Example: Writing descriptions and summaries to test your writing proficiency

If you think you are at Intermediate proficiency, you can test your writing ability by describing a place you have visited, or writing a short summary of something you have heard or read.

• Decide what to write about. Choose something you have not written about before.
• When you have finished, show your writing to someone who reads and writes the language well, and ask for corrections.
• 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. Assessment
  • If you are able to write a description or summary that a mother-tongue speaker can understand, you are probably at Intermediate level. You may have to look up some words in the dictionary and may still make quite a few mistakes.
  • If you are able to write a description or summary fairly easily, you may be at Advanced level. You may have to look up just a few words in the dictionary and may make just a few mistakes.
  • If you are able to write a description or summary easily without using a dictionary and making almost no mistakes, you may be at Superior level.

• Example of task module: Example: Writing descriptions and summaries to tes...
• In 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: 15 September 1998

© 1999 SIL International