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.

Be More Than an Insurance Agent—Be an Agent of Change!

insurance agent talking to a young couple

Handling insurance details, claims, and sensitive and delicate information where emotions are involved can be a difficult task even when the policyholder and the insurance agent speak the same language. Can you imagine how challenging it can be when we add a language barrier into the mix? The insurance industry is aware of the need to recruit employees with adequate language proficiency levels to meet the diverse needs of customers today. If you are a bilingual or multilingual professional and your intention is to pursue a career in the growing and constantly evolving insurance industry, you should know that both employers and customers need you.

As stated by a survey conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for ACTFL, most employers point out that the demand for languages other than English has grown over the past five years. Additionally, the ability to speak more than one language has become one of the top skills required in the delivery of different services, including insurance offerings. Establishing a connection between language skills and economic competitiveness is just one of the main results of this survey, which strives to raise awareness and action around the establishment of language competency in the United States, as specified in the report.

According to the Insurance Information Institute, the insurance industry is currently transforming to encourage and boost diversity in their organizational culture. A multilingual or bilingual insurance agent is a valuable resource that can make recommendations based on the specific needs of the community he/she works for or represents. Similarly, their commitment and meaningful participation in the community they serve is a vital piece of creating powerful relationships and gaining the trust of prospective clients. An article featured in AgentPipeline.com highlights that, “A more significant piece of what insurance agents do is educate our customers on how to ensure they are covered and help protect their financial security and teach them how to take advantage of benefits that are included in their insurance policies.” To become active in your community, they recommend volunteering at community events, supporting local businesses, and developing professional connections online with digital tools, as well as other activities.

Watch –> Leading with Understanding: Bilingual Insurance Agents Build Strong Working Relationships

One of the main goals of the insurance industry is to provide quality services. The insurance world recognizes that hiring professionals who can speak more than one language is an advantage that helps impart exceptional customer service that focuses on individuals’ preferred language. Communicating in an accurate way and overcoming language and cultural barriers can help build relationships, not just locally but internationally.

Helping customers understand what an insurance policy has to offer, especially those whose first language isn’t English, does create more business opportunities; however, and more importantly, it allows agents to make an impact in the lives of those they serve.

Contact Language Testing International (LTI) if you need to get certified in another language and provide your current or future employer and your customers with reliable and legally defensible language proficiency results. The validity of each assessment is supported by three decades of research. LTI makes the process simple with remotely proctored assessments in over 120 languages that you can take anytime, anywhere.

How to Highlight Your Language Skills to Get Noticed

close up of person holding a resume

If you are proficient in more than one language, you possess a highly marketable skill. Do you know which languages are most marketable? According to Preply, the three most frequently requested languages in job postings are Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), and French.

Consider this: As of May 15, 2022, Indeed has posted over 900 jobs in the U.S. with the keywords multilingual speaker. Just over a year ago, Indeed also posted an article on the 13 Best Careers for Multilingual Professionals.

Certify Your Language Skills Here

Learning another language is a skill that requires dedication and commitment. In addition, those who are bilingual and multilingual are known to be better multitaskers and problem solvers—qualities you want to make known while job hunting.

Achieving a level of expertise in another language is impressive and should definitely be highlighted even if you’re not looking for a job where a second language is required.

Here are three suggestions for how to highlight and showcase your language skills to get noticed.

Make your language skills visible everywhere

Your resume is the first place where you should put your language skills. To make sure that these special skills are noticed, consider including them both in the skills section and the summary. As recruiters often only skim resumes, including your language skills on top of your resume will increase your chances of getting noticed. LinkedIn is another place where you should highlight your language skills. If a job application process also requires a cover letter, be sure you mention your language skills in there, too. Many companies are looking to expand globally in the near future, so even if language skills aren’t required for the job, being proficient will certainly make you a stronger candidate.

Be clear about your language proficiency

Many candidates include phrases such as “Fluent in . . .,” “Conversant in . . .”, or “Working knowledge of . . .” on resumes. Language fluency is hard to gauge, and your perception of your proficiency might not match what your true proficiency is when measured with a language proficiency assessment. It’s easy to overstate one’s proficiency. A recent survey has shown that nearly 60% of job applicants overstate their abilities on their resumes, including their language proficiency.

