Giving back to the community through volunteer language-related projects offers a remarkable opportunity to showcase your language abilities while gaining invaluable work experience if you are in between jobs or working for a company also in the business of helping others. Bilingual professionals can leverage projects led by nonprofit organizations to support social causes within their communities or collaborate on language-focused outreach initiatives within their workplaces.
The power of first impressions in shaping opinions is widely recognized. Demonstrating your abilities confidently through tailored resumes and cover letters that emphasize your language proficiency can be the decisive factor in securing a role in a company that truly values your potential as a candidate and future team member.
Whether you are a bilingual professional pursuing a career in a language-related field or working in a company with a strong foreign language focus, the advantage of knowing how to speak two or more languages can open various opportunities for professional development. Actively seeking to improve your linguistic skills, from improving grammar and vocabulary to enhancing your overall communication skills, can be the ace up your sleeve for career advancement.
Have you found yourself asking any of these common questions pertaining to the AAPPL?
How can I prepare my students for the AAPPL?
Is the AAPPL a performance test or a proficiency test?
How do I prepare my students for the AAPPL if there aren’t set topics to learn?
The underlying motivation of these questions we often hear from educators is a desire to guide learners through a successful testing experience and to help them to demonstrate their maximum potential in the language. Knowing that proficiency is more than a set of vocabulary terms or grammar rules to know inside and out, let’s start by looking at how performance and proficiency are part of the AAPPL.
As schools begin the new academic year, reviewing contracts and compliance requirements for various services and products is a common practice. This article focuses specifically on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act or COPPA Rule. Do you know if the tools and assessments you’re using are COPPA certified and what could happen if they’re not? And what does COPPA compliance even mean? And why does it matter to teachers or learners? You’re not alone if you’ve been asking yourself some of these questions.
Proficiency in multiple languages can give you a competitive edge during your job search, as employers value the ability to communicate across cultural barriers. Bilingual employees can earn 5%-20% more hourly than their monolingual counterparts.
Many of the best high-paying remote jobs are in the knowledge industry, involving critical thinking, writing, and research skills. Here are 10 of the best work-from-home bilingual jobs.
For you as a bilingual or multilingual employee, the opportunity to advance your career into a leadership role is within your grasp. In this globalized economy, companies serving multilingual and multicultural communities – domestically or internationally – recognize the immense value of individuals who possess language proficiency beyond their native tongue.
“Workplaces are more global, and employees who are proficient in multiple languages and at ease in multiple cultures have more opportunities. These opportunities will continue to expand, as we are living in increasingly interconnected societies and workplaces,” (Lazar).
LTI and ACTFL work actively every year to maintain and improve all ACTFL assessments, including the ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages (AAPPL) and the ACTFL Latin Interpretive Reading Assessment (ALIRA). We are excited to announce some great AAPPL resources and enhancements. You might have already seen some of our blog posts with tips to prepare for the AAPPL, understanding ratings, and more. Here are a few updates and improvements you can look forward to in the AAPPL this year:
Is your organization grappling with a significant discrepancy between the language proficiency skills of your employees and the language needs your company relies on to do business? Offering language support to employees, especially when language proficiency plays a critical role in your company operations, is a vital step that can greatly impact the organization’s productivity. Lengthy task completion times caused by misinterpretations of instructions or communications, whether written or verbal, are challenges that must be addressed to enhance economic performance.
“With the myriad of things that are out of the control of businesses, learning foreign languages to speak to your employees, suppliers and customers need not be one of them,” (Selko).
Language Testing International, the exclusive licensee of ACTFL, is thrilled to sponsor the Seal of Biliteracy Achievement Scholarship, an award that recognizes the dedication of language learners who attain proficiency in two or more languages. This scholarship serves as a platform to honor their remarkable achievements and celebrate their linguistic accomplishments.
This year, we received nearly 100 submissions for the award. Students achieved the Seal in a wide variety of languages, including Hindi, Russian, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, and more. The breadth of languages represented by the winners and honorable mentions is truly remarkable.