Competency-Based Language Teaching, standards, and the Common European

Framework of Reference

CBLT is an example of an approach known as Competency-Based Education (CBE) - an

educational movement that focuses on the outcomes or outputs of learning in the development
of language programs. CBE addresses what the learners are expected to do with the language,
however they learned to do it. The focus on outputs rather than on inputs to learning is central
to the competencies perspective. CBLT, as mentioned, is an application of the principles of
CBE to language teaching.

Competency-Based Language Teaching (CBLT) focuses on what “learners are expected to do

with the language”. This approach can be described as “defining educational goals in terms of
precise measurable descriptions of the knowledge, skills, and behaviours students should
possess at the end of a course of study”. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines
competence[1] as “the ability to do something well” and as “a skill that you need in a
particular job or for a particular task.”

“Competency-Based Language Teaching (CBLT) is an application of the principles of

Competency-Based Education to language teaching.” In Competency-Based Education (CBE)
the focus is on the “outcomes or outputs of learning.”

Theory of Language and Learning

The major basis of CBLT is the “functional and interactional perspective on the nature of
language which means that language learning always needs to be connected to the social
context it is used in. Therefore, language is seen as “a medium of interaction and
communication between people” who want to achieve “specific goals and purposes”. This
especially applies to situations in which the learner has to fulfill a particular role with
language skills which can be predicted or determined for the relevant context. In connection
to this Competency-Based Language Teaching shares the behaviourist view of learning that
“certain life encounters call for certain kinds of language”. Another key aspect of both
language and learning theory is the so called “mosaic approach to language learning”, which
assumes that language can be divided into appropriate parts and subparts. Communicative
competence is then constructed from these subparts put together in the correct order.

Syllabus

A syllabus for a competency-based framework clearly differs from the traditional approach to
developing a syllabus. Therefore, the focus is on how the students can use the language
instead of their knowledge about the language. Schenck (1978) points out that the teacher
provides a list of competencies which the course is going to deal with, and these are “typically
required of students in life role situations.”

Students have to perform specific language skills which they have already learned during the
course. The competencies tested “consist of a description of the essential skills, knowledge,
attitudes, and behaviours required for effective performance of a real-world task or activity”.
These performance-criteria form the basis for the assessment.
Learning Activities

The learning activities used in CBLT can be described as systematically designed activities to
achieve a certain competence. These activities are real-world tasks which “may be related to
any domain of life” but especially to survival-oriented and work-related situations in a new
environment. Typical areas, for which such competency-based activities have been developed,
are for example Job Application, Job Interview, or Work Schedules. All these areas “can be
described as a collection of units of competencies” which consist of “specific knowledge,
thinking processes, attitudes, and perceptual and physical skills”.

Eight Key Features

According to Auerbach there are eight key features which are essential for Competency-
Based Language Teaching:

1. A focus on successful functioning in society which means that language is taught in order
to prepare the students for the different demands of the world.

2. A focus on life skills to determine that language is always taught as a medium of

communication in concrete tasks in which specific language forms/skills are required.

3. Task- or performance-centered orientation. The focus is on what the students can do with
the language and certain behaviors instead of knowledge of the language.

4. Modularized instruction emphasizes that the competencies which are taught have to be
systematically separated into manageable parts so that both the teacher and students can
handle the content and realize their progress.

5. Outcomes that are made explicit a priori. “Outcomes are public knowledge, known and
agreed upon by both learner and teacher”. Therefore, the students clearly know what
behaviors and skills are expected of them.

6. Continuous and ongoing assessment which means that the students are tested before the
course to determine which skills they lack and after they have had instructions in that skill
they are tested again to ascertain whether they have achieved the necessary skills or not.

7. Demonstrated mastery of performance objectives. The assessment is based on the students’

performance of specific behaviors instead of traditional paper-and-pencil-tests.

8. Individualized, student-centered instruction. The instructions given by the teacher are not
time-based but the focus is on the progress the individual students make at their own rate.
Therefore, the teacher has to concentrate on each individual students in order to support them
in those areas in which they lack competence.

Role of Teacher

The role of the teacher in a competency-based framework is not defined by specific terms.
The teacher has to provide positive and constructive feedback in order to help the students to
improve their skills. She/he needs to be aware of the learners’ needs so that everybody feels
welcome in class. The different competencies dealt with in class require specific instructions
for the various learning activities. Thus the teacher has to give clear orders and explanations
to make sure that every student understands the task they are going to deal with. But the
teacher does not push the students because the instructions are not time-based; instead the
student’s progress is most important. Another task of the teacher in CBLT is to select learning
activities and to design a syllabus according to the competency the students are going to
acquire.

