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Are You Professionally Proficient in All of Your Languages? Discover Your ACTFL Language Proficiency Level – LTI Blog

I hate to break it to you, but being bilingual doesn’t necessarily mean you’re professionally proficient in your second language. By taking an ACTFL® language proficiency assessment through Language Testing International® (LTI), you can accurately measure your abilities in speaking, reading, writing, and listening and strategically grow your career by leveraging all of your certified language skills.

If you use more than one language at work, you’re part of a growing and highly sought-after group of bilingual professionals in today’s global marketplace. But it’s crucial to know your true language proficiency level, especially in a professional context. A validated language testing solution, like the ACTFL assessment delivered by LTI, helps ensure your communication meets the expectations of global employers.

Speaking multiple languages is a tremendous advantage—but it doesn’t automatically mean you’re ready to manage workplace communication in all of them. That’s why earning an ACTFL language certification through Language Testing International is a smart step for career-minded bilingual professionals. Certification verifies your workplace language proficiency and helps you stand out to employers with global business operations.

Leveraging Language, Connecting Students to Employment Opportunities – LTI Blog

How many bilinguals or multilinguals are there in the US?

In 2020, researcher François Grossjean suggested that the number of bilinguals is particularly hard to nail down because the Census Bureau doesn’t track the number of people who use multiple languages in their everyday lives. However, they do ask some specific language-related questions: “Does this person speak a language other than English at home? What is this language? How well does this person speak English (very well, well, not well, not at all)? These questions were first asked in the census every 10 years, but they are now part of the annual American Community Survey (ACS)” (Grossjean, 2020). Grossjean also points out that bilingualism has been on the rise in the U.S. over the last several decades, while the rate of non-English speakers has remained roughly constant.

graph showing percentage of population being bilingual vs. monolingual — Source: François Grosjean, Psychology Today

Roughly 1 in 5 Americans speak more than one language, with varying levels of ability. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, roughly 22% of people aged 5 and older spoke a language other than English at home, based on data from 2017–2021 (www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/2017-2021-acs-language-use-tables.html). As your students achieve the Seal of Biliteracy, they become members of a unique segment of the population! You can help them promote their bilingualism as an employability asset. Encourage them to emphasize their bilingualism and to include their ACTFL credentialing in their job applications.

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High-Impact Credentialing in Adult and Continuing Education: Why Language Skills Matter – LTI Blog

By Gosia Jaros-White, MA and Michael Herrera, EdD

Adult and continuing education has always been about opening doors, providing opportunities for individuals to re- or upskill, re-enter the workforce, or advance in their careers and gain valuable credentials in the process. Today, the need for high-impact credentialing is greater than ever. In a rapidly shifting labor market, credentials provide visible, portable proof of the skills employers seek. For adult learners, especially those who are multilingual, credentialing can be the difference between underemployment and meaningful career mobility.

The Power of Career-Connected Learning

Research from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce (2023) shows that adults with credentials earn significantly more than their peers without them. The return on investment (ROI) for reskilling and upskilling is clear: a recognized credential leads to better jobs, higher wages, and stronger economic security.

For employers, credentials reduce uncertainty in hiring and signal that workers are job ready. For learners, they provide the confidence to compete in a tight labor market. And in adult education, credentialing can improve persistence and program completion by showing learners their progress in tangible, workforce-relevant ways.

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Multilingualism Means Business: Why Language Belongs in Every College Program – LTI Blog

In a world where nearly every industry operates across borders, culturally, linguistically, and economically, multilingualism has quickly become a necessity and a strategic advantage. Yet many post-secondary programs still treat language learning as peripheral or elective, or even worse, cut language programs altogether. That’s a missed opportunity, not only for students’ future careers, but for institutions committed to preparing globally competent graduates.

Language learning should be a fundamental part of academic degree areas, such as business, healthcare, law, or political science, and colleges must take the lead in integrating language courses into the academic pathways of tomorrow’s business leaders, healthcare practitioners, policymakers, and legal professionals.