If you possess language skills, consider obtaining an official language proficiency certificate by taking a language assessment, such as the ACTFL language proficiency tests. An ACTFL test not only tells you exactly what your proficiency level is, but it also comes with an official certification that lets your prospective employer know exactly how well you can communicate in another language. The ACTFL assessments also come with digital badges issued by Credly, which makes showcasing your language skills on your resume and professional networking sites easier.

Be specific with your examples

Have you used your language skills in professional settings before? Talk about it! Instead of simply stating that you command another language, give specific examples of how you used them. Having a few concrete examples of how you incorporated your language skills into your work shows the hiring manager a level of ability in addition to just showing them your proficiency level. Another idea: post videos of yourself speaking or presenting in another language on your professional network such as LinkedIn. Recruiters searching for candidates will immediately notice them… and your language skills, too!

You might be proficient, but be prepared for a test

According to a recent ACTFL report titled, “Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demands Among U.S. Employers,” 9 out 10 employers rely on language skills other than English to conduct their business, and this demand is expected to increase by 56% in the next 5 years. Client- and community-facing departments, such as Customer Services, Sales, Marketing, Management, and IT have the greatest need. Therefore, employers who rely on bilingual and multilingual employees need to have a reliable and validated method of checking job candidates’ language abilities. Validated and certified language proficiency testing offers an accurate measurement of language level, so more and more employers include language assessment as part of their recruitment process. If you haven’t taken a language proficiency assessment and don’t have a language proficiency certificate, you might be asked to sit for a test as part of your interview process.

Want to get certified? You can start here.

An Incentive to Stay: Employer-Sponsored Education and Certifications

collage of portraits of diverse group of people

In today’s hiring environment it’s very difficult to compete…as an employer. The unemployment rate is at an all-time low, and the lived experiences of working-class adults in the U.S. during the pandemic made many reconsider what they valued (or not) about their workplace culture.  Employers across all industries are now challenged with mitigating the demands for mindfulness, empathy, and creating a sense of purpose for their employees. Loyalty and staff retention is tied to the experience new hires have during the talent acquisition process, onboarding, and in their day-to-day circumstances at work. They want to find value in the work they are performing and feel that their employers care about them.

Recognizing the contributions of people while they are in the workplace and providing enrichment opportunities through training and employer-sponsored education are easy ways to boost morale and elevate the skills of your employees. Employers have always been able to facilitate these growth opportunities. Upskilling internal teams can ignite more productivity. It also helps build an organizational culture that seeks to invest in improving people to grow business not only in the U.S., but globally. It’s part of humanizing how we do business moving forward.

One often-missed business opportunity is tapping into an ever-growing pool of multicultural and multilingual professionals that are part of the U.S. workforce. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in 2020 one in every three adults in the U.S. workforce identifies as being part of a non-White ethnic or cultural group, and these diverse communities are not monolithic. The Black community can have representation from people who identify as African American, Caribbean, and African. As for people of Asian descent participating in the U.S. workforce, the demographic make-up is comprised of people who identify as Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Pakistani, Cambodian, Hmong, and others. People of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity can be of any race and represent 18 percent of the total labor force. This poses diversity in thought, approach, perspectives, innovation, and skills such as bilingualism or multilingualism. It also reflects diversity in new or repeat customers.

Many companies have adopted education coverage as a formal way to engage with their employees and helping them earn degrees that can be beneficial for business growth and expansion into global markets. For example, JetBlue Global Scholars Program offers the airline’s crewmembers the opportunity to earn a fully accredited associate or bachelor’s degree that includes major cost coverage, required licenses, certifications, transfer course credits, as well as job experiences and JetBlue training.

JetBlue also allows its multilingual employees to earn college credits by demonstrating proficiency in other known languages. JetBlue employees can take ACTFL language proficiency assessments in speaking, writing, listening, and reading and receive an official ACTFL language proficiency certificate for each test. Five of ACTFL assessments, which are conducted by Language Testing International, are recognized by the American Council on Education (ACE) for college credit. This affords bilingual or multilingual JetBlue crewmembers the chance to earn as many as 12 college credits per assessment, advancing their education and work opportunities as well. Many graduates are promoted to assume new roles within the company or qualify for more flight routes as a direct result of their language certification and their degree, thanks to the JetBlue Global Scholars Program.

