ACTFL Announces ACE College Credit Recommendation for
Official ACTFL OPI Rating

"This brings the ACTFL OPI into the same arena with language tests like the College Board's AP Program, CLEP, and other proficiency tests that already receive ACE credit recommendations."

ACTFL's Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) has been favorably reviewed by the American Council on Education (ACE) College Credit Recommendation Service. This means that demonstration of spoken language abilities, as evidenced by an Official ACTFL OPI rating, may now be presented to individual colleges and universities for the awarding of undergraduate college credit with the recommendation of ACE. Upon notification by ACE of the favorable review of the OPI, ACTFL Executive Director, C. Edward Scebold, stated that, "recognition of the ACTFL OPI is acknowledgement of ACTFL's leadership role in establishing criteria for measuring language competence based on performance in real-life contexts."

"We are very excited about this development," says Elvira Swender, Director of ACTFL Professional Programs and Director of the ACTFL Proficiency Testing Program. "This is a logical next step for ACTFL Proficiency Testing, bringing the ACTFL OPI into the same arena with other language tests like the College Board's Advanced Placement (AP Program), the College Board's College-Level Examination Program (CLEP), and various U.S. Government Proficiency Tests that already receive ACE credit recommendations."

Swender explains that the OPI's credit status should be of help to students and colleges alike. The OPI is a holistic test that acknowledges language competence, regardless of where or how it is gained. By enabling language learners to be tested for life experience in a standardized way, the OPI can help both the student and the educational institution achieve an accurate picture of the individual's level of spoken language capabilities. This kind of assessment might be particularly helpful, for instance, in the case of military personnel, Peace Corps volunteers, and missionaries - people who have lived abroad in a non-English-speaking country for some time and who have gained language competence outside of the traditional college setting and now seek to have that competence tested and acknowledged for credit by an educational institution.

The credit recommendation will also assist individual colleges and universities to assign credit for spoken language competencies. Although many college foreign language programs already accept OPI ratings for credit award, there are other colleges that either may not have foreign language programs or that may not offer the specific languages for which their students wish to be awarded credit. These schools can use ACE college credit recommendations to guide them in granting transfer credits for the ACTFL OPI ratings.

"ACE's review of the ACTFL OPI was a response to an existing need," Swender says, explaining that the review was initiated by inquiry and request from ACE, which in turn had been approached by individuals with language proficiency gained in immersion environments. ACE determined that the ACTFL OPI, covering 50+ languages, merited a program review. The review was undertaken in late March 2000 at ACE's Center for Adult Learning and Educational Credentials, the adult learning arm of ACE, in Washington, D.C.

For the review ACTFL presented a detailed description with supporting documentation of the OPI process, including samples of recorded interviews conducted in various languages. The ten possible OPT ratings were described in detail, as was the extensive training procedure required for ACTFL tester certification and re-certification. In turn, ACE reviewed the specific OPI test, focusing on test content, intent, and format, and made a detailed assessment of both content validity and technical adequacy.

The review team reported that, "information supplied by ACTFL regarding item/task development, trial testing, editing and final implementation meet or exceed industry standards." Their findings describe the ACTFL OPI as, "a very flexible testing instrument that is easily adapted to many situations and allows for face-to-face interactions without a prescribed set of test questions. Another strong point is the intensive training of test administrators so that they assess test takers' speaking abilities in a language." ACE concluded that the ACTFL OPI is worthy of college-level credit recommendation.

The accompanying chart shows the number of recommended credits by OPT rating and by category of language difficulty.

"We anticipate a significant rise in the number of requests for Official ACTFL OPIs resulting from the ACE credit recommendation," says Helen Hamlyn, of the ACTFL Testing Office, Language Testing International. The ACTFL Testing Office schedules more than 7,000 OPIs annually in 50+ languages and has already prepared for the expected increase in testing. Those individuals interested in scheduling an Official ACTFL OPI can do so by contacting LTI, the ACTFL Testing Office: call (914) 963-7110, email testing@languagetesting.com or visit their website at www.languagetesting.com.

The ACTFL OPI is a standardized procedure for the global assessment of functional language ability. It measures spoken language production holistically by determining patterns of strengths and weaknesses and establishes a candidate's level of consistent functional ability as well as the clear upper limitations of that ability. It is a criterion-referenced testing method that measures how well a person functions in a language by comparing the individual's performance of specific language tasks with the criteria for each of the ten proficiency levels described in the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines-Speaking (Revised 1999). Since the OPI is an assessment of functional language skills, it is irrelevant when, where, why and under what conditions the person being tested acquired his or her language ability. The OPI is a face-to-face or telephonic interview conducted between a certified ACTFL tester and language candidate that lasts between ten and thirty minutes. A ratable sample is elicited from the interviewee through a series of personalized questions that follow the established ACTFL protocol of warm-up, repeated level checks and probes, and wind-down. Test candidates are often asked to take part in a role-play which presents the opportunity for them to perform linguistic functions that cannot be elicited through the conversation format. The speech sample is then compared to the criteria for the ten proficiency levels, and a rating is assigned. Each recorded interview is evaluated and rated by a second certified tester and an official certificate is issued. Official ACTFL OPIs can be scheduled through LTI, the ACTFL Testing Office: call (914) 963-7110, email testing@languagetesting.com or visit their website at www.languagetesting.com.

ACE is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1918 as an umbrella organization of approximately 1,800 U.S. colleges and universities. It provides a forum for discussion and decision-making on education issues of national importance and seeks to coordinate the interests of all segments of the higher education community into a single voice. The ACE College Credit Recommendation Service, founded in 1974, assists adult learners in gaining academic recognition for formal learning acquired outside the traditional college or university setting. The ACE college credit recommendations are published in The National Guide to Educational Credit for Training Programs and the Guide to Educational Credit by Examination. For more information, contact Melissa Smith, Assistant Director of Outreach & Communications, 202-939-9349.