Measuring Language Proficiency

Defining the Construct

Language proficiency, in the broadest sense, refers to a person's competence or ability to use a language regardless of the circumstances under which it is acquired. That is, the acquisition process that underlies language proficiency occurs in many different settings and contexts with many different interlocutors, such as family members, teachers, or peers. For students, language processing (through listening and reading) and production (through speaking and writing) occur both inside and outside of school.

Given these circumstances, development of proficiency involves two languages for ELLs. Minimally, these students come to school with oral language proficiency in their native language, and more than likely, continue to be exposed to their first language in their home environment. Depending on their age and prior educational experiences, their oral language development may or may not be complemented by literacy in their native language. Thus, often it is important to ascertain these students' relative language proficiency; that is, their performance in one language in relation to that in another upon their initial entry into school.

Linguists have tended to define language proficiency in one of two ways. The behaviorist school, represented by Charles Fries and Robert Lado in the early 1960s, dissects language into each of its component and subcomponent parts: phonology (the sound system), morphology (the smallest unit of meaning), syntax (grammar or structure), and semantics (meaning at a word, phrase, or discourse level). This approach also sees language proficiency as the accumulation of discrete skills or isolated elements. A communicative approach to language proficiency epitomized by Sandra Savignon in the late 1970s, on the other hand, places emphasis on the message or how language is used in a particular situation rather than on the knowledge of the language per se. Communicative competencies are generally exhibited in real life settings in which natural interaction is encouraged.

James Cummins's work over the past 25 years has influenced how educators envision language proficiency as part of the schooling of linguistically and culturally diverse students. His theoretical framework captures interpersonal communication outside of school, the linguistic demands of school, and underlying cross-lingual proficiencies (the developmental relationships between two languages). In essence, communicative proficiency is conceptualized along two perpendicular continua; one relates the range of contextual support available to access meaning, and the other stipulates the degree of cognitive involvement.

Finally, in recent years, U.S. legislation, in particular the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, has helped [Page 543]recast the notion of English language proficiency. ELLs' progress and attainment of English language proficiency are directly tied to schooling and accountability. Moreover, mandated English language proficiency standards, aligned to state academic content standards, are expressions of how language proficiency is operationalized along a developmental continuum. English language proficiency has come to encompass social, intercultural, and academic dimensions, with particular emphases on the language demands of school, such as specialized discourse associated with the content of mathematics, science, or social studies.

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