Role of Learner

The role of the learner in a competency-based framework is to decide whether the

competencies are useful and relevant for him/her. This shows that the learner has an active
role in the classroom which is underlined by the fact that the students are expected to perform
the skills learned. The competencies the students will learn are clearly defined and present in
the public so that “the learner knows exactly what needs to be learned” and for which purpose
he/she has to use the competencies. In this regard it is vital that every competency is mastered
one at a time because this makes sure that the learners know what they have already learned
and what the next steps will look like. Moreover, the students have to stay in the actual
program until they improve. After they mastered their skills, they move into a more proficient
group of students. The main goal of the learner in Competency-Based Language Teaching is
to be able to adapt and transfer knowledge from one setting to another.

Materials

The materials the teacher chooses are mainly “sample texts and assessment tasks that provide
examples of texts and assessment tasks that relate to the competency”. These materials are
used to provide the students with “the essential skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors
required for effective performance of a real-world task or activity”. A great variety of
competencies should be improved by these tasks. On the one hand, knowledge and learning
competencies as well as oral competencies are dealt with. On the other hand, the materials
include tasks to improve the reading and writing competencies.

Procedure

At the beginning of a course in a competency-based framework the students have to go

through an initial assessment, in which the teacher determines the current proficiency level of
the individual student. After this the students are grouped on the basis of “their current
English proficiency level, their learning pace, their needs, and their social goals for learning
English”. Furthermore, a course based on CBLT is divided into three stages, which the
students have to go through in order to successfully finish the course. At Stages 1 and 2 the
learners deal with twelve competencies which are related to general language development.
At Stage 3 the students are grouped on the basis of their learning goals and “competencies are
defined according to the three syllabus strands of Further Study, Vocational English, and
Community Access”.

Conclusion
There are both critics and supporters of Competency-Based Language Teaching. According to
Tollefson it is very difficult to develop lists of competencies for every specific situation. This
is due above all to the fact that many areas in which people need certain competencies are
impossible to operationalise. Other researchers argue that describing an activity in terms of a
set of different competencies is not enough in order to deal with the complexity of the activity
as a whole. But on the other hand, CBLT is gaining popularity in the whole world. It is argued
that through the clearly defined outcomes and the continuous feedback in CBLT, the quality
of assessment as well as the students’ learning and the teaching are improved. These
improvements can be seen on all educational levels, “from primary school to university, and
from academic studies to workplace training”. Rylatt and Lohan point out that “the business
of improving learning competencies and skills will remain one of the world’s fastest growing
industries and priorities” in the future.

CBLT demands that language be connected to a social context rather than being taught in
isolation. CBLT requires learners to demonstrate that they can use the language to
communicate effectively.

In CBLT, students learn to use the language in authentic situations likely to be encountered
outside the classroom. For instance, a student might have to fill out an application form,
provide a personal medical history, or give directions on how to complete a specific task.
Although students must practice in order to become competent, competencies are not practice
activities. Competencies are not activities done for the sake of giving a student a grade,nor are
they done only to allow a student to become better at a task. Competencies are practical
applications of language in context.

Well-designed competencies include several components. First, they describe the specific
knowledge and skills that can be applied to novel and complex situations. The knowledge and
skills must have value beyond the classroom because if you teach the principles and how to
learn, that knowledge will be useful for a student’s whole lifetime. For example, the ability to
understand emergency instructions is important outside of the classroom and that knowledge
will be useful for years in the future. Next, each competency must have clear performance
criteria that allow students to know where they are and what they need to work on to improve.
Each task requires its own specific rubric identifying specific weaknesses and strengths.
Finally, the competency must be personalized. Poorly designed, non-explicit criteria and tasks
will likely lead to probable failure since it would be difficult or even impossible to specify
what needs to be done and to determine whether or not such competencies have been
achieved.

Classes must be student-centered with a focus on what students can do. The ability to recite
grammar rules or to identify errors in a written practice is not sufficient to measure
competence. Students must demonstrate that they can accomplish specific tasks that are likely
to be encountered in the real-world using the target-language.
Instead of being knowledge-focused, competency-based courses are built around the skills
necessary to carry out specified tasks.

Role of the Teacher

The role of the teacher changes from one of being an information-giver to that of a facilitator.
This does not mean that teachers no longer give information, but that they give different types
of information and deliver it in different ways. Teachers provide the materials, the activities,
and the practice opportunities to their students. The quality and authenticity of these materials
are central to the success of class.

Planning becomes a central part of the teaching process. First, each competency must be
identified. Each competency must be subdivided into the relevant skills. Modules must then
be developed which allow students the opportunity to learn and practice those skills. Teachers
must determine exactly what and how well students must perform in order to master the
competency. Specific rubrics assessing each competency must be developed and made public
to the students from the beginning of the lesson.

