Group 1 Foreign Language Proficiencies (French, German, Italian, Spanish)*

*based on the “ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines” published by the American Council on the Teaching of  Foreign Languages in 1986.

Recommended Entry Levels

• Speaking
  (ACTFL: INTERMEDIATE-MID)
  You should be able to handle successfully a variety of uncomplicated basic communicative tasks and social situations.  You should be able to ask and answer questions and participate in simple conversations on topics beyond the most immediate needs, for example, personal history, family, leisure time activities.
• Listening
  (ACTFL: INTERMEDIATE-MID)
  You should be able to understand full sentences using common phrases and vocabulary in face to face conversations, short routine telephone calls and simple announcements and reports over the media.  The topics would be primarily basic personal background and needs, social conventions and somewhat more complex tasks such as lodging, transportation and shopping.  Additional content areas include some personal interests and activities and a variety of instructions and directions.
• Reading
  (ACTFL: INTERMEDIATE-MID)
  You should be able to read consistently with understanding simple texts dealing with a variety of basic and social needs as well as topics of personal interest and/or knowledge.  Such texts include short straightforward descriptions of persons, places and things written for a wide audience.
• Writing
  (ACTFL: INTERMEDIATE-LOW)
  You should be able to meet limited practical needs such as writing short messages and postcards or taking down simple notes such as telephone messages.  Your sentences will probably consist of  recombinations of learned vocabulary and phrases on familiar topics.

Required Exit Levels

• Speaking
  (ACTFL: INTERMEDIATE-HIGH)
  You should be able to handle successfully most uncomplicated communicative tasks and social situations. You should be able to carry on a general conversation on a variety of topics even though your vocabulary may be limited. You should be able to narrate and or describe simply.
• Listening
  (ACTFL: ADVANCED)
  You should be able to understand the main ideas and most details of discourse on a variety of topics beyond the immediacy of the situation. This discourse would frequently involve description and narration in different time frames such as present, past and habitual. Texts might include interviews, short lectures and reports primarily dealing with factual information.
• Reading
  (ACTFL: ADVANCED)
  You should be able to read prose of several paragraphs in length, particularly if it is has a clear underlying structure and the sentence patterns are familiar. You would probably understand the main idea but miss some details. Texts would include descriptions and narrations such as simple short stories, news items, bibliographical information, social notices, personal correspondence, routinized business letters and simple technical material written for the general reader.
• Writing
  (ACTFL: INTERMEDIATE-MID)
  You should be able to meet a number of practical writing needs such as writing short, simple letters whose content involves personal preferences, daily routine, everyday events and other topics grounded in personal experience. You should be able to express present time or at least one other time frame or aspect consistently, for example, the habitual.

Professional Goals

• Speaking
  (ACTFL: ADVANCED)
  You should be able to satisfy the requirements of everyday and routine work situations.  You should be able to handle with confidence but not with facility complicated tasks and social situations such as elaborating, complaining and apologizing.  You should be able to narrate and describe with some detail.  You should be able to communicate facts and talk casually about topics of current public and personal interest using general vocabulary.
• Listening
  (ACTFL: ADVANCED-PLUS)
  You should be able to understand the main ideas of most speech in a standard dialect and some of the culturally implied meanings beyond the surface significance.
• Reading
  (ACTFL: ADVANCED-PLUS)
  You should be able to read with almost complete comprehension and at normal speed written discourse in areas of special interest or knowledge.  You should be able to understand the parts of the texts that are conceptually abstract and linguistically complex, and/or texts that treat unfamiliar topics and situations, as well as some texts that involve cultural aspects.  You should be able to comprehend the facts in order to make appropriate inferences.   Your emerging awareness of the aesthetic properties of language and of literary styles permits you to comprehend a wide variety of texts, including the literary.
• Writing
  (ACTFL: INTERMEDIATE-HIGH)
  You should be able to meet most practical writing needs and limited social demands.  You should be able to take notes in some detail on familiar topics and respond in writing to personal questions.  You should be able to write simple letters, brief synopses and paraphrases, summaries of biographical data, work and school experience.  You should be beginning to describe and narrate in paragraphs.