Language Proficiency Exams

Over 20 Years of Experience with Language Proficiency Exams 

Language proficiency exams are generally considered the best way to measure an employee or teaching candidate’s ability to effectively use a language in a professional setting.  Many individuals, both those employed and those seeking employment,  list multi-lingual skills as one of their employment assets. It is difficult to tell from simple conversation, however, if a candidate actually has solid language skills in a given language. If you want to be truly competitive in an increasingly globalized marketplace, you know that you cannot take a chance on candidates with faulty or poor language skills, particularly not when vital communications and reputations are at stake.  Language proficiency exams are a vital way that you can test your employees’ and candidates’ abilities with the assurance that their scores will help you decide who has professional abilities and who does not.
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Language Proficiency Assessments

Valid and Reliable Language Proficiency Assessments

Language proficiency assessments from Language Testing International – whether of reading, speaking, writing or listening – are the pinnacle in language proficiency testing. Our exams focus on language proficiency rather than knowledge, and meet all of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) requirements. As such, our proficiency assessments represent the top of the line in the field of language testing. With over 20 years of experience, over 100 languages tested, and a deep understanding of what constitutes language proficiency, Language Testing International is a leader in the industry today. Language proficiency assessments are not all created equal, and it is important to understand what makes assessments from Language Testing International the most effective and accurate ones that you can get.
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English Language Proficiency Exams

English language proficiency exams are one way that you can accurately place candidates and employees in your company or institution.  With many employees coming to the workplace with multilingual skills, it is important to ascertain whether or not those same employees have proficiency in English, the most important language in the United States.  While having candidates that can speak other languages is valuable, these languages are far less useful if your teacher or employee cannot also communicate effectively in English.  Whether you are an academic institution seeking to certify language ability for teachers or a corporate institution needing to accurately place candidates for available jobs that require language skills, Language Testing International offers English language proficiency exams to ascertain whether your staff members have the language abilities necessary to succeed.
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ACTFL Language Testing

Language Testing International is the exclusive licensee of exams produced by the foremost authority on foreign language acquisition in the United States – ACTFL, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Decades of research demonstrate unequivocally that ACTFL’s language tests are second to none. By combining decades of experience with cutting edge technology, ACTFL and LTI’s proficiency tests are demonstrably superior to those of our competitors.

We provide tests that cover the four main areas of language acquisition – reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Our reading tests are able to evaluate the full range of candidates’ abilities, ranging from basic texts to complex, in-depth pieces. Even test-takers who have strong spoken skills in a given language may not have the same level of strength when it comes to reading comprehension. By providing a wide variety of text examples, our test provide a detailed profile of how well a candidate can understand what they are reading.
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Seal of Biliteracy Guidelines Released

ACTFL, the National Association of Bilingual Education (NABE), the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages (NCSSFL), and TESOL International Association, have officially drafted recommendations for the implementation of the Seal of Biliteracy. The Seal of Biliteracy is an award made by a state department of education or local district to recognize a student who has attained proficiency in English and one or more other world languages by high school graduation. The recognition of attaining biliteracy becomes part of the high school transcript and diploma for these students.

View the full press release here

ACTFL Conducts Key Study on Listening & Reading

ACTFL is currently is undertaking an important study to determine the listening and reading proficiency levels that may be attained after several years of college language study. With the 2012 revision of the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and the development of ACTFL Listening and Reading Proficiency Tests (LPTs and RPTs) in a number of languages, measurement of listening and reading proficiency levels of U.S. college students has now become possible. Approximately 20 colleges have participated in the study so far, from large state universities, private universities, and colleges to regional universities and colleges. Close to 4,000 tests have been administered in both modalities.
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LTI Unveils New Website

Earlier this year LTI unveiled its newly re-designed website aimed to better serve the thousands of individuals and clients, in more than 40 countries who rely on ACTFL-developed and rated tests.

“The site has been completely revamped to better communicate and illustrate the valuable information our clients, proctors, and test candidates rely on”, says CEO, Robert Katz. “Since the beginning, our goal was to become the leader in language testing and our strong partnership with ACTFL, as their exclusive licensee, has certainly made that possible”. The website will cater to those who most frequent the site while offering value to even the casual visitor seeking language testing information. The new site categorizes separate industries that are services by LTI for corporate visitors and allows current clients and test candidates access to a customized sign in web portal to easily access tests and set up testing programs.
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Using Real-World Tasks to Assess Student Performance

Aimee Mack came to a quick realization last spring as she and colleagues pored over Connecticut’s new teacher evaluation system: Their jobs would depend on being able to share evidence of their language learners’ growth with the entire school community. “We knew that as a department we were going to be looking at data as part of our evaluation,” says Mack, a French teacher and world languages team leader at Brookfield High School. “That made me wonder: Does a standardized test for world languages exist?” She soon heard about something that seemed to fit the bill: the ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages. Called AAPPL Measure or simply AAPPL, the online, performance-based test assesses students in the Interpersonal, Interpretive and Presentational modes of communication, with tasks that require learners to listen, read, speak, and write about topics commonly explored in language classrooms. Each task—whether typing out an e-mail message, video chatting with a recorded native speaker, or making selections based on an understanding of something heard, read, or viewed—occurs in the context of a Standards based classroom. Students can take one or all portions of the test; they then receive reports that classify their demonstrated level of performance and offer detailed suggestions for moving up. (Sample tests in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Spanish, and Russian can be found at aappl.actfl.org/demo. More language are being added, including English.) AAPPL’s availability comes as states grapple with two interrelated, high-stakes challenges:

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