The Committee of Ministers […]

Acknowledging the right to quality language education as an essential part of the fundamental right to education;
[…]

Aware of the growing need to equip all Europeans for the challenges of intensified international mobility and closer co-operation not only in education, culture and science but also in trade, commerce and industry and indeed in all walks of life;
[…]

Recommends that governments of member states […] use every available means in accordance with their constitution, their national, regional or local circumstances and their education system to implement the measures […] with respect to the development of their language education policies.

 

National, regional and local education authorities are invited to […]

  • create and/or maintain conditions favourable to the use of the CEFR as a tool for coherent, transparent and effective plurilingual […] and as a basic reference tool to:
    • promote and facilitate co-operation among educational institutions within and between member states;
    • provide a sound basis for the mutual recognition of foreign/second language qualifications;
    • provide guidance for the diversification of language learning within educational systems in order to maintain and develop plurilingualism among citizens of Europe as a means of knowledge building and skills development, with a view to enhancing social cohesion and intercultural understanding;
    • encourage learners, teachers, teacher trainers, course designers, textbook authors, curriculum developers, examining bodies and education administrators to:
  • adopt a learner-focused, action-oriented, competence-based approach;
  • take into consideration the social and cultural dimensions of language learning;
  • consider and treat each language in the curriculum not in isolation but as part of a coherent plurilingual education;
  • take into consideration, in their analysis, the specific needs of the different groups of learners and of the general needs of modern European societies;
  • situate their efforts concerning language teaching in relation to the CEFR in a transparent way;
  • promote the use of the European Language Portfolio (ELP), which is based on the CEFR.