This European project has been carried out with the support of the European Community within the framework of the Minerva Programme. Its goal was to implement a European Language Portfolio (ELP) in a digital format, useful for learners of foreign languages [Schneider-Lenz-elp-guide, trim-1997-elp, Europarat-2004]. The Council of Europe has stated that language teaching and learning are key elements towards European integration and mobility. The ELP is an initiative of the Council of Europe to support life-long language learning as a way of responding to economic, social, and cultural changes in Europe. Its functions are twofold: a reporting and a pedagogical function. It exists in different versions in various countries and languages, but all the ELPs have the same structure and pursue the same objectives so that every ELP is an international comparable document that underlines an individual’s linguistic experiences and certifications. It comprises a passport, a bibliography, and a dossier per language .

The language passport is maintained by the e-portfolio owner regularly. He is provided with a grid and several questionnaires to document language competencies according to commonly accepted European-wide criteria. The bibliography helps the owner to describe his experiences in in each language (by a questionnaire). The goal here is to guide the owner in planning and assessing progress. Finally,the dossier is a is an instrument which helps the student to maintain assets (e.g. certificates) of personal work that illustrate and justify the owner’s language competencies.

From a pedagogical point of view, the developers concentrated on the following key issues:

• Student’ss self-awareness development
• Self-assessment tools and learner’s autonomy
• Transparency of the recursiveness of the learning process
• Multimedia evidence of language learning
• Avoiding information overload of paper ELPs

The developed software bases on research in ELP and it is a cross-platform desktop-based Java application. The information of the digital ELP is stored in a proprietary XML data structure that keeps trace of student’s modifications over time. For data representation in a user-friendly graphic way the PDF document format is used to show the evolution of the language learning process. The German partner in this project was Ingrid Boettcher de Lange from the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) and helped to develop some parts of the software and made the translation of the whole program. The two-year project started in November 2003 and finished in November 2005. An extension of the project is not planned. The e-ELP is a not validated model (by the EU Validation Committee), although the project partners applied for it twice. The modifications that the Committee requires are of high impact on the model such that changes of the model are likely. This is one key reason why an extension of the project is not pursued.

References
Günther Schneider and Peter Lenz. A Guide for Developers of European Language Portfolios. Technical report, Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2001. Also available here.

John Trim. The European Language Portfolio. In Council of Europe, editor, A European Language Portfolio: some questions relating to its nature, function, form, preparation and distribution, pages 3–12, 1997.

Europarat. European Language Portfolio. Principles and guidelines (33. rev), 2004. Also available here.