Competences and resources

Competences have to be understood as follows:

• competences are linked to situations, to complex tasks which have social relevance; they are in this way “situated” and have a social function;
• they are units with a degree of complexity;
• they call on different internal "resources" (generally a mix of knowledge, attitudes and skills) and external resources (dictionaries, mediators, etc.).

The CARAP /  FREPA competences and resources describe essentially two levels of competences:

1. The competence to manage linguistic and cultural communication within a context of otherness
2. The competence of constructing and developing a pluralistic repertoire of languages and cultures

CARAP / FREPA identifies resources which are mobilised through these competences. These resources are presented in the form of descriptors.

Resources (knowledge, attitudes and skills):

The term "resources" is generally used in the CARAP for "internal resources". Resources are sometimes called abilities, sets of attitudes, knowledge... We have kept the term resources - although it is not common - as it is the one which has the fewest connotations.

Internal resources (as well as the use of external resources, but not competences) can be taught in situations/ tasks which are at least partly decontextualised.

Competences are viewed mainly in the domain of social usage / needs, while resources seem rather to belong to the domain of cognitive (and developmental) psychology. In this view it is indeed competences which come into play when one engages with a task.

However, it is probably the resources that one can – to a certain point – distinguish and list, defining them in terms of mastery and working on them in educational practice.