ACTFL Oral Proficiency Guidelines

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines C Speaking (1986) have gained widespread application as a metric against which to measure learners functional competency; that is, their ability to accomplish linguistic tasks representing a variety of levels. It was based on years of experience with oral testing in governmental institutions. We find it is a useful tool in the medical interpreting field when assessing interpreter and provider proficiency levels.

ACTFL Written Proficiency Guidelines

Please see text on Oral Guidelines above. This revision of the Writing Guidelines follows the precedent set in the revised guidelines for speaking C they are presented in a top-down fashion (from Superior to Novice) rather than in a bottom-up order, thereby allowing for more positive descriptive statements for each level and sublevel, stressing what language users can do with the language rather than what they cannot do. This top-down ordering also manifests more clearly the close link between a specific proficiency level and the next lower level by focusing on a narrower sphere of performance rather than by regarding the expansion of functional tasks and expectations as leaps as one moves up the proficiency scale. These guidelines are useful for assessing the proficiency level required to enter the medical translation field.