Read more –> Business Benefits of Multilingualism

As word gets around among job seekers and workers looking for better employment opportunities where they will be incentivized for the skills they bring to the table – including proficiency in other languages – employers are pressed to identify, cultivate,

and provide opportunities for higher education and/or certification to their employees. They, in turn, will benefit from increasing employee satisfaction and loyalty, recognition as a mindful and supportive employer, and broadening of their market share by reaching multicultural customers using the language proficiency of their team.

Are you interested in language proficiency assessment as part of your employer-sponsored education opportunities? Learn more here and contact us to get started.

Listen to the podcast “Supporting Crewmembers Career Advancement with Languages” about how JetBlue is leveraging LTI’s Language Proficiency Testing to help the company’s employees further their academic and career advancement by offering the airline’s crewmembers the opportunity to earn a fully accredited Associate or Bachelor’s degree. Listen here.

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

two teenage girls doing school work

We love to use the AAPPL test for our students to earn the Seal of Biliteracy, but to refine our program and to recognize growth as well as achievement, we have explored the data reporting tools that the LTI Client Site has to offer. In this article, I will discuss a few of the ways that you can use this data as evidence to differentiate instruction, change curricular focus, and even to supplement your teacher evaluation rating. While some of the data analysis can be done directly within the LTI Client Site, you can also export student data to do a deeper dive using a spreadsheet.

One of the key ways that you can use the data is for longitudinal comparison of your students’ performance versus their own prior performance; you can also look at performance in your current year and previous years. Below I will demonstrate a few examples of how you can do this, as well as a breakdown of what our thought process around this information has looked like for our district specifically.

Refine Your Year Over Year Performance

For this example, I will produce tables for each of the four years that we have given the Spanish-language AAPPL, with a comparison of juniors and seniors. (We test during Seal of Biliteracy eligibility, which in Ohio is within 15 months of graduation.) Then I will repeat this for myself as a teacher and compare my students’ results to our school’s overall results.

  1. From the Main Menu, click AAPPL School Report.
  2. Select your date range, Language, Teacher, and
  3.  the value that you wish to Compare By followed by your selected parameters.
  4. Click Apply Filters to see your data.

using the Client Site

Digging in: Performance by Grade Over Years

Taking the filters I just set, I’ll first look at performance by grade, starting in 2019. The following images show AAPPL Data for Spanish students in grades 11 and 12 by year, starting in 2019.

Spanish Students: Performance by Grade 2019
Figure 1. Spanish Students: Performance by Grade 2019

In Figure 1, you can see that the 11th and 12th graders are hovering in the intermediate range, with the exception of the ILS where the 11th graders had a notably lower average rating.

Spanish Students: Performance by Grade 2020
Figure 2. Spanish Students: Performance by Grade 2020

A year later, in 2020 (Figure 2), I see that the grade 11 students are achieving a higher average rating on the ILS than the previous year, now nearing I3 instead of N3. I also see that, overall, both 11th and 12th graders are achieving higher ratings than the previous year.

Spanish Students: Performance by Grade 2021
Figure 3. Spanish Students: Performance by Grade 2021

In 2021 (Figure 3), I can see lower average scores across the board and can consider what was different in this academic year from previous years.

Figure 4. Spanish Students: Performance by Grade 2022 (to date; some tests are still in progress)

I again see evidence of lower average scores across the board in 2022 (Figure 4).

Spanish Students: Performance by Grade (Combined 2019-2022)
Figure 5. Spanish Students: Performance by Grade (Combined 2019-2022)

Figure 5 shows combined scores for all three years and allows me to get an overall snapshot of my 11th and 12 grade students over a period of time. I can compare this combined score over 3 years to any individual year, and I’ve now created my own norm-referenced internal benchmark.

This simple example of looking at students by grade over a series of years gives a glimpse into how useful longitudinal reporting can be. In my next post, I’ll dig into some analysis as I do a year over year comparison using the longitudinal data.

