EPOS – the European e-portfolio of languages
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Bärbel Kühn
Bärbel Kühn is chair of the
Sprachenrat Bremen ( Bremen Language Council), and together with Jürgen Friedrich coordinator of the EPOS Association. She is coordinator of the Training and Consultancy activity of theEuropean Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe (ECML) Supporting local networks of e-Portfolios . Together with Maria Luisa Pérez Cavana she editedPerspectives from the European Language Portfolio. Learner Autonomy and self Assessment , London: Routledge 2012. Until her retirement in 2015 she was head of the Language Centre of the four public universities of Bremen(FZHB) .
Abstract
Democratic principles and human rights, the core values of the Council of Europe, informed the development of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR; Council of Europe 2001. Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Framework_EN.pdf (accessed 20 January 2016)) and the European Language Portfolio (ELP) with its focus on learner autonomy. In Bremen, the smallest federal state of Germany, the validated ELP for the school sector shared the destiny of other ELP models: long-term implementation failed. However, a different fate awaited the electronic version, EPOS, developed not only for the school sector, but for the 20 institutional members of the Sprachenrat Bremen, the Language Council of Bremen. The cooperation of the Language Centre of the four public universities of Bremen with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bremen was and still is a crucial factor for the development of EPOS, the “Elektronisches Europäisches Portfolio der Sprachen” (Electronic European Language Portfolio). Today, EPOS is supported by the EPOS Association. This article gives three examples of how EPOS is used in member institutions of the association in Germany and the UK and concludes by explaining how EPOS might collaborate with two projects of the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) in Graz, FREPA/CARAP (Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches) and EPOSTL (European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages).
About the author
Bärbel Kühn is chair of the Sprachenrat Bremen (Bremen Language Council), and together with Jürgen Friedrich coordinator of the EPOS Association. She is coordinator of the Training and Consultancy activity of the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe (ECML) Supporting local networks of e-Portfolios. Together with Maria Luisa Pérez Cavana she edited Perspectives from the European Language Portfolio. Learner Autonomy and self Assessment, London: Routledge 2012. Until her retirement in 2015 she was head of the Language Centre of the four public universities of Bremen (FZHB).
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©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Fostering engagement with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and the European Language Portfolio: Learning from good practice in university language centres
- The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the European Language Portfolio, and language teaching/learning at university: An argument and some proposals
- Aligning ESP courses with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
- Implementing CEFR principles in introductory Norwegian language courses for international students: Opportunities and challenges
- EPOS – the European e-portfolio of languages
- Translating language policy into practice: Language and culture policy at a Dutch university
- The ELP through time: Background motivation, growing experience, current beliefs
- Using the ELP as a basis for self- and peer assessment when selecting “best” work in modern-language degree programmes
- Biografische Methoden der Kompetenzanalyse für die Reflexion von Sprachkompetenz–Portfolioarbeit in der Praxis
- Creating task-based oral foreign language exams linked to the CEFR in higher education
- From the learning diary to the ELP: An e-portfolio for autonomous language learning
- The classroom and beyond: Creating a learning environment to support learners of Japanese at CEFR levels A2.2 towards B1
- Access granted: Modern languages and issues of accessibility at university – a case study from Australia
- The role of second language in higher education: A case study of German students at a Dutch university
- Plurilingual proficiency as a learning objective for a multilingual curriculum in the study of business in Finland
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Fostering engagement with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and the European Language Portfolio: Learning from good practice in university language centres
- The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the European Language Portfolio, and language teaching/learning at university: An argument and some proposals
- Aligning ESP courses with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
- Implementing CEFR principles in introductory Norwegian language courses for international students: Opportunities and challenges
- EPOS – the European e-portfolio of languages
- Translating language policy into practice: Language and culture policy at a Dutch university
- The ELP through time: Background motivation, growing experience, current beliefs
- Using the ELP as a basis for self- and peer assessment when selecting “best” work in modern-language degree programmes
- Biografische Methoden der Kompetenzanalyse für die Reflexion von Sprachkompetenz–Portfolioarbeit in der Praxis
- Creating task-based oral foreign language exams linked to the CEFR in higher education
- From the learning diary to the ELP: An e-portfolio for autonomous language learning
- The classroom and beyond: Creating a learning environment to support learners of Japanese at CEFR levels A2.2 towards B1
- Access granted: Modern languages and issues of accessibility at university – a case study from Australia
- The role of second language in higher education: A case study of German students at a Dutch university
- Plurilingual proficiency as a learning objective for a multilingual curriculum in the study of business in Finland
