Proficiency Guidelines

The ACTFL (American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages) proficiency guidelines describe performance in listening, speaking, reading, and writing a given language. Each description is a sample of a particular range of ability, and each level subsumes all previous ones, from the most simple to the most complex. What follows is a very simplified version of these guidelines.

• Reading
  • Novice: Has sufficient control of the writing system to interpret written language in areas of practical need. Where vocabulary has been learned, can read for instructional and directional purposes, standardized messages, phrases, or expressions, such as some items on menus, schedules, timetables, maps, and signs.
  • Intermediate: Able to understand simple connected texts dealing with basic personal and social needs about which the reader has personal interest and/or knowledge. Can get some main ideas and information from texts at the next higher level featuring description and narration. May have to read material several times for understanding.
  • Advanced: Able to read somewhat longer prose of several paragraphs in length, particularly if presented with a clear underlying structure. Reader gets the main ideas and facts and misses some details. Texts at this level include descriptions and narrations such as simple short stories, news items, bibliographical information, social notices, personal correspondence, routinized business letters, and simple technical material written for the general reader.
  • Superior: Able to read with almost complete comprehension and at normal speed expository prose on unfamiliar subjects and a variety of literary texts. Reads easily for pleasure. Superior-level texts feature hypotheses, argumentation, and supported opinions, and include grammatical patterns and vocabulary ordinarily encountered in academic/professional reading. Occasional misunderstandings may still occur due to low-frequency idioms. Material at this level will include a variety of literary texts, editorials, correspondence, general reports, and technical material in professional fields.
  • Distinguished: Able to read fluently and accurately most styles and forms of the language pertinent to academic and professional needs. Can readily follow unpredictable turns of thought and author intent in such materials as sophisticated editorials, specialized journal articles, and literary texts such as novels, plays, poems, as well as in any subject matter area directed to the general reader.