European Language Portfolio III

This project is based on the results of a survey of teachers at upper secondary schools, which was carried out by the General Secretariat of the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK). The results revealed a need to couple new methodological approaches in foreign language teaching – and the corresponding instruments – with teaching literature. This issue is of particular relevance in upper secondary schools, where language learning is embedded in a literary-cultural context. While tools such as the European Language Portfolio offer practical help when using new teaching methods, they have had no tangible link to literary studies to date.

The project’s overarching aim was to develop an additional element for the online version of the European Language Portfolio (ELP) III in the interest of promoting Switzerland’s national languages in the context of teaching literature at upper secondary schools. An innovative instrument was planned to be able to link literary studies with current approaches such as skills-oriented teaching, (learning) strategies, (cross-)cultural competence and self-evaluation. Work was based on a broad understanding of “literature”, which includes fiction as well as other written texts, film and other media. The instrument was to enable learning a Swiss national language to be closely associated with (cross-)cultural aspects of the language area concerned. The additional element was to be integrated in the online version of ELP III and therefore readily available to teachers and students throughout Switzerland. By combining existing checklists/descriptors with new descriptors and the related exemplary tasks (good practices), selected aspects of an individual’s language biography and their dossier would be supplemented or enhanced.