Why It Pays to Be Bilingual

Do you command two or more languages? Congratulations! Regardless of how you became proficient—at school, at home, or during your travels—learning a language takes a lot of time, work, and dedication.

Become Bilingual Certified

In the increasingly globalized and interconnected world, being able to communicate in more than one language is a highly marketable skill that often commands a higher salary. In fact, research shows that those who are bilingual or multilingual can earn 5%-20% more per hour than those who aren’t. What’s more, bilingual and multilingual jobs are on the rise. In today’s global economy, employers are looking for candidates who can effectively communicate across cultural divides and help expand business globally. And that means that as a bilingual or multilingual, you possess a competitive advantage over your monolingual peers.

In this post, we explore five reasons why it pays to be bilingual/multilingual.

1. Increasing Demand for Bilingual & Multilingual Jobs

There is no denying it—for the past several years there has been a steady growth in the demand for bilingual and multilingual jobs. This demand more than doubled between 2010 and 2015, and since 2020, there has been a 30% increase in bilingual remote jobs. And this trend is not expected to change. A 2019 survey among U.S. employers conducted by ACTFL has revealed an incredible reality:

  • 9 out of 10 employers rely on employees who can speak languages other than English.
  • 56% reported that their demand for bi/multilingual speakers will increase in the next five years.
  • 1 in 3 reported a language skills gap.
  • 1 in 4 has lost business due to a lack of foreign language skills.

As you can see, language proficiency is a high-demand skill, and many employers are willing to pay more to attract and retain bilingual and multilingual talent.

2. Increased Job Opportunities

Being proficient in more than one language opens many opportunities, both domestically and internationally. Many businesses hire bilingual and multilingual employees to reach customers who prefer to communicate in languages other than English. Others, such as healthcare centers, hospitals, and state and local governments, seek multilingual speakers to comply with laws and regulations. Finally, there are companies who are expanding business globally into diverse markets and need employees who can communicate clearly with their global colleagues and customers.

Are you curious which bilingual/multilingual jobs are in the highest demand? Departments with the greatest foreign language skills needs are customer service, sales, marketing, management, and IT. This article from Indeed lists the top 13 best career choices for bilinguals. So, if you command more than one language, there are job opportunities both domestically and internationally available to you that your monolingual peers do not have. And many employers are willing to pay more for your language skills!

3. Competitive Edge

Being bilingual or multilingual is rapidly becoming a necessary job qualification. Indeed lists bilingualism as one of the top in-demand skills for today’s work environment, so your command of more than one language sets you apart from the hundreds of other applicants for the job that you want. In today’s global economy, more and more companies are searching for diverse, bilingual and multilingual employees who can serve their diverse clients both domestically and globally. In a highly competitive market, such employees are hard to find. Your language skills make you stand out to potential employers and boost you to the top of the interview list.

Read more: How to Highlight Your Language Skills to Get Noticed

4. Better problem-solving, decision-making, and multitasking skills

Did you know bilinguals and multilinguals are great multitaskers, problem solvers, and decision makers? There are multiple studies that show cognitive advantages of multilingualism. For example, a study done by the National Institute of Health shows that multilinguals are much better and faster at switching tasks than their monolingual counterparts. In a corporate environment where flexibility and the ability to pivot quickly is important, bilingual and multilingual employees can be a great asset. Another study has found that multilingual speakers process information faster and more efficiently than their monolingual colleagues, making them excellent problem solvers and quick thinkers. These are qualities you definitely want to make known while job hunting.

5. Improved communication

Since learning another language also means learning about the culture of the new language, bilingual and multilingual speakers can understand cultural nuances, empathize with speakers of that language, and close the cultural and linguistic gap. And that’s a valuable skill for employers who are looking to expand and reach diverse markets. There are millions of people in the U.S. who prefer to communicate in a language other than English. In fact, 76% of customers said they’re more likely to purchase a product if information is available in their own language. Employees who can communicate with non-English speaking customers in their preferred language build deeper and longer lasting relationships. This is even more important when a company is looking to expand its business globally. Those employees are not only able to communicate easily with global customers but can also understand and interpret cultural details and nuances that influence customers’ decisions.

