Reading Proficiency Assessment and the ILR/ACTFL Text Typology: A Reevaluation

Abstract

Two previous investigations into the validity of the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR)/American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) text typology concluded that the model did not accurately predict test performance for foreign language (FL) readers. However, these studies suffered from serious flaws in design and implementation that may have led to erroneous conclusions. The present study considered the validity of the pragmatic approach to text difficulty that was put forward by Child in 1987—the text typology underlying the ILR/ACTFL proficiency guidelines. The following question guided this research: Does the Child discourse‐type hierarchy predict text difficulty for L2 readers? Test data were collected from 62 U.S. Government employees having some previously demonstrated French proficiency. Nine authentic French texts and a combination of testing methods were employed. The results suggested that the Child text hierarchy may indeed provide a sound basis for the development of FL reading tests when it is applied by trained raters and when such tests include an adequate sample of passages at each level to be tested.