The Insurance Industry Welcomes Your Fluency in Two or More Languages

insurance agent talking to a couple

If you are a bilingual or multilingual individual looking for a job, there is an industry looking for you! You could be an incredible asset for any of the many insurance companies in the United States. The demand for people with language skills among small-, medium-, and large-scale employers in competitive business environments such as the insurance industry is in high-demand and will continue to rise.

Certify Your Language Skills Today

According to a 2018 survey conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for ACTFL, most employers are reporting more demand for language skills than in previous years. One of the most striking findings was that “nine out of 10 U.S. employers report a reliance on U.S.-based employees with language skills other than English, with one-third (32 percent) reporting a high dependency.” (Page 3, para. 2).

The U.S. marketplace and its workforce are more culturally diverse than ever before. Statistics show that 65 million people that live in the U.S. speak a language other than English, which suggests that employers are frequently dealing with customers, suppliers, or collaborators with different cultural backgrounds and limited English proficiency. This report also points out that the languages in highest demand among employers in the U.S. are Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), French, Japanese, German, Russian, Arabic, Italian, Korean, Hindi, and Portuguese.

Every day the consumer marketplace is becoming more multilingual and multicultural. Every day more employers are acknowledging the need to address the demand for language skills—especially in businesses where direct communication with customers is fundamental to company revenue growth. The ACTFL survey states that the top two departments in businesses that require employees with valued language skills are customer service and sales. Research shows that the insurance market is an industry that is constantly innovating to satisfy the evolving demands of engaging customers that do not fully command English. It is a challenge for individuals with limited English proficiency to fully understand the details of insurance plans and claims, which could obstruct the progress of a business interaction. As a policy holder, whether it’s home, life, health, automobile, or disability insurance, one expects to get the best offer as well as a quality experience that is generally evaluated based on good communication. For this reason, insurance employers must ensure their agents are capable of delivering sensitive information in a clear and accurate manner to their customers, since miscommunication could lead to losing a sale or end up in a legal problem, among other possibly serious consequences. Additionally, the probability of buying a product increases if the company provides customer support in the customer’s preferred language.

Watch –> Leading with Understanding: Bilingual Insurance Agents Build Strong Working Relationships

If you are bilingual or multilingual, the insurance industry can benefit from your language versatility, and the possibilities for your professional growth are exponentially greater if you use your skills correctly. There are many benefits in the job market for bilingual employees. Bilingualism increases your chances of being hired for an insurance company that does business internationally or with a dedicated department for multicultural consumer engagement, decreasing competition for crucial job roles. Some advantages that come with being bilingual include the opportunity to travel to different locations around the world, the ability to connect on a more personal level with clients that may not command English, and the development of long-lasting business relations. Additionally, your pay rate or salary may grow significantly since you may qualify for different roles in your organization, or you can consider switching companies to increase your income. There are many players in the insurance market! The potential to be successful by utilizing your language skills to advance in your career is limitless. Multilingual people get higher scores on memory tests and are better observers than their monolingual colleagues; these are sought-after qualities in professions within the insurance arena that require employees to juggle conveying detailed information and managing the diverse needs of families and individuals with ease.

If you are a bilingual and enthusiastic professional seeking to become a valued asset to the insurance industry and would like to get certified, contact Language Testing International (LTI). As an exclusive licensee of ACTFL, LTI offers valid and reliable language proficiency assessments and certifications in over 120 languages. An official language certificate also comes with a digital badge issued by Credly that you can display on your resume and on professional networks such as LinkedIn.

Resources:

“Reducing the Impact of Language Barriers”. Forbes Insights. https://images.forbes.com/forbesinsights/StudyPDFs/Rosetta_Stone_Report.pdf

“Survey of 8,709 Consumers in 29 Countries Finds that 76% Prefer Purchasing Products with Information in their Own Language.” CSA Research. https://csa-research.com/Blogs-Events/CSA-in-the-Media/Press-Releases/Consumers-Prefer-their-Own-Language

“Bilingual employees can earn more money per hour than those who speak one language.” Financial Post. https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/business-essentials/bilingual-employees-can-earn-more-money-per-hour-than-those-who-speak-one-language

Insurance Industry: Creating Ties of Trust with Customers Through Your Multilingual Staff

visual representation of insurance policy protecting family and its assetsDid you know that businesses in the United States need more multilingual employees than ever before? Are your bilingual employees truly qualified to meet the insurance needs of your diverse clients? Can you ensure that your employees can accurately deliver their insurance expertise in their clients’ preferred language?

