Mediation als soziokulturelles Sprachhandeln im Begleitband zum Gemeinsamen europäischen Referenzrahmen für Sprachen

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) had a lasting impact on all areas of foreign language teaching not only in Europe but also worldwide. Although activities and strategies of language mediation were already included in its action-oriented approach, no empirically developed scales and descriptors were made available for them. As a result, language mediation has found its way into European classrooms to different degrees in the last two decades. The Companion Volume with New Descriptors seems to close this gap by rendering the concept of mediation more precisely, on the one hand, and extending it, on the other hand. This article outlines and critically assesses the concept of mediation as developed in the CEFR Companion Volume, compared to the earlier concept.