CEFR Basics
Name all six CEFR levels in order, from lowest to highest.
Answer: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2
What is a can-do statement?
Answer: A description of what a learner can actually do with the language in a real-life situation
Sort these tasks into writing and speaking: email, interview, report, presentation, essay.
Answer: Writing: email, report, essay. Speaking: interview, presentation.
In the traditional approach, what is taught first?
Answer: Grammar
I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with the wind. What am I?
Answer: An echo
Explanation: An echo "speaks" because it repeats your voice, but it has no mouth. It "hears" because it only answers when it receives a sound, but it has no ears. It has no body because it is only sound waves bouncing back from a surface, such as a mountain or a wall.
A teacher says: "This student knows 500 grammar rules, so he is C1." According to the CEFR, why is this logic wrong?
Answer: CEFR levels are based on what learners can do with the language, not on how many grammar rules they know.
Put these abilities in order from lowest to highest level: (a) develop and defend an argument, (b) understand basic personal information, (c) explain differences and reasons, (d) give simple information.
Answer: b (A1), d (A2), c (B1), a (B2)
candidate speaks fluently with rich vocabulary, but ignores the examiner's follow-up questions and never reacts to the partner's ideas. Which speaking feature loses points?
Answer: Interaction
Name two CLT activities.
Answer: Role play, information gap, "Find someone who…" (any two)
farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 run away. How many sheep are left?
Answer: 9
Explanation: "All but 9" means "all except 9". So 9 sheep stayed and the rest ran away.
Besides A1 to C2, there are "plus" levels. Name two of them.
Answer: A2+, B1+, B2+ (any two)
A learner can describe the differences between two cities and explain the reasons, and can deal with most situations while travelling, but cannot yet defend an argument. Which level is this, and what is the key ability of the next level?
Answer: B1. The next level, B2, can develop and defend an argument.
Name three features checked in writing.
Answer: Organisation, vocabulary, coherence
What is language acquisition?
Answer: Learning naturally by listening, seeing and imitating real-life language, without studying rules
You are in a race and you pass the person in second place. What place are you in now?
Answer: Second place
Explanation: When you pass the person in second place, you take their position, and they drop to third. You did not pass the person in first place, so you cannot be first.
Countries create their own exam formats, yet their results can still be compared. Why?
Answer: The CEFR is a shared reference framework. Exams are linked to its common level descriptions, not to one fixed test format.
Name the key ability that marks the jump from B1 to B2, and the one that marks the jump from B2 to C1.
Answer: B1 to B2: develop and defend an argument. B2 to C1: express complex ideas.
A student's essay has perfect grammar, but the ideas jump around with no logical order. Which features lose points?
Answer: Organisation and coherence
Teacher A explains the rules of the present perfect for 20 minutes, then students do exercises. Teacher B has students interview each other about their life experiences, and corrects errors afterwards. Which teacher is closer to CLT, and what does the other teacher put first?
Answer: Teacher B.
Teacher A puts grammar first.
There are two doors and two guards. One door leads to freedom, the other to danger. One guard always lies, the other always tells the truth, and you do not know which is which. You may ask one question to one guard. What do you ask?
Answer: "Which door would the other guard say leads to freedom?" Then take the opposite door.
The updated Companion Volume added new descriptors. Name two things it introduced.
Answer: Mediation, sign language descriptors, Pre-A1 level (any two)
What three qualities separate C2 from C1?
Answer: Precision, flexibility, nuance
(a) A student gives a long presentation with excellent vocabulary but cannot answer a single question from the audience. Which speaking feature failed? (b) A student listens to a lecture and writes down many words, but cannot say what the speaker's point was. What is checked in listening that failed?
Answer: (a) Interaction. (b) Understanding of the main ideas.
Why can students not complete an information gap activity silently, and how does "Find someone who…" create the same need to communicate?
Answer: Each student has information the partner does not, so they must ask and listen. In "Find someone who…" students must ask classmates questions to find who matches each statement, so the communication has a real purpose.
Question: A man lives on the 20th floor of a tall building. Every morning he takes the elevator down to the ground floor and goes to work. When he comes home in the evening, he takes the elevator only to the 10th floor, and then walks up the stairs to the 20th floor. But on rainy days, he takes the elevator all the way to the 20th floor. Why?
Answer: The man is very short. He cannot reach the button for the 20th floor, only the button for the 10th floor. On rainy days he has an umbrella with him, and he uses it to press the 20th floor button.