THE LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY RATING SYSTEM

  You have already heard and will continue to hear a good deal about 
proficiency ratings in foreign languages.  In this file I want to explain 
to you what the background is and what the various terms imply.

A BIT OF HISTORY
  In the late 1970s there were a number of national reports that severely 
criticized the language competence of the American nation in general and 
the way(s) in which the educational system(s) were and were not achieving 
realistic and useful goals in foreign language learning.  As a result, 
the government language schools (Foreign Service Institute, Defense 
Language Institute in Monterey, the National Security Agency, the World 
Bank, and so on) got together with ETS (the Educational Testing Service in 
Princeton--the friendly folks who bring you the SATS, GRES, APs, 
Achievement tests and so on) and the American Council for the Teaching of 
foreign Languages (ACTFL) to see if were possible to combine the advantages
of the government schools' skill-based learning modes with the more 
"academic" goals of schools and colleges.  The result of all this was the 
introduction of the notion of "proficiency" into academe; Penn as a 
university was the pioneer in this movement and is known nation-wide for 
the fact that its language requirements are proficiency-based--i.e. we 
don't care how long you study language, what book(s) you use, how fast 
you learn, where you learn, whatever--we want to know: can you do 
specific things using that language (book a hotel room, read a newspaper, 
have a political discussion, describe your academic career thus far, 
detect the biases in a political speech, justify the use of insecticides, 
challenge the use of medical technology in treating the aged, and so 
on).  The list I have just provided goes up a "scale" of proficiency 
between very routine and uncomplex language activities to others which 
require a very high level of competence. 
 
THE SCALES AND LEVELS
 I will now provide the scales (government and academic) so that you can 
see where this program and you fit within the system.

              GOVERNMENT (ILR)            ACADEMIC

                    0                       NOVICE
                    1                    INTERMEDIATE
                    2                      ADVANCED   
                    3                      SUPERIOR 
                    4
                    5

These levels are characterized generically in the following way; I'll use 
the Academic (ACTFL) scale from now on, not the government one (ILR, by 
the way, stands for Interagency Language Roundtable !):

                 NOVICE:  a non-survivor; relies on memorized 
                          materials;  only reacts, does not 
                          initiate                 

           INTERMEDIATE:  a survivor; can create own language, even if 
                          with many errors; can ask and answer questions;
                          discuss daily events

               ADVANCED:  limited professional competence; can narrate,
                          describe, and compare in any time frame; can state
                          opinions

               SUPERIOR:  full professional competence; can go outside
                          limited areas of competence and discuss a wide
                          range of topics; can hypothesize and deal with
                          abstract topics.

You will notice that the academic (ACTFL) scale does not have equivalents 
for the government (ILR) levels 4 and 5.  Those are "Near Native" 
(4)--able to adjust language to situation (talk to children, for 
example), get angry, be funny, negotiate, finesse, etc., and "Educated 
Native Speaker" (5).  When the academic scale was developed, it was 
assumed that, if any Americans attained such high levels of competence in 
a second language, it would probably not be within the educational 
system; they therefore did not deal with the two highest categories.
  
THE ISP PROGRAM AND LEVELS
  Now, to get more local and specific:

  The admissions requirement to the ISP program is INTERMEDIATE on the 
ACTFL-ETS academic scale (government level 1).  As part of the program, 
you will be expected to improve your language skills since there is an 
EXIT examination in language in which you must prove that you have 
achieved the level of ADVANCED on the same scale (limited professional 
competence).
   Just for the record, the level of ADVANCED is the entry level for 
admission to the LAUDER INSTITUTE, the graduate program combining the 
Wharton MBA degree with an SAS AM degree in International Studies.  The 
EXIT requirement for that program is SUPERIOR on the ACTFL-ETS Scale.

****************************

  I hope this file helps to put the language component of the ISP program
and our expectations into perspective.  If there is anything about this
file and the language proficiency system that lies behind it that you
don't understand or if you want some more information about it, then feel
free to get in touch with me. 

                                ROGER ALLEN
                                Co-Director, ISP
                                [also national ACTFL proficiency Trainer
                                for Arabic]