According to a recent national survey conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for ACTFL, titled “Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demand Among U.S. Employers”, the demand for employees with foreign language skills is crucial in this global economy, and it is not expected to decrease. As stated by the report, about 10 percent of the labor force in the United States is of limited English proficiency. Employers who want their businesses to succeed in our multicultural and multilingual economy need to include strategies and resources in their organizations to meet the language needs of their customers. Otherwise, there is a possibility of losing business due to lack of language skills as indicated by about 23 percent of all participants in the study.

Millions of people in the United States prefer to communicate in a language other than English at home. Among the languages most in-demand reported by U.S. employers are Spanish, Chinese, French, Japanese, German, Russian, Arabic, Italian, Korean, Hindi, and Portuguese. All major departments of organizations require multilingual employees; the two top departments with the highest demand include customer service and sales.

As featured in a Lead with Languages campaign video titled Leading with Understanding: Bilingual Insurance Agents Build Strong Working Relations, bilingual New York Life insurance agents develop strong rapport through clear communication, while demonstrating compassionate treatment and the management of linguistic and cultural skills. No agent is exempt of the use of these skills since non-English speaking clients are also homeowners, victims of atmospheric events, or health plan members who are looking for an insurance company they can trust. Bilingual and multilingual life insurance agents can generate effective feedback by overcoming language and cultural barriers for their employers and consequently turn a prospective customer into a loyal client.

For leaders in the insurance industry, it’s becoming more and more imperative to prevent losing business deals due to language gaps. Oftentimes it becomes difficult for organizations to recruit bilingual talent, contemplate a partnership with external language providers (LSPs), or assess the proficiency of agents who claim to be fluent in other languages. Language Testing International (LTI) has three decades of experience conducting language assessments as the exclusive licensee of ACTFL, helping employers globally incorporate language certification for bilingual and multilingual professionals into language training for their employees or in their hiring process. The best way to guarantee that your current or prospective employees have the confidence and appropriate level of language proficiency to perform their responsibilities effectively as bilingual insurance agents is through a reliable measurement tool such as the trusted ACTFL language proficiency assessments conducted by LTI. The goal is to offer the best customer experience and achieve company growth by utilizing the language abilities of your team.

LTI is an exclusive licensee of ACTFL, a leader in language assessments and credentialing in over 120 languages. LTI can administer language assessments anytime, anywhere through remote proctoring. Each assessment accurately determines the specific proficiency level of speaking, reading, writing, and listening of the test-takers.

To measure your employees’ language abilities, contact LTI today!

The Importance of Language Assessment in Recruitment

job candidate search

As we continue to be more linguistically and culturally diverse, providing services to customers in their preferred language to meet their needs becomes a necessity. As many as 75 percent of consumers say they’re more likely to purchase a product if customer support is provided in their preferred language. More than half would spend more on a product if a company provided information in their own language. Therefore, customer-facing roles in the U.S. require candidates to be proficient in languages other than English, such as customer support, tech support, and sales to name a few.

Hiring the right language-proficient multilingual candidates to help with the growing need for multilingual customer service builds your brand loyalty in target ethnic markets and turns prospective customers into loyal clients.

Certify Employee Language Skills Today

But… can candidates for bilingual positions actually speak the language listed on their resumes?

A survey of 2,000 hiring managers by Hloom, a company that provides templates for cover letters and CVs, found that the second worst lie an applicant could put on their CV was foreign language fluency.

Why lie? Candidates tend to exaggerate where it’s difficult to draw a clear line, so language ability is an item that tends to be exaggerated. In addition, language fluency is hard to gauge if it’s not supported by an official language certification. Phrases such as “Fluent in. . .”, “Conversant in . . .”, or “Working knowledge of . . .” are often included on resumes with no explanation or proof of actual proficiency. A recent survey has shown that almost 60% of job applicants overstate their abilities, including their language proficiency.

Hiring bilingual or multilingual talent without verifying their language proficiency leads to miscommunication and carries a risk of legal ramifications and loss of credibility. According to a recent report, as many as 67% of employers believe that miscommunication due to language barriers contributes to inefficiencies and 37% believe that customer service suffers when the employees cannot efficiently communicate in the language their customers prefer.

