You are standing in a room with a bunch of incoming 9th grade students and their parents and are given one minute to explain to them why they should enroll in language classes in high school. Anyone been there? I’ve been teaching Spanish since 2004, and I’ve noticed that my sales pitch has changed over the years. I used to talk about the value of understanding cultures, the ways language learning promotes brain growth, and its potential future utility in a broad sense. A generational shift occurred where suddenly that last point – the utility of language learning – became more and more influential. With that shift came the development of language learning certification programs like the Seal of Biliteracy and formal, standardized testing like the AAPPL. It’s important to understand why this shift is happening and what’s behind it. Ultimately, it taps into the value system of today’s students: Gen Z.
Who Is Gen Z?
Generation Z (or Gen Z) is a term used to describe individuals born between 1997 and 2012 and applies to many of the learners hoping to earn the Seal of Biliteracy in our schools today. This generation tends to prioritize real-world applications and concrete outcomes over traditional academic metrics. Gone are the days of purely being fulfilled by class rank, GPA, or a sticker on a piece of paper. Those things are still important to today’s students but mostly in the context of practical utility. They are valued tokens used as vehicles to tangible benefits.
Concrete Rewards
The Seal of Biliteracy is a tangible recognition of language proficiency that holds much more applicable power than a classroom grade. My students take the AAPPL to qualify for the Seal. For me, it’s valuable to know the AAPPL is a standardized, unbiased assessment of their achievement. But to my students, this is only mildly compelling. Therefore, I approach AAPPL testing by outlining the concrete potential outcomes, almost like an itemized receipt of what they will receive in this transaction.
My high school program begins educating students about the Seal of Biliteracy in our world language program as freshmen. They have multiple years of hearing the message about the marketability of language proficiency and its usefulness, which means they are well aware of how to leverage their Seal by the time they are ready to graduate and take their final AAPPL test. I work mostly with seniors. Throughout their senior year when they are filling out applications and scholarship information, we talk about how to highlight their language skills. I demonstrate how to add this credential to resumes and talk about how to showcase their achievement during job interviews. Additionally, I model adding the Seal to LinkedIn profiles and talk about different ways to get a competitive edge in a global job market. This kind of focus helps the students visualize the rewards for taking the AAPPL test and attaining the Seal of Biliteracy.
Return on Investment
This year, a major tangible benefit to earning the Seal of Biliteracy was introduced in my state, which has raised student interest in AAPPL and in my language program generally. A local state university announced that they will now award college credit for those who have attained the Iowa Seal of Biliteracy. This is a real game-changer for Gen Z learners. These college credits are a quantifiable return on investment of their language learning, and it is appealing for many reasons. Those credits equal tuition dollars saved, making the Seal of Biliteracy now have monetary value. And if universities are offering college credit for the Seal of Biliteracy, what might it mean for employability? Even if students choose not to go to university or don’t end up “cashing in” on this specific offer, the evident transactional value of the Seal is enough to buoy interest in growing in their language proficiency. Gen Z needs to feel like there are tangible benefits to doing whatever it is they are doing.
Instant Gratification
While it’s often said Gen Z values instant gratification, many world language programs don’t typically provide it. The payoff for language learning usually presents itself years into the future. Our Gen Z learners are used to a world where consequences and responses are much more immediate. Asking a student to learn and work for multiple years now so they can receive gratification several years later is a hard sell. The Seal of Biliteracy award provides my learners with more immediate recognition.
In fact, I find the quick turnaround of the AAPPL test results alone as a strong appeal to the Gen Z mindset. The reading and listening results come back within a day, and sometimes it only takes a few days for the writing and interpersonal speaking results.
And the celebration matters, too. When we highlight AAPPL and Seal of Biliteracy achievements with award ceremonies and public displays of recognition, learners feel gratified. Due to our celebration ceremonies, my Gen Z students can feel a sense of accomplishment within weeks of testing, a nice form of immediate gratification for the work they’ve put into their language development.
Real World Applications
Many language teachers are excellent storytellers. After 20 years of teaching, I’ve accumulated a lot of anecdotal stories from former students that, years down the road, found the reward of their linguistic skills. Compare that to students who achieve the Seal and are immediately rewarded because of their language ability. I love to pepper in those Seal stories to appeal to my Gen Z students. I tell them about a recent graduate that was given a great on-campus work study job simply because they held the Seal and might be able to utilize it in the campus help desk. I talk about how a student was given a summer internship over another student in their program because of the Seal. Or how another leveraged their credentials to get a position in a youth coaching program that traveled the United States.
Being able to share real-world impacts of the Seal from people that came from the same classroom and community as my current learners really matters. It taps into the personal fable of adolescence where the spotlight is on them and helps them think, “If it happened for them, it can happen for me.”
I’m happy to continue to give out stickers and talk about the long-term value of learning a language. But we also have to consider adjusting our classrooms to align with what our students value, or our programs will not matter as much to them. We have a great opportunity to give learners everything they desire through our program with the Seal of Biliteracy and regular AAPPL testing. There are not a lot of academic programs in high schools that let the students walk away with that kind of tangible benefit, and we should be proud to be among the programs that offer such a benefit to our learners.
Ready to bring the AAPPL to your program? Contact us to get started.
