A Common European Framework for Teachers' Professional Profile in ICT for Education: Curriculum / Subject matter foreign languages

At the beginning of 2000, the European Commission launched the eLearning Initiative and Action Plan to foster the adaptation of the European Union's education and training systems to the knowledge society through the effective and relevant use of Information and Communication Technologies and the Internet for learning. The eLearning Initiative and Action Plan provide the basis for a wide debate at European level and encourage increased coordination of related actions within and between Member States. This book is an outcome of the uTeacher project, carried out in the context of the eLearning Initiative during the period December 2003-June 2005. uTeacher aims to understand and define the professional profile of a teacher who is faced with the issues that the knowledge society and ICT pose to schools. This profile is captured in a "Common European Framework for Teachers' Professional Profile in ICT for Education" (CEF) which is the subject of this book. The CEF can be seen as a means for the exchange and transfer of experience in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) across Europe. The CEF also provides an opportunity for educational administrators, course designers, teachers, examining bodies, etc. to reflect on their current practice, with a view to situating and coordinating their efforts and to ensuring that they meet the real needs of school in the knowledge society. This is the second of two books produced by uTeacher. The first, entitled European Teachers Towards the Knowledge Society, is strictly linked to this one, as it examines teachers' professional profile pertaining to ICT for education that various European countries have assumed as a basis for benchmarking their ITE and CPD and their accreditation. It should be stressed that a clear understanding of the actual professional profile currently assumed as a basis for ITE and CPD across Europe was a prerequisite for defining the Common European Framework. This understanding could only have been achieved through a participative process involving field experts from all European countries. Accordingly, this book not only describes the CEF itself but also the cooperative process that was set in motion to produce it. This chapter is a brief example of how a specific subject area (in this case foreign languages) might be addressed within the Common European Framework.