Proficient? Prove It with Language Certification

If you speak more than one language, you possess a highly marketable skill. Proving your language ability sets you apart from the hundreds of other applicants for the job that you want. Instead of simply stating on your resume that you have skills in a language, you can demonstrate your specific level of proficiency with an official language credential, instantly standing out to potential employers. Language Testing International (LTI) offers proficiency tests and language certificates for professionals in over 120 different languages. For individuals who wish to certify specific language skills, we offer ACTFL certifications in listening, reading, speaking, and writing.

There are many benefits of certifying your language skills. Watch this video to learn more.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTTY1PKQlc0&t

 

Ready to get certified? Start here.

Customer-centric Service in the Hospitality Industry Is Better when Delivered in Language of Preference

As the saying goes, “First impressions leave a lasting impression.” Every business, especially in the hospitality sector, expects to obtain customer reviews on social media and respected travel and leisure platforms that are positive such as, “The food is delicious,” “I highly recommend,” or “The service was exceptional.” Whether it is in the tourism, entertainment, or food and beverage industries, having bilingual or multilingual customer service professionals on staff can help your business stand out and expand your target audiences. Are your current employees or prospective candidates linguistically prepared to meet the needs of your diverse customers?

As noted in an article entitled The Hidden Benefits of Bilingual Customer Service Reps, there are many positive outcomes of having multilingual staff, some not obviously apparent. Some of these benefits include having the ability to welcome clients in their preferred language, attracting new customers, getting free word-of-mouth advertising (customers will recommend your business to family and friends), expanding businesses to new markets (domestically and internationally), and maintaining the loyalty of current clients. Disregarding language and cultural barriers is not an option if one your organization’s goals is to build strong and long-lasting relationships with customers in a multicultural economy.

A 2019 study conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for ACTFL entitled Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demand Among U.S. Employers, reports “A majority of U.S. employers (58 percent) say that their employees use their foreign language skills to communicate both internally with colleagues and externally with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.” Most U.S. employers also expressed that the demand for foreign languages has grown over the past five years, especially in the customer service and sales departments. These are the top two areas calling for multilingual personnel that are most likely facing a deficiency in language proficiency, causing organizations to avoid pursuing business opportunities or simply to miss out on them.

Research shows that the ability to speak more than one language has become one of the top skills required in many industries. In the hospitality sector, as well as in any business where face-to-face interaction is a daily and fundamental task to succeed, hiring employees capable of commanding two or more languages is crucial. The main goal is to provide the best service experience possible, and a competent bilingual and multilingual representative can deliver a clear, accurate, and compelling message to your diverse customers.

If you need to provide your current or future employees with dependable and legally defensible language proficiency assessments, contact Language Testing International (LTI), an exclusive provider of ACTFL assessments. Decades of research support the validity of each assessment, and LTI makes the remotely proctored testing process simple. We can assess the language skills of your team in over 120 languages anytime, from anywhere.

 

References:

Cura Resource Group (CRG). Joe Craparotta. “The Hidden Benefits of Bilingual Customer Service Reps.” July 24, 2018. https://www.curagroup.com/blog/the-hidden-benefits-of-bilingual-customer-service-reps

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), Pearson LLC, Language Testing International, Ipsos Public Affairs. Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demand Among U.S. Employers. 2019. https://www.leadwithlanguages.org/report

How to Recruit Multilingual Employees

The 2020 U.S. Census unveiled a significant growth of people who identify as multilingual and multiracial. In 2010, it was 9 million people nationwide, and in 2020, 33.8 million – a 276% increase. The U.S. is becoming a very diverse marketplace and access to global consumers is a viable growth strategy for many businesses thanks to technology and innovation. From a Human Resources standpoint, this poses a need for multilingual or bilingual employees for many business roles, especially in departments that require communicating regularly with non-English speakers.

Bilingual and multilingual employees create more meaningful and connected consumer engagement by facilitating understanding, answering questions, or mitigating any issues that may arise in the customer’s language of preference. Bilingual and multilingual employees can also help navigate the linguistic and cultural nuances of your target markets.

Recruiting and hiring bilingual employees

The “in-language” delivery of marketing, community relations, philanthropic, and procurement messaging through staff that is proficient in several languages is a fairly simple business strategy to implement, helping companies expand into new diverse consumer markets and building new relationships with community partners and suppliers.

