicative language activity presented in CEFR Chapter 4, complementing reception, interaction and production. Descriptors for mediation had not been developed in the 1993–6 Swiss National Research Project that produced the original set of illustrative descriptors for the CEFR. The work took place in the context of a wider 2013–6 project to provide an extended set of CEFR illustrative descriptors. The article describes the way in which the approach taken to mediation in the project is broader than the one taken in the presentation of mediation in the CEFR text in 2001. In addition to information transfer (conveying received information) the new scheme also embraces the construction of meaning and relational mediation: the process of establishing and managing interpersonal relationships in order to create a positive, collaborative environment. Descriptors were also developed for other, related, areas. The article briefly summarises the three phases of validation to which the draft descriptors were subjected before being calibrated to the mathematic scale underlying the CEFR’s levels and descriptors.