Hellenic Republic
Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs
Institute of Educational Policy
In collaboration with
the Research Centre for Language Teaching, Testing and Assessment, University of Athens
FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND
TESTING IN COMPULSORY EDUCATION
Dr Androniki Charitonidou
Counselor of French Language, Institute of Educational Policy
New curricula & new ways of testing
FL competences
ΕΠΣ-ξγ & ΚΠγ
Previous state at a glance…
• Common interdisciplinary framework for the teaching and learning of all
disciplines taught in the Greek educational system
• A separate syllabus for each foreign language (objectives, themes, indicative
activities, interdisciplinary projects, methodological approach)
Examination guidelines for the secondary school
• reading comprehension : 4 questions or exercices on a text taught
• grammar-syntax : 4 exercices
For the second and third year of the secondary school, also dictation based on a text taught
test example (source : https://e-didaskalia.blogspot.gr/2014/05/blog-post_3177.html)
Reading comprehension
Grammar
School year 2016-2017
Two new curricula have been introduced :
• An EYL (English for Young Learners) curriculum, designed to familiarize first and second
grade school pupils with the language (One teaching hour a week for a programme of
creative, fun activities, games, songs+rhymes, stories)
•
The Integrated Foreign Language Curriculum (IFLC) for all the
foreign languages included in the school curriculum
(Three hours a week for the first foreign language (from the 3rd grade of primary school)
(Two hours a week for the second foreign language (from the 5th grade of primary school)
(http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr/xenesglossesedu/)
Source :
Bessie Dendrinos, Professor Emerita, Director of the teams for curriculum design and development, President of the KPG Examination Board
What has changed in relation to the examination/tests ?
Linked to the IFLC, the following changes have been introduced:
1. Internal evaluation with new type of tests assessing:
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Reading comprehension and language awareness
Listening comprehension (new component)
Writing (new component)
Cross linguistic mediation (new component)
2. External evaluation
with national exams based on a multilingual foreign language testing suite leading to
the state certificate for language proficiency (known with the Greek acronym KPG).
Source : Bessie Dendrinos
About the new curriculum (ICFL)
The ICFL was developed as a component of the new National School Curriculum
designed at the the Institute of Educational Policy, by a team of experts commissioned
by the Greek ministry of education in 2010
It was developed by an expert team at the RCeL (University of Athens) and completed
in 2013
The initial version of the IFLC was piloted for two years in 160 schools in the country.
The ICFL document:
• defines
the language performance goals, to be achieved at key learning stages
equivalent to the CEFR proficiency levels, in school.
• determines
the content of the foreign language course(s) included in the school
curriculum.
Source : Bessie Dendrinos
About the new curriculum (ICFL)
Curriculum design entailed systematic efforts by the expert team to specify
• levelled descriptors of language use in different situational contexts
• fine-grained linguistic descriptors
The starting point for the new curriculum was the KPG examination suite specifications, and
the levelled descriptors, organized in terms of communicative language activities
- Reading comprehension
- Listening comprehension
- Written production and interaction
- Oral production and interaction
- Written mediation
- Oral mediation
Source : Bessie Dendrinos
About the new curriculum (ICFL)
With the ICFL it is the first time in the Greek educational system that all the foreign languages offered in
school are treated as a single discipline, with a coherent structure and common aims.
There is also an attempt to decouple the foreign language programme from the organization of the rest of the
school curriculum in grades linked to school years
The ICFL database is organized in terms of the 6-level scale of language
proficiency (CEFR) and currently includes the following five language
components:
1) The Can-do statements that specify what the learner is expected to do using
the language, at different levels;
2) The language functions that the learner is expected to perform, at different
levels;
3) The grammar (grammatical patterns) that the learner is expected to produce
and comprehend at different levels;
4) The lexis (lexical units) that the learner is expected to produce and
comprehend at different levels;
5) The text types that the learner is expected to produce and comprehend,
when communicating in the target language, at different levels.
Source : Bessie Dendrinos
The level scale of language proficiency in the ICFL
1st foreign language
2nd foreign language
Primary school
Primary school
year 3
A1-
year 4
A1
year 5
A1+
year 5
A1-
year 6
A2-
year 6
A1-
Secondary school
Source : ICFL
Secondary school
1st year
A1-/B1-
1st year
A1-
2nd year
B1-/B1+
2nd year
A1
3rd year
B1+/B2-
3rd year
A1+
The language components in the ICFL
A1 level
Can-do statements
ex. « Can comprehend and produce phrases in simple structure
using everyday words and expressions »
Language functions
ex. « give/ask information», «identify», etc.
Grammar
the article, the noun, the adjective, etc.
Lexical units
person, physical characteristics, gender, age, etc.
Text type
correspondence with friends/family, sms, email, commercials, etc.
Source : ICFL
Examination guidelines for the secondary school
in relation to the ICFL
For the Level Α1 (Α1-/Α1/Α1+) - brief introduction…
Α) Reading comprehension and language awareness
As in the previous examination system, we have 4 activities :
aa) 2 activities of reading comprehension, based on untaught texts. Each activity consists of 5
questions of « multiple choice » format.
ab) 1 activity of language awareness (examining the vocabulary competence) with consists of 5
questions of « multiple choice » format.
ac) 1 activity of language awareness (examining the grammar competence) with consists of 5
questions of « filling the gap » format.
Β) Listening comprehension :
2 activities on untaught aural texts, whose duration should not exceed 1-2 mn. One of them
consists of 5 questions of « multiple choice » format and the other of 5 questions of « filling the
gap » format.
Γ) Written production :
2 activities. One activity of completing short texts (1-5 texts) and one activity of writing a short text.
Source : Official guidelines for the evaluation
Tests for internal evaluation of language competences based on new specifications
(in Greek). Sample tests: http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr/xenesglosses/themata/index.html Source : Bessie Dendrinos
About the new curriculum (ICFL)
For more information about the development of the multilingual
curriculum introduced in Greek compulsory education see:
Setting standards for multilingual frameworks in foreign language
education (co-authored with V. Gotsoulia). In B. Spolsky, O. Inbar & M.
Tannenbaum (eds.) Challenges for Language Education and Policy. Making
Space for People. Routledge, 2015.
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https://www.dropbox.com/s/ymbfa3u95fh0qxo/IFLC.pdf?dl=0
Source : Bessie Dendrinos
Information on the KPG exams
http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr/kpg
Source : Bessie Dendrinos
Danke
Merci
Ευχαριστώ
köszönöm
спасибо
Thank you
Grazie