Here are 4 steps that can help you begin multilingual and bilingual recruitment.

1. Identify Language Gaps

It’s important to first determine the language gaps of the business enterprise by identifying which jobs require bilingual or multilingual employees, what type of language skills are needed (reading, writing, speaking, listening, or all four), the percentage of work that will need to be conducted in the target languages, and clear goals for the multilingual teams.

2. Describe Multilingual Roles

Once language gaps have been identified, it’s time to develop job descriptions for the bilingual roles being created in the organization. This step requires specifying the type of language skills needed and the minimum level of language proficiency for each bilingual role. Language Testing International (LTI), with a group of Industrial and Organizational psychologists, developed the LTI Task Analysis process to assist companies in establishing minimum proficiency levels for bilingual positions.

3. Assess During Bilingual Recruitment Process

Once the minimum level of proficiency for each role has been clearly identified, you are ready to select appropriate language proficiency assessments and begin incorporating language assessment into your recruitment process. You can do so by partnering with a reputable language assessment provider, such as Language Testing International. Through an understanding of the client’s goals, LTI develops the best language assessment plans to meet the assessment and reporting needs of each client and their test candidates.

4. Source Multilingual Candidates

The finalized job descriptions should contain key words that will attract ideal candidates, such as “bilingual” and “language proficient in…,” mentioning the particular language(s) of interest. There are several bilingual job boards where you can access a pool of bilingual talent. Following is a list of platforms your can use to place employment opportunities and source bilingual and multilingual talent:

 

LTI is the exclusive distributor of the internationally recognized proficiency assessments developed by ACTFL. As world leaders in the direct assessment of language proficiency in speaking, writing, listening and reading, we currently offer testing in over 120 languages. LTI has organized and administered proficiency assessments for numerous Fortune 500 companies and small businesses, as well as countless universities and government agencies across the globe. We administer nearly a million language proficiency assessments each year.

For more information about how LTI can support your efforts to recruit qualified and certified bilingual and multilingual employees, contact us today.

 

Resources:

Jones, Nicholas, Marks, R., Ramirez, R., & Rios-Vargas, M. Census Illuminates Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Country. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/improved-race-ethnicity-measures-reveal-united-states-population-much-more-multiracial.html. August 12, 2021.

Passel, Jeffrey S., Lopez, M. H., D’Vera C. U.S. Hispanic population continued its geographic spread in the 2010s. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/u-s-hispanic-population-continued-its-geographic-spread-in-the-2010s/. February 3, 2022.

Rajghatta, Chidanand. White population falls below 60% amid browning of America. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/white-population-falls-below-60-amid-browning-of-america/articleshow/85278338.cms. August 12, 2021.

Meet a Language Superhero: Gina Ridulfo

magazine cover Gina RidulfoThis month’s language superhero tells a story of challenges, determination, and grit. Gina Ridulfo lost her ability to speak and write at the age of 8. She worked hard to regain her abilities and prove to everyone she was capable of a lot more than she was given credit for. Now, Gina is a teacher, self-taught speaker of Italian, and American Sign Language interpreter.

Read her story: Language-Superpower-Magazine-Gina-Ridulfo

Watch Gina’s videos:

Stepping out of your comfort zone to get language certified

Reasons to get language certified

Why you should get your language certification

Regaining my language (video in American Sign Language)

What it means to be “languageless” (video in American Sign Language)

Exploring a World of Opportunities in the Hospitality Sector with Your Language Skills

The hospitality industry is designed for individuals who enjoy interacting with different people every day. The different businesses within this sector—hotels, resorts, restaurants, and more—require professionals with certain essential skills to run a successful enterprise. If you are looking for a job or pursuing a career in a field where you can apply your language skills and benefit from them in the long-term, there is a wide range of roles you can set your eyes on in the hospitality sector.

Certify Your Language Skills Today

As featured in Indeed.com’s article What is the Hospitality Industry? Job titles & Skill Sets, the hospitality industry consists of the provision of a variety of services in five prime categories such as: tourism, transportation, lodging, events, and food and beverage. It also includes services offered in cruises, sporting events, and entertainment. This industry can provide employees with different benefits and countless opportunities for growth and requires a culturally diverse workforce.

