Intermediate (R 1): Survival Proficiency reading

This is the level to aim for if you want to read material with common words and simple grammatical constructions. You may get only the main ideas, unless you rely a lot on the dictionary. You will probably have to reread a lot. If you need to read the language in order to do your work, you will need to aim higher than this level.

Languages like Chinese or Japanese with writing systems of many elements take a lot longer to learn to read than to understand and speak. If you study a language related to your own, you may get to this level quickly. You might get some main ideas from texts at the next higher level, especially if the topic is familiar.

If you have a working orthography in the language and can teach a speaker to read and write, you can expand your own reading goals a lot. You will not be the only one doing the writing. As you learn, ask a language associate to record and transcribe some simple texts for you.

• Simple, connected texts about predictable subjects
• Short, straightforward descriptions of persons, places, and things for a wide audience
• Basic written directions
• Written descriptions of what a place or a person looks like

• What you can read at Intermediate level
• ACTFL guidelines: Reading--Intermediate

• Generic module: Intermediate (R 1): Survival Proficiency reading
• In overview module: Guidelines for setting reading goals
• In overview module: Guidelines for setting proficiency goals
• 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: 2 September 1998

© 1999 SIL International