- Kent School District
- World Language Proficiency
World Language Proficiency Assessment
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Earn Up to Four Credits for Languages You Know
Students in grades 8-12 who can read, write, speak, and understand the target languages at the Novice Mid-Level or above can earn credit for free when they complete world language proficiency assessments.
Based on the proficiency level demonstrated, students can earn 1-4 high school credits for world language. The credits will help students meet high school graduation and college admissions requirements.
2019-2020 Assessment Process
Students who are interested in taking the world language assessments must:
- Complete the World Language Proficiency Opportunity Interest Form and Self Assessment.
- Attend the informational session scheduled at their school.
- Kent-Meridian: November 18 at 10:00 a.m.
- Kentlake: November 13 at 11:00 a.m.
- Kentwood: November 19 at 12:24 p.m.
- Kentridge: November 21 at 10:00 a.m
- Kent Mountain View Academy: November 12 at 10:00 a.m.
- Kent Pheonix Academy: November 12 at 1:00 p.m.
A completed form and attendance at an informational session are mandatory before moving forward with registering for the assessment.
For more information, please contact your school's world language assessment coordinator.
- Kent-Meridian: Jennifer Appel
- Kentlake: Julie Gibson
- Kentwood: Mary Lewandowski
- Kentridge: Haiyan Tang
- Kent Mountain View Academy: Pat Gallagher or Diana Bofferding
- Kent Phoenix Academy: Dawn Stevenson
Assessment Dates
In 2019-2020, students will have the opportunity to take the assessment at their school during the school day.
- Kent-Meridian: To be determined
- Kentlake: February 7, 2020
- Kentwood: February 4, 2020
- Kentridge: January 14, 2020
- Kent Mountain View Academy: To be determined (Spring)
- Kent Phoenix Academy: To be determined (Spring)
- iGrad: To be determined
Assessments
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STAMP & World Speak Assessments
Standards-Based Measurement of Proficiency (STAMP) and World Speak are online assessments that test reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in a variety of languages.
The test is not timed but typically takes about 2-3 hours. The instructions are in English. If you are unsure about English reading skills, take the practice test first.
Students can prepare for this assessment by reading the STAMP Test Taker Guide and taking
a a STAMP Sample Test.Available Languages
- Arabic
- French
- German
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Mandarin (Simplified and Traditional)
- Polish
- Russian
- Spanish
- Armenian
- Filipino (Tagalog
- Haitian-Creole
- Ilocano
- Samoan Somali Maay
- Somali Maxaa
- Tamil
- Vietnamese
- Yup'ik
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ALTA Writing & Listening Assessments
Writing Assessment
The ALTA Writing Assessment is a hand-written test with several “prompts” (or questions) for you to write about. Write as much as you can in connected paragraphs. It is OK to make a few grammar mistakes.
Listening Assessment
Taken after the Writing Assessment, the ALTA Listening Assessment is an interview by telephone with a native speaker, which will be scheduled at your school after we receive writing scores.
Available Languages
- Albanian
- Amharic
- Azerbaijani
- Baluchi (Western)
- Bambara
- Bengali
- Bosnian
- Bulgarian
- Burmese
- Cambodian
- Cantonese (Traditional)
- Chuukese
- Croatian
- Czech Danish
- Dari Farsi
- Dutch
- Estonian
- Ewe
- Fante (Akan)
- Finnish
- Fulfulde (Fulani)
- Ga
- Greek (Modern)
- Gujarati
- Hausa
- Hmong-Mong
- Hungarian
- Ibo
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Jamaican Patois
- Kazakh
- Kurdish (Kurmandji)
- Kurdish (Sorani)
- Laotian
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Macedonian
- Malayalam
- Nepali
- Norwegian
- Oromo
- Pashto
- Persian Farsi
- Portuguese (Brazil)
- Portuguese (Portugal)
- Punjabi (Eastern)
- Punjabi (Western)
- Romanian
- Serbian
- Serbo-Croatian
- Sinhala
- Slovak
- Swahili
- Swedish
- Taiwanese (Traditional)
- Tajik
- Telegu
- Thai
- Tibetan
- Tigrinya
- Turkish
- Turkmen
- Twi (Akan)
- Ukranian
- Urdu
- Uzbek
- Wolof
- Yoruba
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Other Assessments
All languages not tested by the STAMP and World Speak or ALTA assessments will be tested using WPT & Proctored Writing Test, AAPL OPI, and OPIc.
Writing Proficiency Test (WPT) & Proctored Writing Test
The WPT and Proctored Writing tasks are English prompts for which the student provides
hand-written response in the target language. The responses are evaluated to determine whether they demonstrate proficiency at a sufficient level to recommend 1, 2, 3, or 4 credits (i.e. at least Novice Mid, at least Novice High, at least Intermediate Low, or at least Intermediate Mid) -- but not higher than that because the evaluators for these less commonly taught/tested languages have not been formally trained to provide a precise proficiency rating.Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI)
The OPI is a structured phone conversation with a speaker of the target language. The interaction is scored based on word usage and sentence structure.
Oral Proficiency Interview on the Computer (OPIc)
The OPIc is a computer-assisted oral assessment in which the student interacts orally with an avatar to have a conversation in the target language. The interaction is scored based on word usage and sentence structure.
Contact Us
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Assessment
12033 SE 256th Street #D-2100
Kent, WA 98030(253) 373-7080