Competitive Advantage of Multilingualism in the Hospitality Industry

Daily 24/7 interactions take place with multicultural customers seeking the best service experience, including its delivery in the language of their preference. Being bilingual or multilingual can make you stand out from other job seekers. This is a significant competitive edge in the hospitality field, where there is a broad-spectrum of companies focused on serving guests who want to enjoy their spare time with family and friends, and who understand that there is no room for language barriers and misunderstandings that can create unpleasant experiences.

As stated in a 2018 survey conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for ACTFL, most employers are reporting higher demand for foreign language skills than in previous years. The survey highlights that the top two departments in businesses that require employees with additional language capabilities are customer service and sales.

Commanding more than one language has an enormous impact in the hospitality industry, according to industry experts. The use of languages has different purposes in the industry such as:

  • assisting incoming tourists that do not necessarily understand the language of the country they are visiting, from scheduling activities to navigating local cities.
  • opportunities to work abroad in non-English speaking countries.
  • providing effective communication with international colleagues and customers.
  • ability to understand cultural nuances and close the communication gap.

Due to the high demand for multilingual employees, language training is now also becoming increasingly important in the workplace, globally.

The hospitality field offers its employees the opportunity of being exposed to different environments and the development of new skillsets each day. Whether you choose to work as a hotel manager or as a server in a restaurant, there are numerous possibilities to move up in the industry.

If you are a bilingual or multilingual professional seeking a role in the hospitality industry and would like to demonstrate your language skills to prospective employers, get certified! Language Testing International (LTI), an exclusive licensee of ACTFL and authority in language assessments offers valid language credentials in over 120 languages. All language proficiency assessments are remotely proctored, so you can take them at any time and anywhere. Scheduling your tests is easy and can be done on the LTI website.

 

References

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the Lead with Languages Campaign commissioned Ipsos Public Affairs, with the support of Pearson LLC and Language Testing International. (2019). “Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demand Among U.S. Employers.” https://www.leadwithlanguages.org/report

“Foreign Language in the Hospitality Industry Tourism Essay.” Ukessays.com 11 2018. UKEssays. 06 2022. https://www.ukessays.com/essays/tourism/foreign-language-in-the-hospitality-industry-tourism-essay.php

“What is the Hospitality Industry? Job Titles & Skill Sets.” Indeed for Employers. 2022. https://www.indeed.com/hire/c/info/what-is-the-hospitality-industry-job-titles-skill-sets

BEWARE: A Claim of Language Fluency on a Resume Isn’t Enough

I have lost count of the times that I reviewed resumes for colleagues, friends, or family members who are applying for a job and asked me for feedback. At the bottom of each resume, under the “SKILLS” category and immediately after mentioning command of a variety of software programs, I often see written these three words: “Fluent in Spanish.” The first time this happened I had to pause, take a deep breath, and figure out how to address the importance of revising this statement on a resume. I found myself tiptoeing around the conversation of language fluency because I didn’t want to hurt the feelings of a person I care for; much less insinuate they were lying. However, I soon realized that because I really cared I had to tell them – “Darling, you are not fluent in Spanish.”

The Collins English Dictionary defines a person who is fluent as one that “can speak the language easily and correctly.” When a person proclaims that they are fluent in a particular language on their resume, it means (to me) that they can perform the job they are applying for with ease and accuracy in that language. This includes reading, listening, speaking, and writing with the proper terminology for the industry, and use of grammatical and punctuation rules. Unfortunately, language fluency is consistently hard to gauge as a person’s perception of his/her proficiency might not match what his/her true proficiency is when measured with a language proficiency assessment. A recent survey has shown that it’s easy to overstate one’s proficiency, and almost 60% of job applicants do so on their resumes, including their language proficiency.

Therefore, it’s very important for companies to assess their current employees’ and prospective employees’ language skills because it’s too risky not to do so. Through language proficiency certification, businesses can ensure proficiency and the ability to mitigate risks such as the following, to name a few:

  • Complying with laws and regulations that require culturally and linguistically clear communication and understanding that will prevent accidents in the workplace (i.e., hospitals, construction sites, travel industry).
  • Lackluster year-to-year revenue growth due to inability to adequately expand into diverse markets.
  • Unsatisfactory non-English speaking customer experiences that will tarnish the company’s reputation and chances of building customer loyalty.
  • Loss of valuable bilingual or multilingual talent that may decide to secure a better opportunity where their language skills are appreciated and incentivized.

