What is English Profile?
English Profile is a long term, collaborative programme of interdisciplinary research, designed to enhance the learning, teaching and assessment of English worldwide. In collaboration with academics, teachers and education authorities worldwide, English Profile is exploring the way learners of English progress through the levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
Building on existing resources such as the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and the Breakthrough, Waystage, Threshold and Vantage specifications, and the Cambridge Learner Corpus, a multi-disciplinary team is working to produce Reference Level Descriptors for English. These will provide a uniquely detailed and objective analysis of what levels of achievement in language learning actually mean in terms of the grammar, vocabulary and discourse features that learners can be expected to have mastered at each level.
At the heart of the English Profile research programme is the use of learner corpora including the Cambridge Learner Corpus - CLC
The CLC is jointly owned by Cambridge ESOL and Cambridge University Press and contains 27 million words of learner language produced by candidates taking the Cambridge ESOL exams. This means that researchers can investigate the language skills of learners whose level of language skills has already been measured. It also allows researchers to profile the specific issues which affect learners with different first languages.
The Cambridge Learner Corpus is complemented by data which is being collected specifically for English Profile in several countries, and which will enable researchers to work with a larger sample of material from learners with specific linguistic and educational backgrounds.
What is the objective of English Profile?
The overall objective of English Profile is to produce a set of Reference Level Descriptions for English (see the Council of Europe website for more information).
Findings from the English Profile research will be published as they become available, and the research will be presented at conferences around the world.
In the longer term, the project will lead to the production of resources which will be useful to learners, teachers, course designers, and anyone involved in the teaching and learning of English.
What is happening now?
At the moment, three research groups are working on the project:
- Corpus Linguistics - working with computer scientists in Cambridge to investigate the language which learners actually produce at each level
- Pedagogy - focusing on curricula and materials, with particular attention to the higher levels (B2-C2)
- Assessment - focusing on how language skills develop, both in terms of learners knowledge and how they are able to use the language
Two international seminars have already taken place in Cambridge, bringing together academics and government advisors to help shape the agenda for further research and additional research studies are being set up with universities in a number of countries.
English Profile featured prominently at the Association of Language Testers in Europe’s 3rd international conference in Cambridge in April, and further seminars will take place in 2008.
Who is involved in English Profile?
English Profile is a collaborative programme, registered with the Council of Europe.
The organisations which have launched and are managing English Profile are:
University of Cambridge
Cambridge ESOL Examinations www.CambridgeESOL.org
Cambridge University Press (CUP) www.Cambridge.org
Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics (RCEAL) www.rceal.cam.ac.uk/
British Council www.britishcouncil.org
English UK www.englishuk.com
University of Bedfordshire Centre for Research in English Language Learning and Assessment (CRELLA) www.beds.ac.uk/research/bmri/crella
Beyond this core group, a growing number of academics, government advisors and educationalists make up the English Profile network, whose contributions will extend the English Profile research programme, provide additional data for existing projects and help to shape the outcomes of the programme as a whole.
