As part of its Germany in Europe week, the Department of German Studies unveils an (Un)Common European Framwork of Reference for Languages. Since the 1990s, the European Union has been working toward a common assessment tool for foreign language learning, and most of us know this from the designations A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2. But what about the other letters of the alphabet? What other competences and capacities are important when learning languages, which are not represented in the current Common European Framework? Emotions, ambiguity, literature, history, laughter, gender, poverty, wealth, ideology, nature... many of these phenomena of everyday life and thought might also play a role in how (and how well) we learn foreign languages.
The Department invites you to stop by and fill in one of the other letters of the alphabet, in which ever language you choose. Please encourage your students and colleagues to join too!
This collaborative installation will be up in the German Studies department public area until the end of the semester. Please contact Prof. David Gramling with questions or ideas.