It’s not enough or acceptable these days to simply believe what people put on their resumes regarding their language proficiency. Language Testing International (LTI) administers ACTFL language proficiency assessments—the gold standard in language testing—and a trusted, validated, and accredited remote proctoring process. For the past 30 years, LTI has assessed the language proficiency of over 5 million people around the world reliably and accurately. People that are bilingual, multilingual, or at any stage of their language learning journey are also able to retest periodically to qualify how much they have progressed in terms of their fluency. This can be done internally at any organization as part of its regular talent pool assessment process.

Language proficiency assessments also ascertain what type of tasks employees can perform at work based on their measured language skills. Our team of experts can help you determine the minimum levels of proficiency required for multilingual roles. Through an understanding of your goals, LTI develops the best language assessment plan to meet your assessment and reporting needs. We do this through our Task Analysis procedure to establish the minimum level of language proficiency recommendation to qualify talent for the multilingual role(s).

This can be instrumental as businesses grow their product offerings into global markets or incorporate new target audiences into their prospective clientele. The bottom line is that the multilingual capabilities of your staff and the accurate assessment of their language proficiency skills directly impacts the company’s outcomes. So, if a potential candidate or current employee says they are fluent in any language, mitigate possible risk as soon as possible with the help of LTI.

Interested in starting language proficiency testing at your company? Learn more here and contact us to get started.

Hiring, Retaining, and Rewarding Multilingual Employees Is Good for Business

Are you actively recruiting bilingual employees to meet the needs of your diverse customers? According to the 2020 Census results, nearly 9% of the U.S. population has limited English proficiency, and 22% of the total population speaks a language other than English at home. With the U.S. population being more and more diverse and multicultural, providing services to customers in their preferred language to meet their needs and ensure your company’s success becomes a necessity.

Benefits of hiring multilingual talent

In the past few years, there has been a steadily growing need for a multilingual workforce. The demand for multilingual employees more than doubled between 2010 and 2015. The workforce has continued to evolve since then, particularly as a consequence of the Covid pandemic: as of 2021, there has been a 30% increase in bilingual remote jobs. Bilingual and multilingual employees bring a lot to the table, from establishing deeper connections with non-English speaking customers to helping build a culturally diverse workforce. Here are a few specific benefits of hiring multilingual talent.

Better connection to customers domestically and internationally

There are millions of people in the U.S. who prefer to communicate in a language other than English. In fact, 76% of customers said they’re more likely to purchase a product if information is available in their own language. When your employees can communicate with non-English speaking customers in their preferred language, they build deeper and longer lasting relationships. Hiring multilingual employees is a must when you’re looking to expand your business globally. They can not only communicate easily with your global customers but can also understand and interpret cultural details and nuances that influence customer decisions.

Saving money

Hiring employees who are highly proficient in other languages can save you money as they can translate documents and engage in conversations with customers and business partners without the need to hire outside translators or interpreters. Your multilingual employees can also assist with drafting and/or proofreading marketing or sales copy in other languages, further saving you time and money.

Multilinguals are better multitaskers and problem solvers

There are multiple studies that show cognitive advantages of multilingualism. For example, a study done by the National Institute of Health shows that multilinguals are much better and faster at switching tasks than their monolingual counterparts. In a corporate environment where flexibility and the ability to pivot quickly is important, multilingual employees can be a great asset. Another study has found that multilingual speakers process information faster and more efficiently than their monolingual colleagues, making them excellent problem solvers and quick thinkers.

professional woman engaged in conversationHiring and retaining the best multilingual talent

To ensure your current and prospective employees have the right level of proficiency in another language, make language assessment a part of your recruitment process. Validated and certified language proficiency testing can offer an accurate measurement of language level and eliminate the guesswork on whether a candidate truly possesses the language skills required for the job.

