For many of the AFS-USA student abroad programs, a language proficiency assessment is offered to participating students at no additional cost. Students are encouraged to take both a pre-assessment before they depart on their program and a post-assessment upon their return so both the student and the school have a tangible measure of language learning and growth while the student is abroad.
Students who study abroad for a semester or year in a country whose language is: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, or Spanish are offered the widely recognized ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages (AAPPL). This assessment measures the student's language proficiency in the areas of Interpersonal Listening/Speaking (ILS), Interpretive Reading (IR), Interpretive Listening (IL), and Presentational Writing (PW) in an online, computer-based assessment.
Upon completion of this ~3 hour assessment, students should reach out to the AFS-USA study abroad team to request their official score report and certificate. These documents can be used by the local school to award academic credit for students in the language that they studied as well as consider the student as a candidate for the state's Seal of Biliteracy regardless of whether or not this is a language taught by the local school.
Most states and/or schools have a policy that relates to granting credit through a demonstration of proficiency and the AAPPL assessment is one that can be used for this purpose as it is nationally normed and scored externally according to the ACTFL proficiency benchmarks.
If you or the student have any questions about the AAPPL assessment or its score report, please reach out to studyabroad@afsusa.org.