My fellow educators and I did an interesting exercise at a workshop entitled “Chairing Your Department” that was both cynically eye-opening and kind of hilarious; they had us all put our schools’ description for what a successful graduate of ________ (insert whatever your school’s name is here) can do, the skills they’ve mastered, and the traits they’ve developed.
And then, one by one, the instructor called out a list of the buzziest of buzzwords, asking us to cross the word out if we had it in our description. Wouldn’t you know, by the end of the exercise, no one had any legible words left!
That’s how universal, ubiquitous, and uniform this concept of depicting the ideal alumni is for educators; just walk into just about any school today and you’ll see some version of it: a polished infographic labeled “Portrait of a Graduate.”
It might be on a banner in the hallway, tucked into the strategic plan, or presented during a faculty meeting with a lot of appreciative nodding. If you’re the hapless soul who’s part of a re-accreditation committee for a school—whether through Middle States, Cognia, or other regional bodies—you have probably revisited your institution’s Portrait of a Graduate. These frameworks ask a simple question: What should students be able to do when they leave our school?
Just like in the buzzword exercise from my workshop, let’s have a look at the most popular traits that most schools promise of their alumni:
- Global Citizen
- Critical Thinker
- Effective Communicator
- Collaborative Problem Solver
- Ethical Leader
- Lifelong Learner
It’s a great exercise for a school community, and personally I enjoy these qualitative monikers over subject-specific benchmarks. After all, education isn’t just about content knowledge but about the kind of people we’re helping shape.
But if you’re a language teacher, you may have had the same quiet thought I did the first time I saw one of these posters:
Where exactly does language proficiency fit into this portrait?
The funny thing is, once you start looking closely, the answer becomes pretty obvious. Language education isn’t just part of the portrait: in many ways, it’s where the portrait comes to life!
The Global Citizen
Nearly every Portrait of a Graduate includes something like “Global Citizen:” schools want students who understand the wider world, appreciate different cultures, and can navigate life in a global society.
This first one is a ‘gimme’ because language classrooms are uniquely built for this. When students learn another language, they’re not just memorizing vocabulary lists. They’re encountering different ways of thinking about family, humor, politeness, storytelling, and everyday life. They begin to recognize that culture and language shape each other in ways that can’t always be translated word-for-word. Hopefully, if they’re lucky, your institution also motivates, facilitates, or even requires a face-to-face meeting between its students and some aspect of this wider world that permits the very practice of both the language and the culture they’ve studied.
When students demonstrate their abilities through the AAPPL, they’re showing something more meaningful than textbook knowledge. Their proficiency proves to them that they can interpret authentic messages, understand perspectives from another culture, and communicate ideas in a real-world context. In other words, they’re practicing exactly the kinds of skills global citizens need.
The Communicator
Another great ‘human’ skill: if the Portrait of a Graduate includes “Effective Communicator,” then language classrooms are basically running daily communication boot camps. Second-language communication is messy, creative, and often wonderfully imperfect. It’s endearing in that for the first time, your pupils are actually conscious of how they express themselves! Students in a foreign language class constantly negotiate meaning, clarify misunderstandings, and find ways to express ideas with limited tools.
Think of when they have to –
- describe a word they don’t know
- rephrase an idea when the first attempt doesn’t work
- rely on context to interpret meaning
- weigh nonverbal communication as an equally important ingredient in the great communicative stew
When students eventually earn the Seal of Biliteracy, it signals something powerful. It tells colleges, employers, and communities that the student can function in more than one language, navigating communication across linguistic and cultural boundaries. It turns a classroom skill into a life skill.
The Problem Solver
So here’s one that required some thought… One of the most overlooked aspects of language learning is how much problem solving it requires. In fact, I’ve often thought that the early stages of study of a world language employs skills closer to a STEM class than liberal arts or humanities classes. Students rarely know every word they want to say; instead, they have to figure out how to make meaning anyway. So they experiment: finding alternate ways to express an idea; using context clues to interpret unfamiliar language; piecing together meaning from incomplete information; deducing through etymology and cognates the relationship between families of words; and the myriad functions of implicit learning that happen as students learn the rules of a language’s grammar naturalistically picking up patterns through usage.
This kind of thinking builds resilience and cognitive flexibility. Students learn that communication doesn’t require perfection. It requires persistence and creativity. Proficiency and performance-based assessments like AAPPL capture this beautifully because they don’t simply ask students what grammar rule they remember. They ask students to use the language to accomplish a communicative task, navigating uncertainty the same way they would in the real world. That process looks a lot like problem solving!
The Collaborator
This one is a no-brainer; you already know that language classrooms are also naturally collaborative! Your students regularly work together in pairs or small groups to complete communicative tasks, build conversations, and co-create meaning. Working together in language classrooms is essential if students want to interact with anyone else for practice in the target language, because more often than not, there’s only one of you, and many of them! In these moments, they aren’t just practicing vocabulary—they’re learning how to listen, support one another, and move ideas forward together.
And because everyone is working within the same developing skill set, collaboration tends to feel less intimidating. Students quickly realize that communication improves when they help each other. It’s the kind of teamwork schools talk about when they describe graduates who can collaborate in diverse environments.
The Lifelong Learner
Finally, many Portraits of a Graduate include curiosity or lifelong learning. Institutions don’t just want to cram their students with information; schools want to serve as the beginning of a journey, not its conclusion. And, as you’ve probably guessed, language learning is one of the clearest models of this mindset.
Students quickly discover that language proficiency isn’t something you “finish.” There is always another level of nuance, another cultural layer, another way to express an idea. Frameworks that emphasize proficiency reinforce this understanding. Progress happens along a continuum, and growth continues long after the classroom experience ends. Recognitions like the Seal of Biliteracy celebrate a meaningful milestone along that journey, but they also remind students that multilingualism is a skill they can continue developing throughout their lives.
Completing the Portrait
“Portrait of a Graduate” frameworks challenge schools to think beyond test scores and transcripts. And they ask us educators to imagine the qualities students should carry with them into adulthood. The typical ‘portrait’ includes a wide array of admirable traits, and when you think about it, language education plays a quiet but powerful role in shaping many of those qualities. It develops global awareness, strengthens communication skills, encourages collaboration, and teaches students how to navigate complexity with creativity and persistence.
And when students demonstrate those abilities through assessments like AAPPL or earn the Seal of Biliteracy, schools gain a tangible way to recognize those competencies. Look at the ‘portrait’ through the lens of language learning: while other subject proficiencies contribute one or more important aspects, with language proficiency, you’re getting the whole picture!
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