SESSION ABSTRACT

Research showed a lack of standardisation in language education courses which makes educational and professional mobility of language teachers more difficult as there is no framework of reference for language teaching competences. AS a result, the Council of Europe (with the European Centre for Modern Languages) published in 2007 the European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages (EPOSTL) to offer pre-service and in-service teachers of languages a tool to assess their language teacher skills. Despite having proved its usefulness in language teacher education in several academic institutions in different countries, this document has not been widely implemented few teachers know it in Spain.

Besides, linguistic mediation has been included in the new version of the CEFR and is the focus of attention now in foreign language teaching. If linguistic mediation is to be developed in language learners, language teachers should develop the competences needed to help learners acquire it.

I will explain what the EPOSTL is, its objectives and structure and give examples of implementation in other countries. The main point of the talk will be to make future and in-service teachers aware of their language teaching competence levels by means of using the EPOSTL and adapting it to meet the needs of language teachers nowadays, so, developing learners’ linguistic mediation skills should be included among the array of competences every language teacher should have and develop throughout their professional career.

This talk would be of interest mainly for those involved in teacher training but also for in-service teachers who want to improve their professional competence.