To attract and retain the best multilingual talent, consider offering a language pay differential for employees who demonstrate a required level of proficiency. Language pay differential (also known as FLIP—foreign language incentive pay) recognizes the value multilingual employees bring to a company and helps businesses stay competitive in the rapidly changing global economy. Pay differentials are common in government agencies and healthcare, but more and more companies offer additional pay for language skills. On average, multilingual employees make 5%-20% more per hour.

Determining the minimum level of language proficiency

Hiring and retaining multilingual talent and ensuring they possess the required language proficiency might seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be.

Language Testing International (LTI), an exclusive licensee of ACTFL, can help you determine the minimal level of proficiency required for multilingual roles. Through an understanding of your goals, LTI develops the best language assessment plan to meet the assessment and reporting needs of each client and specific job roles. We do this through LTI’s Task Analysis procedure to establish the minimum level of language proficiency recommendation to qualify talent for the multilingual role(s).

Task Analysis is performed with subject matter experts (SMEs), each of whom represents a particular field or profession. They participate in a language needs analysis to identify the proficiency level required to perform job-related communication tasks, establish clear language training goals, and identify specific “training gaps.” SMEs are asked the following questions:

  • What are the routine tasks that need to be performed? Are there non-routine tasks?
  • What content knowledge is needed to perform the task?
  • What is the context/situation of the task?
  • Who is the targeted listener?
  • What is the impact of miscommunication?
  • How well does the employee need to speak to successfully perform the language task?

Decades of language needs analyses and language testing have produced the data presented in Oral Proficiency in the Workplace. This chart aligns minimal ACTFL levels of spoken language proficiency with corresponding workplace positions as determined by SMEs. In addition, there are examples of speaker profiles that are likely to perform at those levels.

Ready to get started with language proficiency assessment? Contact us.

As the global leader in language proficiency testing, Language Testing International (LTI) conducts almost one million language proficiency tests every year in 120+ languages. We partner with Fortune 500 companies as well as small business, academic institutions, and government agencies to verify and certify language skills of multilingual speakers. As the exclusive licensee of ACTFL, we offer the highest level of client service as well as convenient online test scheduling and reporting over secure client networks.

We did the test. Now what? Part 3: Differentiating Your Focus

Over the last two blog posts, I have looked at student scores by grade over the years of 2019-2022 and then compared the scores of my students to the school’s average scores. Today, I want to dig into differentiating your focus.

Read –> We did the test. Now what? Part 1: Looking at yearly performance over time.

Read –> We did the test. now what? Part 2: Year-over-year comparisons and data analysis.

Looking at Specific Students Over Time

Just as you can compare your classes’ results year over year, you can do the same for your students. I use these data trends to honor my “best students” at the end of the year. Besides “Most Proficient,” I have a data-based “Most Improvement” winner. Here is an example of how to work with longitudinal data for a single student. I’m using actual student data but have changed student names/initials to protect privacy. This specific student, whom we’ll call CW, was the second-most improved student in my senior-level College Credit Plus course this year.

AAPPL dashboard
Figure 1.

To start, simply use the AAPPL Longitudinal Report and export it to Excel. If this isn’t enabled in your LTI Client Site account, contact your LTI representative and ask them to enable AAPPL Student Longitudinal Reports.

To run your AAPPL Student Longitudinal Report, simply select the timeframe and language. You will get an output like the one below, which will include a list of multiple students and their scores across years of testing.

longitudinal reports
Figure 2. Here you can see CW grew from I2 to I5 in PW and IR skills; in IL they also exhibited improved performance. They went from I2 to I1 in ILS. Their performance in three skill areas jumped up significantly on the ACTFL Performance Scale over the course of a single year!

While this example shows longitudinal data for all of my students in the year range and language I specified, I can also search for a specific student. Let’s take another student whom I’ll call JH, for example. In the general output, I can see they showed signs of improvement (see screenshot below).

longitudinal report for one student
Figure 3. I see JH’s scores in the broad data output from my longitudinal report and decide to run a longitudinal report just on them.

Perhaps I want to isolate their scores and drill down a bit or maybe even sit down and show them their scores on my screen to discuss together. To look at a specific student, I enter the student’s name (in this case, I entered JH’s name) and click search; this generates an output like this example below.

longitudinal report for one student
Figure 4. Here I’ve isolated JH’s information in the longitudinal report. I can quickly and easily see their ILS and IL skills improved from 11th to 12th grade, and I can see their PW scores remained the same both years, even after taking a retest on PW (in 2022). Using this view, I can show them their results on the screen without exposing other students’ data.

