A Comparative Study Between the Lebanese English Language Curriculum and Objectives at Grade 9 Level with the Common European Framework of Reference

Abstract

This comparative study evaluated the alignment of the Lebanese Grade 9 English language curriculum with the Common European Framework of Reference(CEFR) 2001 for teaching foreign languages. Using a quantitative content-analysis method, the study tracked the main CEFR principles and descriptors at B2 level within the 1997 Lebanese general principles and curriculum for teaching English by the end of Grade 9 level. Guided by a CEFR-based codebook, official documents were coded and mapped based on conceptual similarity, linguistic complexity, skill domain, and percentage overlap. Inter-coder reliability was verified by testing 20% sample coded by both a human researcher and large language model (ChatGPT Plus) achieving a Krippendorff’s alpha of 0.82. Results have shown broad alignment (81-95%) between the curriculum principles with CEFR, highly represented in the communicative, cultural, and task-based principles but falling short in areas related to plurilingualism, self-assessments, and autonomous learning. As for Grade 9 competencies and objectives, the six domains (reading, speaking, writing, reading, topics, and grammar) were coded. Results have indicated strong and high alignment: listening (93%), reading (93%), writing (83%), Oral communication (95%), topics (92%), and grammar (81%). The findings suggest that the Lebanese curriculum reflects some basic parts in the CEFR principles but still requires revisions to meet the full expectation of the CEFR framework, especially with the integration of the updated components of CEFR 2020.