Exploring the US Language Flagship Program Professional Competence in a Second Language by Graduation
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 The Language Flagship: Creating Expectations and Opportunities for Professional-Level Language Learning in Undergraduate Education
- 2 Laying the Groundwork: Programmatic Models in US Language Flagship Programs
- 3 Adding Breadth to the Undergraduate Curriculum: Flagship Approaches to Interdisciplinary Language Learning
- 4 The Road Through Superior: Building Learner Independence
- 5 Maximizing Oral Proficiency Development via Telecollaborative Partnerships in the Portuguese Flagship Program
- 6 Creating Collaborative Communities through Online Cafés
- 7 Heritage Language Learners in Flagship Programs: Motivation, Language Proficiency and Intercultural Communicative Competence
- 8 Assessing Language Proficiency and Intercultural Development in the Overseas Immersion Context
- 9 Overseas Internships in Advanced to Professional-Level Language Acquisition
- 10 Beyond Proficiency Gains: Assessing the Academic, Cultural and Professional Impact of the Flagship Experience on Alumni
- 11 Raise the Flag(ship)! Creating Hybrid Language Programs on the Flagship Model
- Conclusion
- Appendix A
- Appendix B
- Index
Appendix A
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 October 2026
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 The Language Flagship: Creating Expectations and Opportunities for Professional-Level Language Learning in Undergraduate Education
- 2 Laying the Groundwork: Programmatic Models in US Language Flagship Programs
- 3 Adding Breadth to the Undergraduate Curriculum: Flagship Approaches to Interdisciplinary Language Learning
- 4 The Road Through Superior: Building Learner Independence
- 5 Maximizing Oral Proficiency Development via Telecollaborative Partnerships in the Portuguese Flagship Program
- 6 Creating Collaborative Communities through Online Cafés
- 7 Heritage Language Learners in Flagship Programs: Motivation, Language Proficiency and Intercultural Communicative Competence
- 8 Assessing Language Proficiency and Intercultural Development in the Overseas Immersion Context
- 9 Overseas Internships in Advanced to Professional-Level Language Acquisition
- 10 Beyond Proficiency Gains: Assessing the Academic, Cultural and Professional Impact of the Flagship Experience on Alumni
- 11 Raise the Flag(ship)! Creating Hybrid Language Programs on the Flagship Model
- Conclusion
- Appendix A
- Appendix B
- Index
Summary
Comparison of the Proficiency Scales of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and the US Interagency Language Roundtable
Two major scales for measuring functional language abilities are widely used in the United States today. The first is the scale developed by the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR), an organization of federal US government agencies established to coordinate and share information related to languages (Interagency Language Roundtable, n.d.). Initially based on level descriptions and an oral interview assessment protocol developed in the 1950s by the Foreign Service Institute in the US Department of State, the ILR scale is used primarily by US government agencies to measure the language proficiency of personnel, employment applicants and participants in US government-sponsored programs. The second scale, the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (ACTFL, 1982, 1986, 2012; Breiner-Sanders et al., 2000, 2002; Breiner-Sanders et al., 2002), was developed by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), based on the ILR scale and adapted for educational contexts. The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines are frequently used in US educational institutions at the secondary and post-secondary level (See Table A.1 for a comparison of the two scales.)
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- Exploring the US Language Flagship ProgramProfessional Competence in a Second Language by Graduation, pp. 248 - 249Publisher: Multilingual MattersFirst published in: 2026
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