The ACTFL Proficiency Projects: An Update

Abstract

One year ago in this journal, Lowe described the oral proficiency interview and traced its origins in government to its initial applications in academia.' The oral interview and modified rating scales discussed by Lowe has served as the springboard for the ACTFL projects highlighted in this report. Oral Proficiency From the first oral proficiency testing workshop in Houston in February 1982, ACTFL has conducted numerous testing workshops with public and private support from a variety of funding sources. The training program is intensive and has two components. During the four-day workshop, participants learn the theory and practice of oral proficiency interviewing and work in language-specific groups conducting live practice interviews with student candidates. In the post-workshop phase of the training, participants conduct a total of twenty-five cassette-recorded interviews and submit them to their trainers who carefully critique one third of the interviews in two cycles. These training procedures are essential to establish a clear understanding of the testing procedure and to achieve rating accuracy and maintain interrater reliablity. Demand for these intensive four-day workshops has grown steadily, and ACTFL has initiated a tuition-supported workshop program to afford access to training to a greater number of individuals. To date, ACTFL has conducted testing workshops in nine different languages for both secondary and postsecondary audiences. From the outset, great care has been taken to ensure the high quality of the ACTFL tester training program. Collaboration with Educational Testing Service and with various government language training agencies in the planning and conducting of these programs has facilitated the training of academic proficiency testers whose skills are commensurate with those of trained government testers. In this vein, an important development in 1984 has been the launching of the ACTFL tester certification