ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2012

ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2012

1. Speaking

   • Distinguised
     • Produce highly sophisticated and tightly organized extended discourse.
   • Superior
     • Demonstrate no pattern of error in the use of basic structures, although they may make sporadic errors.
   • Advanced
     • Engage in conversation in a clearly participatory manner in order to communicate information on autobiographical topics, as well as topics of community, national, or international interest
       • Advanced High
         • Speakers at the Advanced High sublevel perform all Advanced-level tasks with linguistic ease, confidence, and competence.
       • Advanced Mid
         • Speakers at the Advanced High sublevel perform all Advanced-level tasks with linguistic ease, confidence, and competence.
       • Advanced Low
         • They are able to participate in most informal and some formal conversations on topics related to school, home, and leisure activities.
   • Intermediate
     • Are distinguished primarily by their ability to create with the language when talking about familiar topics related to their daily life.
       • Intermediate High
         • Are able to converse with ease and confidence when dealing with the routine tasks and social situations of the Intermediate level.
       • Intermediate Mid
         • Conversation is generally limited to those predictable and concrete exchanges necessary for survival in the target culture.
       • Intermediate Low
         • Conversation is restricted to some of the concrete exchanges and predictable topics necessary for survival in the target-language culture.
   • Novice
     • Novice High
       • Speakers at the Novice High sublevel are able to handle a variety of tasks pertaining to the Intermediate level, but are unable to sustain performance at that level.
     • Novice Mid
       • Speakers at the Novice Mid sublevel communicate minimally by using a number of isolated words and memorized phrases limited by the particular context in which the language has been learned.
     • Novice Low
       • Speakers at the Novice Low sublevel have no real functional ability and, because of their pronunciation, may be unintelligible.

2. Writing

   • Distinguished
     • They can write analytically on professional, academic and societal issues.
   • Superior
     • Writers at the Superior level are able to produce most kinds of formal and informal correspondence, in-depth summaries, reports, and research papers on a variety of social, academic, and professional topics.
   • Advanced
     • Writers at the Advanced level are characterized by the ability to write routine informal and some formal correspondence, as well as narratives, descriptions, and summaries of a factual nature.
       • Advanced High
         • Writers at the Advanced High sublevel are able to write about a variety of topics with significant precision and detail.
       • Advanced Mid
         • Writers at the Advanced Mid sublevel are able to meet a range of work and/or academic writing needs. They demonstrate the ability to narrate and describe with detail in all major time frames with good control of aspect. They
       • Advanced Low
         • Writers at the Advanced Low sublevel are able to meet basic work and/or academic writing needs.
   • Intermediate
     • Writers at the Intermediate level are characterized by the ability to meet practical writing needs, such as simple messages and letters, requests for information, and notes.
       • Intermediate Mid
         • They can write short, simple communications, compositions, and requests for information in loosely connected texts about personal preferences, daily routines, common events, and other personal topics.
       • Intermediate Low
         • They can create statements and formulate questions based on familiar material. Most sentences are recombinations of learned vocabulary and structures.
       • Intermediate High
         • Writers at the Intermediate High sublevel are able to meet all practical writing needs of the Intermediate level. Additionally, they can write compositions and simple summaries related to work and/or school experiences.
   • Novice
     • Writers at the Novice level are characterized by the ability to produce lists and notes, primarily by writing words and phrases. They can provide limited formulaic information on simple forms and documents.
       • Novice High
         • Writers at the Novice High sublevel are able to meet limited basic practical writing needs using lists, short messages, postcards, and simple notes.
       • Novice Mid
         • Writers at the Novice Mid sublevel can reproduce from memory a modest number of words and phrases in context.
       • Novice Low
         • Writers at the Novice Low sublevel are able to copy or transcribe familiar words or phrases, form letters in an alphabetic system, and copy and produce isolated, basic strokes in languages that use syllabaries or characters.

3. Listening

   • Advanced
     • Advanced High
       • At the Advanced High sublevel, listeners are able to understand, with ease and confidence, conventional narrative and descriptive texts of any length as well as complex factual material such as summaries or reports.
     • Advanced Mid
       • Jisteners are able to understand conventional narrative and descriptive texts, such as expanded descriptions of persons, places, and things, and narrations about past, present, and future events. The
     • Advanced Low
       • Listeners are able to understand short conventional narrative and descriptive texts with a clear underlying structure though their comprehension may be uneven.
     • Intermediate
       • Intermediate High
         • Listeners are able to understand, with ease and confidence, simple sentence-length speech in basic personal and social contexts.
       • Intermediate Mid
         • Listeners are able to understand simple, sentence-length speech, one utterance at a time, in a variety of basic personal and social contexts.
       • Intermediate Low
         • Listeners are able to understand some information from sentence-length speech, one utterance at a time, in basic personal and social contexts, though comprehension is often uneven.
   • Novice
     • Novice High
       • Listeners are often but not always able to understand information from sentence-length speech, one utterance at a time, in basic personal and social contexts where there is contextual or extralinguistic support, though comprehension may often be very uneven
     • Novice Mid
       • Listeners can recognize and begin to understand a number of high-frequency, highly contextualized words and phrases including aural cognates and borrowed words.
     • Novice Low
       • Listeners are able occasionally to recognize isolated words or very high-frequency phrases when those are strongly supported by context.

4. Reading

   • Distinguished
     • Readers can understand a wide variety of texts from many genres including professional, technical, academic, and literary.
   • Superior
     • Readers can understand a wide variety of texts from many genres including professional, technical, academic, and literary.
   • Advanced
     • Advanced High
       • Readers can understand a wide variety of texts from many genres including professional, technical, academic, and literary.
     • Advanced Mid
       • Readers can understand a wide variety of texts from many genres including professional, technical, academic, and literary.
     • Advanced Low
       • Readers are able to understand conventional narrative and descriptive texts with a clear underlying structure though their comprehension may be uneven
   • Intermediate
     • Intermediate High
       • Readers are able to understand fully and with ease short, non-complex texts that convey basic information and deal with personal and social topics to which the reader brings personal interest or knowledg
     • Intermediate Mid
       • Readers are able to understand short, non-complex texts that convey basic information and deal with basic personal and social topics to which the reader brings personal interest or knowledge, although some misunderstandings may occur. Readers at this level may get some meaning from short connected texts featuring description and narration, dealing with familiar topics.
     • Intermediate Low
       • Readers are able to understand some information from the simplest connected texts dealing with a limited number of personal and social needs, although there may be frequent misunderstandings.
   • Novice
     • Novice High
       • Readers can understand, fully and with relative ease, key words and cognates, as well as formulaic phrases across a range of highly contextualized texts.
     • Novice Mid
       • Readers are able to recognize the letters or symbols of an alphabetic or syllabic writing system or a limited number of characters in a character-based language.
     • Novice Low
       • Readers are able to recognize a limited number of letters, symbols or characters. They are occasionally able to identify high-frequency words and/or phrases when strongly supported by context. ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2012 – READING