A simple solution is to make language proficiency testing a part of the recruitment process.

Language assessment in recruitment is used to verify the candidate’s ability to communicate in the language they are expected to use with colleagues and customers. Valid and reliable language proficiency assessments evaluate how well a job candidate uses language within a practical setting. Language tests, such as ACTFL language proficiency assessments, can reliably evaluate a candidate’s speaking, writing, reading, and listening skills. Different jobs require different language skills (for example, a customer service representative should have strong speaking skills, whereas representatives hired to answer customers’ queries via chat should demonstrate strong writing skills), so the decision as to which language tests should be administered depends on the type of role you are recruiting for.

Read more –> The Importance of Assessing Employee Language Skills for Specific Positions

Benefits of Language Assessments in the Recruitment Process

There are several benefits of making language assessment a part of your recruitment process. Below we discuss three.

Efficiency of the Recruitment Process

Requiring your job candidates to take language tests early in the recruitment process allows you to quickly filter out those who do not possess the required level of proficiency. Once you identify those who do demonstrate a sufficient proficiency level, you can then focus on other skills and talents required for the job. In addition, language tests such as the ACTFL language proficiency assessments can be administered online or over the telephone anytime and anywhere over secure networks, eliminating the need for the job candidates to come to your office to take the test.

Standard Ways of Measuring Proficiency

Reliable language assessments can help you standardize your recruitment process, eliminating subjectivity and bias. Before you begin testing job candidates, you should establish the minimum level of proficiency for each role and then measure all candidates against that metric. Language Testing International (LTI), along 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. By using standardized methods, you ensure a fair recruitment process, and you can easily defend your hiring decision as all candidates are measured against the same criteria.

Read more –> What should the standard be for language assessments?

Confidence in Hiring the Most Qualified Candidates

Reliable and valid language proficiency assessments eliminate the guesswork on whether candidates who claim to be fluent truly possess the language skills required for the job and ensures you select candidates who are best suited for the roles. This, in turn, guarantees employees’ satisfaction as they succeed in their jobs and customers’ satisfaction as they can rely on your employees for accurate and complete information.

Partnering with a Reliable Language Assessment Provider

Partnering with a trusted language proficiency assessment is the first step to ensuring your multilingual candidates truly posses the language skills necessary to succeed in the roles you are hiring for. Consider partnering with LTI:

  • We are the exclusive licensee of the ACTFL—providing clients with a valid and reliable measure of speaking, reading, writing, and listening proficiency and candidates with a universally recognized language credential.
  • We implement convenient technological solutions to facilitate the testing process for our clients. Our assessments are remotely proctored and can be taken by candidates at anytime, anywhere.
  • The independent LTI process mitigates the risk of unfair employment or advancement processes and of customers claiming inferior service in their native language. Our certification results are legally defensible; decades of research and practice assure the reliability and validity of each assessment.

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Meet a Language Superhero: Dr. Chad Davidson

Chad Davidson

Gauging One’s Language Superpowers by Way of the ACTFL Tests

Dr. Chad Davidson, this month’s Language Superhero, is a lifelong learner of languages. He continuously studies and practices five world languages: “I was once told by someone I highly respect that when asked how many languages I speak, I should always say that I only speak my native language but am learning others. However, I consider myself a continuous learner of my native language as well, so I prefer to answer this by way of how many languages I presently regularly speak. Being raised in and living in Middle America means that I only regularly speak one language, English, but I would say that I am continuing to learn five languages: English (my native language), Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French. In the past, I have embarked on other language learning journeys (e.g., studying abroad in Russia and in Greece), but I realized that if I wanted to get to a point in which I could think about, talk about, and learn about my other interests through the languages (e.g., philosophy, CrossFit), I needed to commit myself to a select few languages. Hence, for the last couple of years, I have been and still am presently committed to these five, and it is the four non-native languages that I took the ACTFL tests in (i.e., Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French).”

Dr. Davidson shared his story with us of validating his language proficiency with ACTFL assessments and how the ACTFL assessments aided him in his doctoral research. Use the link below to read his story.

Language-Superpower-Magazine-Chad-Davidson