This web publication consists of two parts; first, the papers that were read at the CercleS Workshop on CEF (Common European Framework of Reference) arranged by the University of Helsinki Language Centre (HULC) on 31 August and 1 September, on the eve of the Bi- and Multilingual Universities Conference held at the University of Helsinki 1-3 September, 2005, and second, the papers presented by the staff of HULC at that conference.

It was in connection with the 8 th CercleS Conference in Bratislava , September 2004, that the idea of organising a separate workshop on CEF came up. At the end of the Bratislava conference we gave the CercleS representatives a written suggestion for arranging a workshop in Finland the following year, 2005. In September of that year the University of Helsinki would host a conference on bi- and multilingual universities, a follow-up to the 2003 Freiburg/Fribourg event, and anticipated a number of delegates from European language centres in that connection. This being the case, we decided to link the workshop on CEF to the University conference as a pre-conference event.

The Finnish university language centres had officially been preparing themselves for implementing the CEF since 2002, unofficially even earlier through various language projects, e.g. DIALANG. There had been both local and national seminars and workshops. The latest national training session was offered in connection with the biannual FINELC (Network of Finnish University Language Centres) conference at the University of Joensuu , May 2005. The CEF Committee of HULC, which was appointed in December 2003, had been responsible for several workshops. The Committee was also instrumental in organising the CercleS Workshop on CEF in September 2005.

From the Finnish point of view, the timing was excellent because the Finnish universities had adopted the new two-cycle degree structure on 1 August 2005 . In the current academic year (2005-2006) the Finnish university language centres are preliminarily implementing the CEF skills levels for language courses, e.g. indicating the starting levels. FINELC, or in other words, the staff of the Finnish language centres, have launched a joint project, LANCOM ( Language and Communication Studies in the New Degrees ), to avoid duplicating work. By working together, we have been instrumental in influencing the faculty outcomes at different universities in regard to language requirements for the new degrees.

At the Workshop on CEF we wanted to learn from our European colleagues what the present situation was like in the rest of Europe as to CEF implementation. Therefore, the presenters - and also the participants - were invited to provide written answers to four questions; the answers were collected by the CEF Committee to be edited for this publication. The implementation of good CEF practices will, we believe, guarantee that undergraduates at all European language centres are set transparent objectives for language skills and are assessed on an equal basis.

Since the issue of European implementation of CEF is so important, this publication is introduced through the report on the feedback from the four questions concerning the CEF situation. The report affords a good thumbnail sketch of how the CEF is being implemented in various European universities. The material in the first part, CEF in European Language Centres, comes from the presentations at the Workshop on CEF. The second part, The Role of Language Centres in Bi- and Multilingual Universities, includes the six papers presented by the staff of HULC at the Bi- and Multilingual Universities Conference, which succeeded the Workshop on CEF. Some of these papers have also been reworked for this publication.

As a number of digital photographs were taken during the workshop and the conference, a Workshop Photo Gallery has been added to the publication.

Helsinki , December 2005

Pirkko Forsman Svensson

Director, Professor

University of Helsinki Language Centre