European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages – A reflection tool for language teacher education

The European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages (EPOSTL) is a document intended for students undergoing their initial teacher education which encourages them to reflect on the didactic knowledge and skills necessary to teach languages, helps them to assess their own didactic competences and enables them to monitor their progress and to record their experiences of teaching during the course of their teacher education. It was developed for the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe by a team of teacher educators from Armenia, Austria, Norway, Poland and UK, assisted by student teachers and teacher educators from all 33 member states of the ECML. Building on insights from the Common European Framework of Reference and the European Language Portfolio as well as the European Commission-financed project European Profile for Language Teacher Education - A Frame of Reference (Profile), it seeks to help prepare students for their future profession in a variety of teaching contexts. Further, the EPOSTL can facilitate discussion of aims and curricula between teacher educators working within different national or European contexts.