Presentation

Developing Phonology Descriptors for the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR)

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Abstract

While pronunciation is the object of an increasing number of studies, the translation of this growing body of research into teacher-oriented resources is still at its initial stages (Derwing & Munro, 2015). Often still playing de facto a gatekeeping role in society, the importance of phonological competence is being more and more recognized, with explicit instruction increasingly appearing in the L2 classroom, and a focus on thedefinitionof valid assessment criteriafor pronunciation proficiency. However, there is still a lack of validated, concrete descriptorsto support practitionersand learnersalike. Although the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR, 2001) presents a solid conceptualization of phonological competence, this did not aptly translate into the existing scale for Phonological control. In the context of a Council of Europe’s project to update the CEFR descriptors, a new analytic scale was developed to replace the existing holistic one. This article reports on the methodology used for developing and validating the descriptors for Overall phonological control, Sound articulation, and Prosodic features. The rationale behind the scale is discussed together with the complex relationship between language proficiency and phonological competence, in the light of the notion of intelligibility.

How to Cite:

Piccardo, E. & North, B., (2016) “Developing Phonology Descriptors for the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR)”, Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Proceedings 8(1).