Looking at Broader Trends

As you look at longitudinal data, you are able to see trends across years. It can be interesting to look at the changes and patterns from elementary to middle or middle to high school, as you see in the example below. Your ability to view across schools or grade levels will depend on the viewing access set up with your username in the Client Site. Longitudinal reports can empower you as a teacher to become familiar with students’ AAPPL data prior to coming to your grade level or your school. This can also empower teachers and administrators to see patterns in programs across a district or multiple schools.

longitudinal report
Figure 5. This image blurs out student information, but you can see the student data selected shows results for testing each year. This student earned I4 in ILS in 5th grade and then A1 in 7th grade. If I had this student then in 9th grade, I could already see some trends and have an idea of the student’s progress, regardless of who their teacher was or which middle school program they were in.

Playing with Data

When you look at the longitudinal reports, you also have the option to export the data to Excel. Simply enter your year range, language (Bubble 1), hit search, and then select Export to Excel (Bubble 2). This will allow you to conduct further analysis of the data if you’re comfortable with Excel and its functions. You can look at the data within a year, year over year, by years of instruction, and more. It might seem incredibly time-consuming to evaluate data like I’ve shown in this series of blog posts. But doing so has helped to inform my instructional strategies, recognize student development, and drill into specific points that might be important.

AAPPL Client site
Figure 6. Playing with data.

You can use AAPPL data to benefit your own instruction or even go beyond that to working with your school, program, or district. The first step is to take a look together with your colleagues and re-center the discussion around proficiency. Then it’s easier to all pull in the same direction! Our department has done more and more of this since our adoption of the AAPPL. Not only am I improving in my instructional strategies, but as a department we are all paying attention and working to aim our trajectory higher. As you dig into longitudinal reporting, you might be surprised what trends you find. The data can provide powerful information that can significantly impact the work you and your language departments do!

Validating Proficiency Benchmarks at a US Military Academy

By Pete Swanson, PhD, and Jean W. LeLoup, PhD, USAFA

Introduction

Some would say communicative Language Teaching approaches have helped shift the paradigm of world language teaching and learning. Proficiency testing has now been prioritized where program coordinators and others set proficiency benchmarks for language learners to achieve. Unfortunately, proficiency testing can be costly and many programs lack funds, which can inhibit such assessment. Nevertheless, several large universities in the United States (US) received federal funding under the Language Flagship Program to assess learners’ proficiency in a number of languages (Winke & Gass, 2019). Established at the turn of the 21st century, the Flagships made the call for institutions of higher education to create a “viable process to assess proficiency learning in high quality, well-established academic language programs” (Swanson et al., 2022, p. 2).

Heeding this call, researchers at the US Air Force Academy (USAFA) applied for funding to examine the oral proficiency of cadets studying Spanish. The purpose of the funding was to validate the proficiency benchmarks set forth by faculty members. These benchmarks are codified in the Spanish Language Roadmap, which specifies proficiency goals for each of the four years of language study at USAFA.

Methods and Findings

Following IRB approval, the researchers randomly selected cadets in second (N= 48), third (N= 53), and fourth year (N=28) Spanish language courses to participate in the study. Funding limited the total number of participants to 27 cadets. As a result, the 27 cadets took the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI, Language Testing International, 2022) in the USAFA language lab in April 2022. Data were entered into SPSS version 28 for analysis.

With respect to the OPI ratings for those who had studied for 240 classroom hours (i.e. four semesters) at USAFA, results shown in Table 1 indicate that 94% of the participants attained or surpassed the benchmark (Intermediate-Mid) for this level.

Table 1
OPI Results for participants (N=16) who studied Spanish for 240 classroom hours (i.e. four semesters) at USAFA.
Proficiency Rating Number of Participants
Intermediate Low 1
Intermediate Mid 11
Intermediate High 4

Turning to the OPI ratings for those who had studied Spanish at USAFA for 320 classroom hours (i.e., six semesters), findings showed that 80% of the participants reached the benchmark (Intermediate High) while one reached the Intermediate-Mid rating for this level.

