The Impact of the CEFR on Teaching and Testing English in the Local Context

Abstract

The paper presents communicative language teaching and testing in Slovakia. In the late 1990s, Slovakia as many other Central and Eastern European countries being involved in piloting the first draft of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment (2001) started the reform of the school-leaving examination to change the traditional approach of testing structural aspects of foreign languages. The reform was induced by foreign language teachers who were not satisfied with the imbalance between teaching and testing as using books published in Great Britain changed their attitude to teaching. Based on a long-term study, the author of the article will discuss problematic issues concerning the changes in teaching and testing, focusing on the impact of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and its model of language use. The article underlines the importance of being familiar with CEFR descriptors and illustrative samples in order to implement the CEFR effectively. The study reveals the extent to which the CEFR has generated change and how the framework might be further exploited to improve the effectiveness of teaching and testing English.