Description
Key features of the proposed National Qualifications Framework (NQF), together with the striving for
curriculum renewal, pose a range of tough challenges around the structuring of the assessment of
language development.

The aim of the conference was to explore language policy in relation to the NQF proposals and their
implications for implementation of language education for schooling, ABE and training. The conference
was not seen in any way as a policy-setting event, but as a platform for opening up informed debate on
language and the NQF.

Structuring the proceedings
Papers published in these proceedings are primarily discussion documents rather than formal academic
papers. Questions regarding these must please be directed to the authors themselves and not to the
editors. Points raised from the floor in plenary have also been recorded. Because discussions in each
session fended to overlap and cross refer, it was decided to group comments into thematic categories
rather than record them in question-and-answer format in relation to each paper.

Categories for discussion points are as follows:
" Outcomes-based education & training
" Assessment and curriculum
" Language education
" Language paradigms
" The National Qualifications Framework

Table of Contents
1 Introductory comments: Language assessment and the NQF
2 The NQF: Challenges in the language field
3 Language education and the National Qualifications
4 Standards and levels in language assessment
5 The assessment of language outcomes in ABET:Implications of an approach
6 Issues raised in plenary: Summary
7 Summing Up - Drawing the issues together in the context of language education policy
8 Summing up - Drawing the issues together in the context of the NQF
9 Concluding comments
10 List of participants