Testing your writing proficiency

You can test your writing proficiency by choosing a writing task to perform and then comparing your performance to the descriptions of different writing proficiency levels in the ACTFL Guidelines.

• Choose a task that is appropriate for the proficiency level you think describes you, or ask someone else to choose the task.

• Do not rehearse the specific task ahead of time.

  Reason:

  The point is to see if you can perform a task that represents your overall proficiency.

• Choose a writing task representative of the level you think you are at. Even better, ask a friend to choose a task for you so you will not choose something you know you can do.
• Show what you have written to someone who reads and writes the language well and ask for corrections.

  See:	The Write and Rewrite technique

• Reread the description of the different levels of writing proficiency in the ACTFL guidelines.
• Decide as honestly as possible which level of the guidelines your performance matches.

• Example: Writing descriptions and summaries to test your writing proficiency

• Task module: Testing your writing proficiency
• In task module: Testing your language proficiency
• In task module: Checking your progress
• In task module: How to manage your language learning program
• In modular book: Managing Your Language Learning Program, by Carol J. Orwig
• In bookshelf: Language Learning

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 3.5, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 21 March 1999

© 1999 SIL International