Framing the Framework: Four Decades of Change in Language Teaching (and the Long March of ELF)

In this paper I reflect on changes in language use over more than four decades, which have prompted a revised (2018) version of the Common European Framework, the ‘Companion Volume’. The appearance of the Council of Europe’s ‘threshold level’ in 1976, later to take its place as B1 in the six-level CEFR, heralded a new attention to communication for language teaching professionals. The age of audio-lingualism was past, giving way to the communicative revolution, and its attention to ‘real language’, and ‘authentic materials’. In the revised Framework this approach has shifted to reflect changes in lifestyles and technological progress in the new millennium. No longer is the focus on preparing learners to communicate with native speakers, but on plurilingualism and inclusion; the single scale of descriptors for phonology has been replaced by three scales, none of which refer to proximity to a native speaker accent; and, perhaps most significantly, there are completely new scales for online interaction. I shall take a critical look at these changes and their implications for teachers: four decades of change which have provided the backdrop to Carmel’s career at the forefront of language teaching research.