In order to have a credible language program, you need to have clearly defined language levels with specific proficiency descriptions.  Simply having Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced is not enough.  How do students know their language level?  Is your Beginner level a true low beginner or is the curriculum really more appropriate for a mid or high beginner?  What is a Mid Beginner?  How do you know at which level your curriculum works best?  How are you placing students into the program?  If your courses are meant to increase speaking proficiency, are you giving students an oral evaluation to measure this skill?  If you have a program that does not integrate the skills, do you place students at the same level for all skills or do you place them based on their actual skill performance level?

These are all very important questions to address, and they all lead to the same goal:  alignment.  When designing your language program, your language level proficiency descriptions, the placement assessment, and the course curriculum must all be aligned.  Not only that, but each level must sufficiently prepare students to perform at the next level.  You must have enough contact hours of instruction at each level so when students complete the course series, they are prepared to start at the next proficiency level unless your goal is only to offer one or two courses for each proficiency level due to financial reasons. 

For example, if you have one 25-hour course that is your Beginner French course, do you send students to an Intermediate French course next?  Hopefully not.  Now, you can have a series of Beginner French courses, such as Low Beginner, Mid Beginner, and High Beginner; and you can have an Intermediate French course, but students who take that next level course must perform at that language proficiency level if the curriculum is designed for an intermediate-level learner.

Choosing Your Language Levels

As a language program administrator with over 15 years experience, I can tell you that the first factor that goes into establishing how many levels you offer is a cost factor.  You can definitely find people at any one of ten different language levels, but it just isn’t economically advantageous for you to start with lots of levels if you don’t already have an established marketplace need.

If you serve a program area similar to the ones I’ve worked in, you may have more need for ESL than for Spanish or other languages. The reason is that foreigners in the United States need English to get into school, get a job, or simply just function in society.  Learning Spanish as a native English speaker is an extremely important skill for getting a job nowadays, especially in industries such as health care, customer service, or tourism; but it isn’t critical for your survival.  If you are just starting out as a language institution or you have a small marketplace demand, just offer the number of levels that makes sense for your business model.

Establishing Your Proficiency Descriptions

It is important to clearly define your program level descriptions from the very start.  Students cannot take one beginner course and then go on to one intermediate course and then one advanced course and be proficient.  Did you know that it takes the average, motivated learner at least 240 hours to go from zero beginner to an intermediate-level language proficiency?  To learn more, Teaching Language in Context by Alice Omaggio Hadley is a “must read” if you are a language program administrator.

Once you have decided how many language levels you are going to offer, the next step is to define each level with proficiency descriptions.  The following two resources already have standardized proficiency descriptions which you can use:

·         Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR):   http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale1.htm

·         American Council on the Teaching for Foreign Languages (ACTFL): http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=4236

Once you have established your levels and descriptions, be sure that you make it public to your students and instructors.  Also review your curriculum to ensure that it is appropriate for the level you have selected.  This upfront work will help you later on as you add more levels to your program.  One great model to check out is the Center for Global Languages at Valencia Community College.  They offer nine language levels for English as a Second Language and four language levels for Spanish.

Conducting language instructor observations is critical to ensure quality in your language program.  Look for more articles in the future on this topic at:  www.stmpublishing.com/language-teaching-blog.