Teachers will have to devote large amounts of time to creating activities related to the specific
skills necessary to fulfill the competency requirements. Significant time will also be required
to assess students and provide specific, directed, and personalized feedback.

Role of the Student

The role of the student must also change. Students will no longer be able to rely only on the
teacher and the classroom to be the primary sources of information. Instead, students become
apprentices. Their role will be to integrate, produce, and extend knowledge. Students take an
active part in their own learning and work toward being autonomous learners. They learn to
think critically and to adapt and transfer knowledge across a variety of settings. Because
expectations and standards are clear and precise, students have to be committed to continuing
to work on each competency, mastering it, and then progressing to another.

Activities, Materials, and Syllabus

Although teachers are free to develop the strategies and tactics most likely to work in a given
educational setting, the design of a CBLT syllabus is different from those of more traditional
classes. Rather than being organized around specific language topics, CBLT courses are
developed around competencies and the skills necessary for mastery. Each day and each unit
focus on the skills necessary to move students along the path toward mastery. Syllabi must
include performance activities that allow the student to practice the requisite skills.

This may require a shift in both thinking and organization. In many traditional classes, lessons
are likely to be organized by topics such as present tense, past tense, irregular past tense,
future tense with be going to, and so on. While these topics will still be taught, they will not
drive the lesson nor will they be the focus. Instead, if a specific competency requires a student
to use the past tense, then teachers will introduce that form and the vocabulary necessary for
the specific task. The tense would be taught as an integral part of the lesson, along with
relevant vocabulary, register, pronunciation, and so on. This suggests that, rather than being
taught as a unit, the past tense may be introduced in multiple units depending on need. This
allows modules to build on each other and students to practice skills learned earlier.

Class materials must be oriented to doing rather than knowing. There should be few exercises
that require students to fill in the blank, circle the right answer, or specifically test only
grammar. Rather, each task should be developed around a real-world situation requiring the
use of some or all of the components of the specified competency. For example, if the
competency is “giving personal information”, then tasks must require students to use
knowledge about self to produce such information. Students might practice by creating a
family tree, talking about favourite pastimes, or describing what they did over the weekend.
Notice that the student is required to do something with the language. Each of these activities
requires the student to present knowledge about self.

The activities in the CBLT classroom must be oriented toward the ability to successfully
complete a real-world task. The most effective materials will be authentic sample texts related
to a specific competency (e.g., completed job applications; recordings of a complaint about a
service). The materials help provide students with the essential skills, knowledge, attitudes,
and behaviours required to meet the competency standards.

Standards

In many places around the world, there's been a big focus on setting educational "standards"
since the 1990s. In the United States, this push for standards was intense, involving
lawmakers, candidates for public office, teachers, and various organizations.

Initially, second language teaching, especially English as a Second Language (ESL), wasn't
part of this standards movement. But ESL educators realized that their students weren't being
included, so they worked to create standards for ESL education.

These standards are like guidelines that everyone involved in education follows. They help
students, teachers, administrators, and even parents understand what's expected in teaching
and learning. For students, standards set clear goals for what they should know and be able to
do. For teachers and administrators, they provide guidance for designing lessons, curriculum,
and assessments. They also help teacher trainers know what skills future teachers need.

Standards have become really important in education systems worldwide. They're like a
blueprint for improving learning outcomes. In the U.S., the Center for Applied Linguistics,
working with TESOL, developed standards for ESL education from kindergarten to 12th
grade. These standards cover various goals and subjects, providing specific guidance for
different grade levels.
More recently, TESOL created the PreK-12 English Language Proficiency Standards
Framework, which sets out five language proficiency standards. These standards cover both
social and academic uses of English, helping students succeed in different subjects like
language arts, math, science, and social studies. These standards resemble the goals of
Content-Based Instruction and the Whole Language movement.

The standards movement aims to figure out what makes language teaching good and use those
standards to judge teaching programs. But some people say this approach forces one set of
standards onto everyone, even if they might not fit every place.

That's why groups like TESOL work with education ministries in different countries. They try
to make standards that work well in each place's own situation.

Approach, design

The standards movement doesn't have its own theory of language teaching, but it's similar to
Competency-Based Language Teaching (CBLT) in that it focuses on skills. It's all about
measuring how well students can do specific tasks.

The standards movement can work with any teaching approach that lets you measure skills.
This might involve using strategies for learning and support for students.

So, it's like a kind of competency-based learning, where the main difference is the specific
skills being taught. The way you teach those skills will depend on the program's syllabus and
the teaching method you choose.

Approach

The CEFR is often used together with the Communicative Approach in language classrooms.
But unlike a specific lesson plan, the CEFR doesn't tell teachers what to teach or how to teach
it. It's more like a guide for understanding language proficiency levels.