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EXCERPT FROM TEACHING LANGUAGE IN CONTEXT, ALICE C. OMAGGIO, HEINLE & HEINLE PUBLISHERS, INC., BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02116 USA, 1986, PAGES 20, 21 and 22)
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Illustration 1.4
Expected Levels of
Speaking Proficiency
in Languages Taught
at the Foreign Service
Institute
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Click to return to return to Student Placement Group I: Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Haitian Creole, Spanish
Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Swahili, Swedish.
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Length of Training Aptitude for Language Learning
Minimum Average Superior
8 weeks (240 hours) 1 1/1+ 1+
16 weeks (480 hours) 1+ 2 2+
24 weeks (720 hours) 2 2+ 3
Group II: Bulgarian, Dari, Farsi, German, Greek, Hindi, Indonesian,
Malay, Urdu
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Length of Training Aptitude for Language Learning
Minimum Average Superior
16 weeks (480 hours) 1 1/2+ 1+/2
24 weeks (720 hours) 1+ 2 2+/3
Group III: Amharic, Bengali, Burmese, Czech, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian,
Khmer, Lao, Nepali, Pilipino, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Sinhala,
Thai, Tamil, Turkish, Vietnamese
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Length of Training Aptitude for Language Learning
Minimum Average Superior
16 weeks (480 hours) 0+ 1 1/1+
24 weeks (720 hours) 1+ 2 2/2+
44 weeks (1320 hours) 2 2+ 3
Group IV: Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean
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Length of Training Aptitude for Language Learning
Minimum Average Superior
16 weeks (480 hours) 0+ 1 1
24 weeks (720 hours) 1 1+ 1+
44 weeks (1320 hours) 1+2 2 2+
80-92 weeks (2400-2760 hours) 2+ 3 3+
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. . . If the goal of the curriculum is to produce Level 3 speakers of a
language, then the concentration on language sub skills in the curriculum
should be representative of their relative importance in performing
Level 3 tasks. Grammar skills would be an important part of the
curriculum. If the goal is to produce students with Level 1 survival skills,
then the optimum curriculum mix would be entirely different, with a
primary emphasis on the teaching and practice of vocabulary. . . .
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Illustration 1.4 reveals some interesting facts about the amount of time it
takes for students to reach Superior range of proficiency in various
languages. The data were collected and analyzed by the School of Language
Studies of the Foreign Service Institute. The chart summarizes FSI
experience with students taught in its own classes, which are typically
quite small and meet a maximum of 30 hours per week. Note that for
American students, the easiest languages include French, Italian, and Spanish,
the next group in difficulty includes German, and the third most difficult
includes Russian and Hebrew. Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are the
most difficult languages to master of the 44 languages listed.
(Liskin-Gasparro, 1982).
According to the data in illustration 1.4, it takes 720 hours of instruction
under ideal conditions to enable a student with a superior aptitude for
languages to reach Level 3 in oral skills in French or Spanish. The attainment
of a similar level in German or one of the less commonly taught languages
would take even longer. This is further evidence that we must amend our
expectations for students in high school and college programs to conform
with the facts. Even with 72 hours of contact time per semester, college
students would need at least ten semesters of language instruction to
reach this goal.
One other study that sheds light on the issue of expectations for students
in academic programs and the relative impact of various components of
communicative competence on proficiency ratings was reported by Higgs
and Clifford (1982). In 1978, the Research Committee of the Interagency
Language Roundtable (ILR) began investigating the relative contribution of
various components or sub skills to global language proficiency. The
hypothesis under consideration was that the relative contribution of factors
such as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, fluency, and sociolinguistic
competence was not constant across proficiency ranges. For example, it
was felt that vocabulary would be more important than grammatical
accuracy for successful performance at Level I (intermediate); at Level 2
(Advanced), the role of grammar would become important; at Level 5, all
five factors or sub skills would contribute equally.
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EXCERPT FROM TEACHING LANGUAGE IN CONTEXT, ALICE C. OMAGGIO, HEINLE
& HEINLE PUBLISHERS, INC., BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02116 USA, 1986,
PAGES 14 and 15.
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Oral Proficiency Levels
Source: Pardee Lowe. Manual for Language School Oral Interview Workshops. Washington, D.C.: Defense Language Institute/Language School Joint Oral Interview Transfer Project, 1982.
Oral Proficiency
Level
Function Control Accuracy
(Tasks accomplished, at- (Topics, subject areas, (Accountability, quality,
titudes expressed, tone activities, and jobs ad- and accuracy of message
conveyed) dressed) conveyed)
5 Functions equivalent to All subjects Performance equivalent
an educated native to an educated native
speaker speaker
4 Able to tailor language All topics normally perti- Nearly equivalent to an
to fit audience, counsel, nent to professional educated native speaker;
persuade, negotiate, rep- needs speech is extensive, pre-
resent a point of view, cise, appropriate to
and interpret for digni- every occasion, with
taries only occasional errors
3 Can converse in formal Practical, social, profes- Errors never interfere
and informal situations, sional, and abstract top- with understanding and
resolve problems, situa- ics, particular interests, rarely disturb the native
tions, deal with unfamil- and special fields of speakers; only sporadic
lar topics, provide competence errors in basic structure
explanations, describe in
detail, offer supported
opinions, and hypothe-
size
2 Able to fully participate Concrete topics such as Understandable to native
in casual conversations, own background, family, speaker not used to deal-
can express facts, give interests, work, travel, ing with foreigners;
instructions, describe, re- and current events sometimes miscommuni-
port, and provide narra- cates
tion about current, past,
and future activities
1 Can create with the lan- Everyday survival topics Intelligible to native
guage, ask and answer and courtesy require- speaker used to dealing
questions, participate in ments with foreigners
0 No functional ability None Unintelligible
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