This is a letter to someone who thought that, even if we don't like its view of language or its didactic implication, since Portfolio now exits, we must live with it. After all he said, "it is so vague, so do what you like" - in fact, do exactly as the Common European Framework itself suggests on page 8, when it says it is "open to all methods "!

Very experienced teachers can do this but others feel stupid and not modern if they drag their feet. Besides, if it were true that all was open, why does so much money have to be paid for online "training" courses in its correct use?

03.1 EUROPEAN PORTFOLIO OF LANGUAGES. Background

03.2 Talk on Portfolio at British Council 2004 conference. Venice

03.3 "Can't we work with Portfolio"?

03.4 Critique of a set of Portfolio boxes

Dear Realist

Yes, you're realism is right- up to a point -

My attack on "Portfolio" and "Framework" is due to my indignation that the children have been cheated by the conventional wisdom and its lessons rather than simply by poor teachers. We have seen these students in 20 one week courses of 50 hours in 15 schools (plus shorter courses) and in the 25 years experience running Middlesmoor. Also the anonymous comments we ask from the children aren't just flattering ("more learnt in 5 days than 7 years"!) - they are often acutely aware of what constitutes effective lessons. The judgements that lie in these commnets are also I think saying something important about the norm that has failed them.

If I boiled down my position to the following, would you be able to agree with it?

"Natural language use (as listed in an oddly abstract way in Portfolio) and its friend the distinction "acquire", should not be at the heart of the curriculum. Grammar, (but of the sort in Rinvolucri's grammar activity books, and in my lesson material, :rather than in the useless "grammar books") has to be at the centre. It's the centre around which we can STICK all sorts of PRACTICE, and also fascinating heterogeneous material. That is to say, the "humanistic" agenda is made possible by a grammar centre but not by a phrase book. What is more if "acquire" could be thrown out, I, with only adequate French and very limited German, could teach German and French ! Now that is interesting and it would allow all those teachers with their uncertain English to do much better. All the material I use has a severely focused grammar content and the "pages" are endlessly reworked and recycled in direct speaking activities.

Ironically, it only with this that you get within spitting distance of "acquiring/ picking up a language" - in the context of 2-3 hours a week 2/3 of the year! Of the "research" I've read about, this from Amsterdam made me sit up. You remember, I put it in the rude attack..

"Some post-communicative methods like to oppose "lower-order thinking", which they equate to rote memorization, to "higher-order" skills. The former are to be avoided, the latter are the core objective. Recent experimental research by Hulstijn and his team at the Kohnstamm Institute ( University of Amsterdam ) indicates that higher-order skills cannot function properly in the foreign language without well developed levels of lower-order automatization". (Hulstijn 1999). Quoted in "On the mortality of language learning methods" given as the James L. Barker lecture on November 8 th 2001 at Brigham Young University by Wilfried Decoo. The original of the Decoo paper can also be found on www.didascalia.be where people can also find another interesting article on "The Induction-Deduction Opposition", in which he clarifies and relativizes some other traditional concepts.

The point about my "attack" is that unless one can clear away the confusing "presentation" and warm words, and smoke out a discussion about Portfolio, it's going to be hard for teachers to trudge through what you call the "guff" - they will worry modestly that they are thick if they are confused about how to use P. So there will be a tendency for them to be dragged down by the "impostazione" of the Portfolio. (that could be true for us too).

I don't think that Portfolio can be made harmless while it remains so secure in its premises. The trouble is that it has not been cooked up in the context of the daily fight with ordinary reluctant kids. Much innovative language work has been done with consenting adults, not restive teenagers , and this has also been where Portfolio has been incubated. I think the extreme situation of schools that I've seen requires something different.

If you think it's "guff", do you think it can be cheerfully ignored? Or in what way could Portfolio be made positive / useful? Or would Portfolio just impede alternative teaching? After all Portfolio is a test system and will inevitably be taught to - despite its indistinctness.

The chief problem, as I see it is this. The "natural" everyday setting of language text books (result of the communicative ideal), has brought us to this paradox: the more tempting and colourful the text books have become, the less use they serve for learning. They are too dispersive. Yet teachers have become increasingly dependent on them. Most of the best material is in black and white "photocopiable" booklets for teachers, or in teacher ideas books. My material, which teachers like so much (maybe because they're free handouts!) would never make it past first post with a "make it attractive" publisher!

I do think, immersed as I am in my almost supply teaching situation,(being invited as "expert" to various schools to help them in practical demonstrations with real pupils), that there are some really important issues in my 4 page attack on Portfolio, (and in the student comments) and I think they should be heard by people: at the very least for reasons of open argument. The "parameters" that Portfolio has set out have to be challenged. Yes, experienced teachers can get round Portfolio, ignore it and get such good results that nobody complains that we are non believers. However, I think that sort of response is a cop out because there are so many teachers out there feeling quite at a loss between the pull of obedience and common sense. In my various public diatribes, it's the grateful eyes of the browbeaten teachers I remember and I think Professor Barkowski of Jena is taking Portfolio as seriously as it merits in calling it a "wolf in sheep's clothing"!

However I also understand that the sheer pulling power of Portfolio supported by rivers of Brussels money makes any opposition fool hardy. Not just "fool hardy", but also stupid. After all one can argue, what is the point of creating enemies in the Portfolio massed ranks, if that means it is more difficult to exist and thus be able to subltly resist this accepted wisdom "from within". A very difficult moral-practical problem to which I have no answer.

After thought.

I too have had thoughts of "well, it's too late now. .." And throwing pebbles at the giant Portfolio is laughable".

In the past I've promised this thread out of the labyrinth to some teachers. I said, " as all those "descriptors" are so fuzzy, I will make you a 3 column collection of 3 aligned elements

- col 1_ the Portfolio descriptors A1 A2 etc, _

- col 2_ collections of "functional", situational vocab categories (with actual word content of these given elsewhere), and

-_col 3_ what I call the larger grammar islands that, as far as possible, might be considered a likely net in which to catch the slippery "descriptor".

friendly greetings

Anthony

It's time I threw in the towel"

03.1 EUROPEAN PORTFOLIO OF LANGUAGES. Background

03.2 Talk on Portfolio at British Council 2004 conference. Venice

03.3 "Can't we work with Portfolio"?

03.4 Critique of a set of Portfolio boxes