As part of the virtual CSCTFL event, three language educators shared their personal experiences with the at-home testing options for ACTFL Assessments. Several anecdotes were shared, along with helpful advice for those administering the AAPPL to students in a virtual world.
As part of the FLENJ Summer Refresher, two language educators enthusiastically shared their experiences with the AAPPL, ALIRA and OPI/WPT Bundle for Seal of Biliteracy. Languages in which these educators have offered testing range from Spanish and French to Gujarati and Latin.
In this new world of online/hybrid education, this school district has awarded more Seals of Biliteracy than ever before thanks to the accessible and easily administered remote testing options for ACTFL Assessments. This District Supervisor recounted his experiences and shared his future plans for testing as a helpful guide for those looking to do the same.
Most of what we know about how the Seal of Biliteracy (SoBL) is being implemented in U.S. high schools comes from case studies of individual states and districts (e.g. Heineke & Davin, 2020). However, in order to highlight broader patterns of implementation from across the U.S., Dr. Margaret E. Malone and Margaret Borowczyk (Assessment and Evaluation Language Resource Center at Georgetown University) share results from a nationwide survey of over 700 teachers and administrators regarding promotion, access, benefits, and drawbacks of the SoBL. The presentation focuses on the perceived effectiveness of different outreach strategies, the content of professional development around the SoBL, the impact on language teaching and assessment practices, and educators’ concerns about access and impact of the initiative.
A full discourse on the Seal of Biliteracy, its implementation in both private and public schools, and the washback effect observed in language classrooms nationwide. Perspectives from current language educators provided!
As District World Language Curriculum Specialist, the presenter has attained actionable data that shows exactly where her students fall on the ACTFL Proficiency Scale. She recounts how she uses testing data to adjust curricula, set proficiency goals in classrooms, and observe tangible evidence of those goals being accomplished.
Beginning-to-end proficiency! Mr. Noble provides a ground-up description of how his school adopted a proficiency-focused curriculum and implemented the AAPPL and Seal of Biliteracy.
The shift from a ‘traditional’ grammar-focused curriculum to proficiency-based instruction, results uncovered in students, and the benefits to teachers and administrators district-wide.
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. In this webinar, researchers at the US Air Force Academy (USAFA) describe their study that examined the oral proficiency of cadets studying Spanish. The aim of the study was to validate the proficiency benchmarks, codified in the Spanish Language Roadmap, which specifies proficiency goals for each of the four years of language study at USAFA.
A full discourse on the at-home testing options offered for ACTFL Assessments.