THE ‘R` IN CEFR SHOULD REMIND US OF READING

​Israel has embarked on an ambitious effort to raise the level of English teaching and of students’ English proficiency attainment. One tool in this effort is the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The CEFR is probably the world’s most widely used set of standards and concepts for teaching and assessing foreign languages. By adopting this framework for English education, Israel will be able to integrate the teaching of English throughout all levels and across all institutions in the Israeli educational system. It will also be able to coordinate English education in Israel with English education in the rest of the world. These will be positive developments that will help further Israel’s goals of improving students’ English language skills.

One of the many advantages of using CEFR is that it takes a very broad view of language development and language competence. It can support a wide array of language teaching syllabi, activities, lessons, and goals, all of which support language development by advancing different aspects of language proficiency. CEFR addresses different modes of communication such as reception, production, and interaction and a wide range of activities, strategies, or competencies such as pragmatic competence, audio-visual comprehension, strategies to explain new concepts or simplify a text, online interaction, and reading comprehension.

One competency that I fear does not get sufficient attention in second language instruction is reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is part of CEFR, one of 16 identified activities, strategies, or competencies. So my first goal is to call it to your attention: Know that reading comprehension is part of CEFR and be sure to include it in your curriculum and instruction!

But my second, and perhaps more challenging, goal is to point out the precursors to reading comprehension. These are skills that are necessary, even if not in and of themselves sufficient, for developing high level reading comprehension skills. You might be less aware of these, and CEFR is not very helpful. We all know, for example, that vocabulary is critical for reading comprehension; so too is understanding English syntax. Depending on genre, understanding colloquialisms or regionalisms are important.

But facility with foundational reading skills such as word recognition and reading fluency are also essential. Without them, bottlenecks develop that block reading comprehension at all language proficiency levels. CEFR is essentially silent on these, as far as I can tell.

In this presentation I will outline the reading comprehension development trajectory contained in the CEFR (from pre-A1 to C2), identify foundational skills necessary for attaining the competencies, and suggest some strategies for helping students acquire those skills in order to help facilitate their skilled reading comprehension.