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In order to study the impact of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) on foreign language teachers' teaching and assessment practice, a survey, interviews and case studies were carried out in Dutch secondary education. Teachers' perceptions, their needs and plans, and the implementation of CEFR were studied. Results show that the use of CEFR is most widespread in the use of CEFR‐related textbooks. The group of teachers that apply CEFR more extensively is relatively small. Schools differ considerably with respect to the application of CEFR for curriculum planning and for assessment and professional development. These results are discussed in the light of factors that foster the implementation of educational innovations, such as compatibility and adaptation at school and teacher level.

This paper presents a theoretical framework to estimate the effectiveness of second language tasks in which the focus is on the acquisition of new linguistic items, such as vocabulary or grammar, the so-called focused tasks (R. Ellis, 2003). What accounts for the learning impact offocused tasks? We shall argue that the task-based approach (e.g. Skehan, 1998, Robinson, 2001) does not provide an in-depth account of how cognitive processes, elicited by a task, foster the acquisition of new linguistic elements. We shall then review the typologies of cognitive processes derived from research on learning strategies (Chamot & O'Malley, 1994), from the involvement load hypothesis (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001), from the depth of processing hypothesis (Craik & Lockhart, 1972) and from connectionism (e.g Broeder & Plunkett, 1997; N. Ellis, 2003). The combined insights of these typologies form the basis of the multi-feature hypothesis, which predicts that retention and ease of activation of new linguistic items are improved by mental actions which involve a wide variety of different features, simultaneously and frequently. A number of implications for future research shall be discussed.

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