I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, a proud Hispanic-Serving Institution. I teach courses in interpreting, Spanish, and bilingualism. Most students at our college are bilingual, yet they often enter college unsure of how their language skills relate to their academic and professional goals.
At John Jay, our Translation and Interpreting Certificate program is designed to prepare students for real-world language careers—while also supporting their bilingual development. To evaluate whether this dual goal is being met, my colleague, Dr. Aída Martínez-Gómez, and I conducted a semester-long study using ACTFL’s Oral Proficiency Interview – Computer (OPIc)® in both English and Spanish. This allowed us to measure the functional oral proficiency of our students before and after one semester of coursework.
Bridging the Proficiency Gap
One of the key challenges in bilingual higher education is that students often have uneven language skills across English and Spanish. Many of our heritage Spanish speakers report feeling more confident in English, even though they use Spanish daily at home. At the beginning of our study, most participants were more proficient in English than in Spanish, according to their OPIc scores.
We hypothesized that instruction in Spanish—through the Translation I and Interpreting I courses—would help close this gap. Although the data showed that proficiency increased slightly in both languages after one semester of training, English showed a slightly stronger trend. Interestingly, those with lower starting proficiency (regardless of language) made the greatest gains. For details, you can access the 2025 article I co-authored with Aida Martínez-Gómez, Language Learning Bridge: How Translation and Interpreting Training Impacts Bilingual https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2025.1609736/abstract.
This supports what we have seen in language learning research (Gatti et al., 2024): students grow the most when they start from an intermediate level and are given structured, meaningful opportunities to use both languages. Seeing gains at the advanced level probably requires more than one semester of instruction. As ACTFL’s inverted pyramid demonstrates, it takes a long time and much input to move between sub-levels as one moves up the proficiency scale; see the diagram below.
Click here to access the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines.
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From Language Brokering to Academic Skills
Many of our students come into the program with informal interpreting experience—translating for parents at doctor’s appointments or helping family members with legal paperwork. These real-life experiences are invaluable but often unrecognized in traditional academic settings.
In our classes, we aim to affirm and build on these skills. For example, students in our introduction to interpreting course practice bilingual communication in realistic scenarios, often drawing on their personal experiences. One student shared how interpreting for her family helped her feel confident during a mock immigration interview. By linking coursework to students’ lived experiences, we observed increased self-awareness, motivation, and participation.
Unexpected Gains in English
Although the courses are taught primarily in Spanish, we were surprised to see greater gains in English proficiency than in Spanish for some students. This speaks to the power of bilingual transfer. Translation and interpreting require students to think deeply in both languages, switching between them with precision and nuance. This cognitive exercise may reinforce metalinguistic skills that help students improve in both languages simultaneously.
In the U.S., it is commonly believed that improving English proficiency requires more English instruction. However, our findings suggest that English can also improve through formal instruction in the heritage language. This aligns with bilingual education research showing that students in dual language programs often outperform their peers in monolingual or ESL settings on English reading assessments (Thomas & Collier, 2017), reinforcing the value of bilingual coursework for overall language development.
Conclusion and Reflection
Our students gained more than just vocabulary or grammar—they developed real-world skills like critical thinking, adaptability, and confidence using both languages professionally. Some students reported that they now felt comfortable describing complex situations or hypothetical scenarios in Spanish for the first time. These are the kinds of language functions associated with ACTFL’s Superior level of proficiency.
As educators, we have learned that translation and interpreting training is not just about job readiness — it is a powerful context for language development, especially for bilingual students navigating multiple linguistic and cultural worlds. This work has inspired us to further tailor our instruction to heritage learners, integrating their unique linguistic backgrounds more intentionally into the curriculum.
Working with ACTFL’s OPIc has proven to be both a practical and pedagogically sound choice. We selected the OPIc because it allows for flexible, simultaneous administration with a group of students—an essential feature for classroom-based research. Unlike many traditional proficiency assessments, which often rely on metalinguistic knowledge and can disadvantage heritage learners, the OPIc has been validated as an effective tool for assessing both L2 and heritage speakers. Beyond its research utility, the OPIc also offers students a concrete way to track their own language development over time. Several students expressed pride in seeing their scores improve, which helped build confidence and reinforced their sense of progress in the course. This study is part of a broader research initiative supported by CILC, one of the Language Resource Centers funded by the U.S. Department of Education, which aims to advance innovative approaches to language education in higher education.
References
Lozano Argüelles, C., & Martinez-Gomez, A. (2025, June 26). Language learning bridge: How translation and interpreting training impacts bilingual proficiency in heritage and L2 learners. Frontiers. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2025.1609736/abstract
Gatti, A., Graves, S., & Durán Urrea, E. (2024). Writing Proficiency Development of Spanish Heritage Language Learners: Does Starting Proficiency Matter?. Heritage Language Journal, 21(1), 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1163/15507076-bja10032
Collier, Virginia P., and Wayne P. Thomas. “Validating the power of bilingual schooling: Thirty-two years of large-scale, longitudinal research.” Annual review of applied linguistics 37 (2017): 203-217.
