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