Why Language Proficiency Matters in the Global Professions

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Driving Safety Forward: English Language Proficiency Requirements and Best Practices for Truck Driver

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Whether it’s a long-haul trucking company or a regional courier service, the U.S. transportation industry runs on communication. From dispatch instructions and safety protocols to roadside inspections and emergency alerts, English language proficiency isn’t just a hiring preference—it’s a critical FMCSA safety requirement.

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You Can’t Fail an ACTFL® Language Proficiency Test—Just Discover Your Level! – LTI Blog

If you’re bilingual or multilingual, you might wonder: Am I proficient enough to use both languages in a professional setting? One of the best ways to answer that question is through an ACTFL® certified language proficiency assessment—and here’s the good news: you can’t fail it.

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The Compelling Advantage: ACTFL Language Certification – LTI Blog

Not all language tests are worthy of your attention. Here’s why the ACTFL^® language tests delivered by LTI^® stand out from the rest.

Research-backed

ACTFL (the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) has been conducting research for decades, specifically, on best practices for measuring language proficiency accurately and consistently, whether in the productive skills of speaking and writing or the receptive skills of listening and reading. The Language Educator and Foreign Language Annals are two ACTFL publications that are dedicated to academic research on assessment validation studies, test item analyses, and reliability evidence of testing results.

The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (Guidelines) and ACTFL Performance Descriptors are useful in understanding what qualifies language capability at different levels of proficiency. As a professional organization, ACTFL’s over 12 thousand members worldwide are testament to the authority and integrity of their resources and work.

ACTFL is the authority of language proficiency assessment precisely because it does the heavy lifting of language acquisition and test development research.

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Preparing Learners for the AAPPL

Should I teach to the test?

That sounds like the wrong approach, at least wrong if the test is not the right evidence of learners reaching the learning goals. But what if the test is the right test? What if the test accurately represents your learning targets, that is, what you want learners to be able to do as a result of the learning you guide every day?

During my 16 years teaching Spanish to middle school and high school students, I was on a constant quest to ensure that my assessments mirrored how students were developing their language proficiency. As a result, assessments changed from focusing on specific vocabulary and grammatical structures to engaging tasks through which learners could demonstrate their application of what they had learned. Feedback also changed to highlight specific things that learners did to show how they were approaching, meeting, or exceeding the targeted proficiency level. I wish the ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages (AAPPL) had existed when I was teaching, as it represents the kind of evidence of growth along the proficiency continuum that I was trying to capture through my unit level formative and summative assessments. What a great match; of course I want to teach to this test!

AAPPL AAPPL Interpersonal Listening and Speaking AAPPL Presentational Writing ACAR rubrics scaffolding

Implementing ACTFL Writing Proficiency Test: A Tool for Research and Assessment of Biliteracy – LTI Blog

By Dámaris Mayans, PhD

For many heritage speakers of Spanish—those who grew up hearing and speaking the language at home but received most of their formal education in English (Valdés, 2000) —reading and writing in Spanish can feel like uncharted territory. While oral fluency may come naturally, academic writing often does not. So, what happens when you give these students just one semester of targeted instruction focused on academic writing in Spanish? Our recent study set out to answer exactly that—and the results are both hopeful and illuminating.

How Much Can One Semester Do? ACTFL Results Reveal Growth in Spanish Heritage Learners’ Writing Proficiency

In a world where heritage language learners often navigate complex bilingual realities, the classroom can be a powerful space for transformation. A recent study conducted at Colby College set out to measure that transformation—specifically, the growth in academic writing among Spanish heritage learners after just one semester of formal instruction. The findings, drawn from ACTFL’s Writing Proficiency Test (WPT), offer a compelling look at the measurable gains possible with a thoughtfully designed curriculum.

biliteracy research WPT Writing Proficiency

Beyond the Seal: Why Language Credentialing Must Go Further for Today’s Graduates – LTI Blog

The Seal of Biliteracy is an important and meaningful recognition of learners’ achievements in language learning. It celebrates linguistic diversity, honors learners’ heritage languages, and promotes the value of multilingualism in our schools and communities.

But to truly support learners’ futures in college, careers, and beyond, it’s essential to look further than the Seal itself and focus on what underpins it: the assessment used to demonstrate language proficiency.

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