Development of language competencies through the «Academic and Professional Portfolio»

The implantation of the European Higher Education Area requires a change of methodology from an emphasis on teaching to an emphasis on learning in which the evaluation system acquires a determining relevance. In the area of second language acquisition, Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has established levels of communicative competencies for all the Member States facilitating the student mobility. The Department of Linguistic Policy of the Council of Europe has also developed the European Portfolio of Languages (ELP) to enhance self-evaluation and reflection on the part of the student. It serves two fundamental functions: pedagogical and the informative one. Nevertheless, the existing versions of portfolios do not consider the specific aspects of the use of languages in the university and professional context. For this reason, our research group has developed a specific portfolio for the of Academic and Professional context. This portfolio has been elaborated to determine the linguistic competencies at all the levels of the CEFR. In this article, after a brief description of competencies put forward by the Council of Europe and Bologna, the process of elaboration of the Academic and Professional English Portfolio as an instrument for the evaluation student learning in the context of architecture and engineering students is detailed. This paper also deals with the development of a bank of more than 350 descriptors, arranged by skills, which describe concrete degrees of skill in performing academic and professional language tasks. The competencies range in difficulty from A1 to C2 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL) levels. They describe language learning outcomes in terms of ‘can do statements’, therefore becoming a useful instrument for language learning