Proficiency benchmarking in Spanish

Authors

Peter Swanson, US Air Force AcademyFollow
Jean-Philippe Peltier
Jean W. LeLoup, SUNY College at CourtlandFollow
Darin Earnest, United States Air Force AcademyFollow
Margaret E. Malone

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2022

Abstract

The Language Flagship programs were established at the turn of the century with the goal of creating programs that would move language learners to advanced levels of proficiency in a select number of critical languages (Winke & Gass, 2019). Later, the Flagships called for institutions of higher education to create a viable process to assess proficiency learning in high quality, well-established academic language programs. To answer that call, the present study examines outcomes via end of year proficiency testing in Spanish at the first and second levels of Spanish instruction at the United States Air Force Academy using the Adaptive Listening Tests and the Adaptive Reading Tests developed at Brigham Young University. Results indicate differences in gender, years of study of Spanish, and the number of years of Spanish study prior to attending the Academy. Additionally, the results from the present study are compared to Tschirner’s (2016) comprehensive analysis of student outcomes in higher education on ACTFL reading and listening tests. The findings have implications for programs in higher education as well as those in K-12 education.

Comments

Final manuscript version of an article published in:

Swanson, P., Peltier, J.P., LeLoup, J.W., Earnest, D., & Malone, M.E. (2022). Proficiency benchmarking in Spanish. Central States Report, 1-16. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jkHXLKoGm7y6uIiLZw6e4y5kcZjUirsJ/view

Recommended Citation

Swanson, P., Peltier, J.P., LeLoup, J.W., Earnest, D., & Malone, M.E. (2022). Proficiency benchmarking in Spanish. Central States Report, 1-16.