Understanding English Language Proficiency
As an international scholar, how should you think about what it means to be a proficient speaker of English? Using these guidelines and vocabulary can help you become aware of your strengths and weaknesses in communication, and be thoughtful and reflective about the way you communicate.In this guide
Proficiency and ACTFL Descriptions
According to the American Council for Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL), language proficiency is the ability to perform an action or function in the target language. It refers to one's ability to use language to accomplish real-world linguistic tasks across a wide range of topics and settings. Speakers are assigned levels based on their demonstrated ability to use language to accomplish authentic tasks (e.g. telling a story, being an active conversation participant, handling an unfamiliar situation with a complication). In contrast with achievement, which is used to define the mastery of specific content, proficiency is a holistic measure that is used to describe what the speaker can actually do. For example, a speaker may have learned all the grammatical rules (achievement) but not be able to use them appropriately while performing specific functions (proficiency). When thinking about your own abilities, it is important to give yourself credit for all the things you know, but likely more important to think about how you actually use what you know when you are speaking.
Overview of ACTFL proficiency levels relevant to most international scholars
Intermediate level speakers must be able to 1) create with language, 2) speak using sentences, 3) initiate, maintain and bring to a close simple conversations by asking and responding to questions, and 4) be understood with some repetition by speakers accustomed to interacting with non-native speakers.
Advanced level speakers must be able to 1) narrate and describe in all major time frames, 2) speak at paragraph length (cohesive, organized sentences with a clear logic and order, as opposed to strings of sentences), 3) handle an unanticipated situation with a complication, and 4) be understood without difficulty by speakers unaccustomed to interacting with non-native speakers.
Superior level speakers must be able to 1) discuss abstract and concrete topics extensively, 2) support opinion and hypothesize, 3) speak using extended discourse (complete paragraphs and connected paragraphs), 4) deal with a linguistically unfamiliar situation and 5) have no patterned errors (errors don’t distract from the message).
Comprehensibility and Listener Effort
In order to reach a given level of proficiency, speakers have to practice at that level. In other words, “just talking” isn’t enough to change your level; you must practice performing the specific tasks and functions of the target level. For example, to reach the advanced level, you should practice telling stories and providing rich descriptions, pushing yourself to add detail and say as much as you can about a topic. You may be able to complete a task but not be well-understood. How well listeners understand you also determines how successful the communication is.
Comprehensibility is the extent to which a listener understands utterances produced by a speaker in a communication context (in contrast with intelligibility, where the words may be clear but the full message is still unclear). How easily can the listener arrive at the speaker's intended message? Comprehensibility is measured on a scale of listener effort.
The following terms will help you understand the aspects of language and communication that are important to comprehensibility.
Key Features of Language
Fluency and Vocabulary
How much effort does it take for you to talk about a familiar topic? Do you pause frequently, struggling to find the words you need? Speakers often speak slowly because they are searching for words or don’t know what to say, and need to build their vocabulary, how quickly they access vocabulary, and a repertoire of moves they can employ when faced with specific tasks. Key activities that will help you develop your fluency and vocabulary are reading or listening to articles and summarizing them, trying to use new vocabulary; telling stories or comparing and contrasting two ideas using rich description and pushing yourself to add more detail; and repeating a story several times focusing on fluency.
Intonation
Almost everyone needs to work on this feature of American speech. How the voice rises and falls is essential to signaling importance and conveying meaning. Main strategies for working on intonation include using a textbook, listening to models, and marking a script of a chunk of speech and imitating the pattern. Scholars who speak with a flat intonation are particularly hard to understand. It is good to practice intonation in conjunction with stress; a stressed word in a sentence also experiences a change in intonation.
Sentence Stress
English is a stress-timed language, which means that some syllables are long, and others are short. Many other languages are syllable-timed, which means that each syllable is about the same length. This affects speech at both the word and sentence level. Non-native English speakers who speak syllable-timed languages may have a hard time learning how to lengthen some syllables and shorten others.
All speakers can work on sentence stress to avoid mumbling and increase comprehensibility. Some words in a sentence are more important than other words. If we only heard those words we could still get the meaning of the sentence. Sentence stress is important because it is how we listen for meaning in English.
Emphasis
Emphasis functions as “extra” sentence stress, or as an exception to standard sentence stress. Where we stress in a sentence can change the meaning of the sentence. There are four rules for emphasis:
Emphasize transition words
Emphasize new information.
Emphasize strong emotion.
Emphasize words that need clarification.
Thought Groups
Thought groups are meaningful units of a sentence, based on its grammatical structure. They determine where we pause, and where we breathe when we are speaking. The more thought groups we have in a sentence, the more we pause, and the more emphasis we create.
Word Stress
In English, at least one syllable in a word gets more stress than others. This means that the stressed syllable is:
longer
louder
higher in pitch
clear (not reduced) vowel
Scholars should practice word stress with key words, a list of terms from their field or terms that they use frequently that may be difficult to pronounce. Mark the stress, and put the term in a sentence. Practice for pronunciation, word stress, and sentence stress.
Pronunciation
The pronunciation of specific sounds may also interfere with comprehensibility, though we tend to focus more on the sentence level. Pronunciation can be practiced with key words targeting the specific sounds you are struggling with. If you develop the correct pattern of speech, some specific sounds may be less important. In some cases, however, pronunciation of specific sounds is a main priority, and can be worked on with word lists or textbooks.
Grammar
Grammatical errors may interfere with comprehensibility, though in most cases speakers are worried about their grammar when it is less of a priority. Remember that errors can be ok, as long as they don’t interfere too much with comprehensibility. A main way to work on grammar is to analyze your own speech for errors, and repeat the same story or chunk of speech focusing on correcting the errors.
Structure and Organization
What language structures (words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs) do you use ? If a speaker consistently utters single sentences that could be presented in any order, we refer to this as “strings of sentences.” Speakers who connect ideas and thoughts in a logical order with transition words are likely speaking in paragraphs. Text type is strongly related to vocabulary and fluency. Speakers with enough vocabulary and fluency should be encouraged to organize their speech in paragraphs by being mindful of logical order and the use of transition words and phrases.
Additionally, we also look for structure in common speaking acts, like giving a presentation. Providing an outline, pausing between main points, using signaling language to guide listeners, and having a logical flow are useful structural elements of a presentation. A main way to focus on structure and organization is to reflect on and identify how you organize your speech, and to learn organizational strategies from models or mentors.
Nonverbal Features
Nonverbal features of communication include posture, eye-contact, and being actively engaged with your listeners. Working on nonverbal features usually involves watching and analyzing models and practicing specific skills depending on your own goals. It can be very helpful to view video recordings of your presentations and to analyze your body language.