Table 2
OPI Results for participants (N=5) who studied Spanish for 320 classroom hours (i.e. six semesters) at USAFA.
Proficiency Rating Number of Participants
Intermediate Mid 1
Intermediate High 4

Finally, there were six participants who studied abroad for a semester at a foreign military academy in a Spanish-speaking country (Chile or Spain). All of these individuals took at least and received an OPI rating in the Advanced range; there was not a proficiency benchmark set for this particular group. Interestingly, none of these participants was a heritage Spanish speaker; 66% of the participants in this group were STEM (Scient, Technology, Engineering, and Math) majors.

 

Table 3
OPI Results for participants (N=6) who studied abroad for one semester at a foreign military academy in a Spanish-speaking country.
Proficiency Rating Number of Participants
Advanced Low 3
Advanced Mid 3

Summary

Preliminary results from the OPI testing are encouraging vis-à-vis the attainment of the benchmark targets. OPI results from the present study will be used to inform strategies for setting different proficiency goals for those who study abroad for a semester. Nevertheless, given the small number of participants in the study and the limited financial resources to conduct the research, the researchers call for more funding and investigation to corroborate and build on the present findings.

 

DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A: Approved for public release: distribution unlimited. DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force Academy, the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. PA#: USAFA-DF-2022-558

We did the test. Now what? Part 2: Year Over Year Comparisons and Data Analysis.

In my previous article, I took a high-level look at my 11th and 12th graders over three years (2019-2022). In this post, we’ll dig in a bit on the data analysis, or what I did as I looked at the data from AAPPL reporting tool. I started by looking at the top performance by grade for each year, creating my own Excel spreadsheet to dig in on the numbers a bit. I exported the data from the AAPPL report and laid it out as shown below.

Year over Year Comparison (Top Performance by Grade Highlighted) 

test analysis
Figure 1

Figure 1 captures my analysis in Excel of what years my students had the highest performance for each skill. The highest speaking performance for 11th graders happened in 2022, while the highest performance for 12th graders was in 2020. In writing, the highest performance for 11th graders happened in 2019; in 2020 for the 12th graders. In listening, 11th graders peaked in 2020, and 12th graders in 2019. Reading scores were highest for 11th graders in 2022, and in 2021 for 11th graders. Clearly, if I were to depict highest scores on a linear graph, it would not look like linear growth from year to year.

test analysis
Figure 2

Figure 2 shows the aggregate by grade and skill over three years. Looking at 2019-2022 average scores, 11th graders showed lowest average scores in listening and speaking and highest scores in writing. For seniors, lowest average scores were in reading and interpersonal listening and speaking; highest scores were in interpretive listening.

Now my deeper analysis begins. My next step is to compare my students to the averages within my school (see image below). I can see that in half of the modes and grades my students have performed above our school’s averages historically. There are some specific factors at play in different years, for example I tend to test students who are in our most advanced classes (College Credit Plus), so the expectation should generally be that they outperform our school’s averages. More importantly, I can compare my students’ performance to my prior students, which tells me that while my students from this year matched or outperformed prior years in terms of getting close to or beyond I-5 (our criteria for the Seal of Biliteracy), there has been a trend downward in speaking scores over the last three years.

Below you’ll see that I plugged my data into an Excel spreadsheet. I know not everyone is comfortable using Excel, but I didn’t use any advanced functions. I simply copied the data from the AAPPL Report and pasted it into Excel.

test analysis
Figure 3

Figure 3 shows my analysis comparing my students to the school averages. Again, I simply pulled the numbers from my AAPPL reporting and plugged into excel.

This analysis drives me to refine my conversational activities moving forward, increasing the number of scaffolded conversations with specific examples of how to give narration, rather than leaving most of my conversation activities open-ended. I suspect that part of this downturn is my overconfidence in my students based on classroom activities where they shine in a particular topic, as well as my belief that the simple fact that they participate in Spanish-language conversations with native speaker partners on a regular basis leads to increased proficiency. It is clear to me now that even in those settings my students might benefit from clearer instruction on how to participate more actively and completely in an Intermediate High/Advanced Low setting. Stay tuned for my next post on differentiating your focus.