The use of the meaning potential of English beyond the standard variety and the exploitation of personal multilingual repertoires is essential in ELF use. Formative assessment empowers learners to explore their personal linguistic potential in order to face international communicative situations that are not constrained by rules of the standard language.
English, in a globalized world used as a common means of communication, is one of the most widely learned foreign languages. English language classrooms in Europe, and increasingly also overseas, are influenced by the Common European Framework of Reference that defines competence levels students ought to achieve. Similar to other summative assessment tools, the CEFR competence levels describe standard language use. Accepting the reality of English used globally as a lingua franca, the CEFR only addresses one realization of the virtual potential of the English language, namely the standard variety. While learners need to achieve the competences as described in the levels A1-C2 for institutionalized purposes such as school leaving exams or when applying for universities or jobs in- and outside of their home countries, ELF use internationally is not constrained by rules of the standard language. As has been described extensively, the free use of English, the use of the meaning potential of English beyond the standard variety and the exploitation of personal multilingual repertoires is essential in ELF use. Thus far institutionalized learning settings focus on assessing the product, the English produced by learners, and in how far it complies with the rules of the native speaker. Recent publications on ELF and assessment suggest ELF add-ons, also focusing on the E in ELF, the product. This presentation aims at suggesting an alternative interpretation of what we can learn from ELF communication for English classrooms. Shifting the focus from the product to the learning process has already been suggested by Seidlhofer (2011, 187), and formative assessment tools can provide a useful resource to accompany this process. Formative assessment in this sense empowers language learners to explore their personal linguistic potential in order to face international, multifaceted communicative situations that are not constrained by rules of the standard language.
