Mediating Concepts: the Official CEFR Descriptors from B1 to B2
Mediating concepts is one of the three mediation families described in the CEFR Companion Volume (2020): facilitating others' access to knowledge and ideas, particularly in collaborative settings — leading group work, building meaning together, guiding understanding of a new notion. It is a core skill for teamwork and teaching.
At B1, you contribute to simple group work on familiar subjects, with support. At B2, you actively facilitate exchanges — rephrasing to clarify, restarting the discussion, helping the group move towards a shared goal. This page reproduces every official descriptor for this activity at B1, B1+ and B2, scale by scale.
The official descriptors, scale by scale
4 Companion Volume scales cover mediating concepts between B1 and B2. For each one, the B1 and B2 descriptors are shown side by side; where the CEFR publishes B1+ descriptors, they appear in the amber transition band.
Facilitating collaborative interaction with peers
B1 — independent user
Can invite other people in a group to contribute their views.
B2 — independent user
Can ask questions to stimulate discussion on how to organise collaborative work.
Can help define goals for teamwork and compare options for how to achieve them.
Can refocus a discussion by suggesting what to consider next, and how to proceed.
B1+ — transition zone
Can collaborate on a shared task, e.g. formulating and responding to suggestions, asking whether people agree, and proposing alternative approaches.
Can collaborate in simple, shared tasks and work towards a common goal in a group by asking and answering straightforward questions.
Can define the task in basic terms in a discussion and ask others to contribute their expertise and experience.
Collaborating to construct meaning
B1 — independent user
Can ask a group member to give the reason(s) for their views.
Can repeat part of what someone has said to confirm mutual understanding and help keep the development of ideas on course.
B2 — independent user
Can further develop other people’s ideas and opinions.
Can present their ideas in a group and pose questions that invite reactions from other group members’ perspectives.
Can consider two different sides of an issue, giving arguments for and against, and propose a solution or compromise.
B1+ — transition zone
Can organise the work in a straightforward collaborative task by stating the aim and explaining in a simple manner the main issue that needs to be resolved.
Can use questions, comments and simple reformulations to maintain the focus of a discussion.
Encouraging conceptual talk
B1 — independent user
Can ask why someone thinks something, or how they think something would work.
B2 — independent user
Can formulate questions and feedback to encourage people to expand on their thinking and justify or clarify their opinions.
Can build on people’s ideas and link them into coherent lines of thinking.
Can ask people to explain how an idea fits with the main topic under discussion.
B1+ — transition zone
Can ask people to elaborate on specific points they made in their initial explanation.
Can ask appropriate questions to check understanding of concepts that have been explained.
Can ask questions to invite people to clarify their reasoning.
Managing interaction
B1 — independent user
Can give simple, clear instructions to organise an activity.
B2 — independent user
Can explain the different roles of participants in the collaborative process, giving clear instructions for group work.
Can explain ground rules of collaborative discussion in small groups that involves problem solving or the evaluation of alternative proposals.
Can intervene when necessary to set a group back on task with new instructions or to encourage more even participation.
B1+ — transition zone
Can allocate turns in a discussion, inviting a participant to express their views.
The Examiner's Perspective
Réda Haiat — CEFR Assessment Expert · 22 Years of Experience
Mediating concepts means helping someone understand an idea — in group work, an explanation, a coaching situation. At B1, the mediator collaborates: they ask questions, rephrase, check that they're being understood. At B2, they structure how meaning gets built for the other person — no longer just taking part in the exchange, but organising its progression.
The clearest marker is the shift from participating to leading. A B1 mediator contributes to a group's thinking; a B2 mediator moves it forward: they restart it when it stalls, synthesise contributions, identify what's blocking progress and name it. The B2 descriptors describe an active facilitating role, not just a cooperative presence.
B1+ is the most populated band in this activity, and that's no accident: it's where the shift from participating to leading actually happens. B1+ takes initiative — restarting the discussion, rephrasing for the group — but only in isolated moments, without holding the thread of the overall progression.
What I listen for at the boundary
- Does the mediator lead the progression, or just take part in it?
- Do they restart the discussion when it stalls, or wait it out?
- Do they synthesise the group's contributions, or just add their own?
- Do they identify what's blocking understanding, and name it?
- Do they adapt their explanation to what they sense of the other person's level?
Frequently asked questions
How many official descriptors cover mediating concepts between B1 and B2?
26 official descriptors cover this zone: 5 at B1, 9 at B1+ and 12 at B2, spread across 4 scales. All of them are reproduced on this page.
What does the B1+ level mean?
B1+ is a CEFR "plus level": it describes a strong B1 competence, beyond the B1 threshold but not yet meeting the B2 criteria. The Companion Volume publishes specific descriptors for these intermediate bands — that is the transition zone shown between the B1 and B2 columns.
Can I reuse these descriptors?
Yes. The CEFR descriptors are published by the Council of Europe under the CC BY 4.0 licence: you may reproduce and adapt them, including commercially, provided you credit the Council of Europe. That is exactly what this page does.
Going further
Sources
- Council of Europe — CEFR Companion Volume (2020): https://rm.coe.int/cefr-companion-volume-with-new-descriptors-2018/1680787989
- The CEFR on the Council of Europe website: https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/