In the context of independent learning, self-assessment, be it formative or summative, plays an increasing role in foreign-language teaching and learning. Whereas there is great emphasis on the self-assessment of learners, assessment procedures of teachers are still neglected by most scientists and educational experts. On the contrary, processes of self-assessment of learners are widely recommended, even though the workload of the teachers is quite high. Furthermore, it is dubious if the students, especially younger learners, are able to assess themselves appropriately. In some cases, tools of electronic assessment can be of help, at the expense of personal contacts between teacher and learners and between the students themselves. While the European Language Portfolio, based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, is useful in the context of effective self-assessment, it depends mostly on the learning context and the personalities involved.

The question of putative multilingual advantages is still being hotly debated. Following some initial euphoria, the field is currently characterized by a wave of sobering criticism, as key findings fail to be replicated. Here we offer a summary of the current controversy, followed by a discussion of new evidence drawn from a questionnaire study of 1,454 students and 341 instructors at the University of Hamburg. This study measures self-assessed proficiencies in English among subjects who regularly use English as a lingua franca in the context of tertiary education. We compare self-assessed English proficiencies between monolingually and multilingually raised ELF users in five CEFR domains. The results attest slightly higher scores for multilingually raised ELF users, of statistical significance in some domains, which we interpret in terms of a multilingual advantage. However, we wish to be cautious about generalizing these findings, as they need to be substantiated by tests that objectively measure proficiencies.