TEACHING ACROSS

PROFICIENCY
LEVELS
Terms to refer student’s proficiency levels such as “beginning”, “intermediate”, and
“advanced” are subjective (each institute or teacher may has different standard for each
term).
Proficiency Levels

• Defined as a standard set of guidelines by which the terms such as

“beginner”, “intermediate”, and “advanced” uniformly understood.
• The guidelines describe the of speaking, listening, reading, and writing
proficiency at numerous gradations.
• In 1986, the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines was widely recognized as a
proficiency standard in language-teaching circles.
• Then it becomes the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) levels, and now
referred to as “ILR” (Interagency Language Roundtable) levels,
determined by points on an increasing scale by the FSI Oral Interview.
The Oral Interview
Defined as a carefully designed set
of structured tasks that elicit
pronunciation, fluency and
integrative ability, sociolinguistic
and cultural knowledge, grammar,
and vocabulary.
 TEACHING
BEGINNING LEVELS

Considered to be the most challenging level in language-teaching.

There are ten factors that will help to formulate an approach to teaching beginners, before designing
the classroom teaching techniques.
1. Student’s Cognitive Learning
Processes
■ Repetition of words, phrases,
and sentences can be found.
■ Use peripheral processing by
using the practiced language
for genuinely meaningful
purposes. For example: “what
is your name?” “where do you
live?”
■ With peripheral processing,
students become immersed in
the task of seeking genuine
information.
2. the role of the teacher

■ A teacher-centered or teacher-fronted classroom is appropriate,

but still need student-centered work
■ “keep the ball rolling”
■ Pair work or group work are effective techniques to take off
the attention
■ The onus is on the teacher to plan topics, activity, etc.
3. teacher talk

■ The teacher’s English needs to be clearly articulated

■ Slow your speech, but not so much

■ Advantages of using student’s native language:

-negotiation of disciplinary or other factors
-brief description and explanation
-quick pointers of meanings of words that remain confusing
Levels of proficiency

Novice
Ability to communicate
minimally with learned material

Novice- Novice- Novice-

Low Mid High
Vocabulary is sufficient for Can ask questions
isolated words and a few expressing basic courtesies
high-frequency phrases Show signs of spontaneity
Utterances show frequent
long pauses
 Intermediate
-create with language with combining and recombining learned elements
-initiate or sustain in a simple way communicative tasks
-ask and answer questions

Intermediate- Intermediate- Intermediate-

Low Mid High
Maintain face-to-face Can talk simply about self and Initiate and sustain general
conversation family members conversation
Participate in simple conversations
Misunderstandings Repetition may still be
frequently arise Pronounciation may continue to be required
strongly influenced by first
language
 • narrate and describe with some details, linking sentences
smoothly

Advanced • communicate facts and talks casually about topics of

current public
• can be understood without difficult by native speakers

• Can discuss concrete topics relating to particular interests

Advanced- and special fields of competence
• Differentiated vocabulary and intonation
Plus • Shows remarkable fluency and ease of speech
 Superior

• Participate effectively in most formal and

informal conversations on practical, social,
professional, and abstract topics
• Support opinions and hypothesize using native-
like discourse strategies
• Ability to distinguish main ideas from supporting
information through syntactic, lexical, and
suprasegmental features (pitch, stress, intonation)
4. Authenticity of language

■ Examples: Simple greetings and introductions

■ Utterances are limited to short, simple phrases
5. Fluency and accuracy

■ Fluency doesn't have to apply only to long utterances

■ Accuracy should center on the particular grammatical, phonological, or
discourse elements that are being practiced
■ Students' need to practice freely and openly without fear but on the other
hand teachers need to correct some selected grammatical and
phonoligical errors
6. Student creativity

■ Students can be creative only within the confines of a highly

cotrolled repertoire of language
7. Techniques

■ Short and simple

■ Simple student-initiated questions
■ Group and pair activities
8. Listening and Speaking goals

■ Meaningful and authentic communication tasks

■ Limited more by grammar, vocabulary, and length of
utterances than by communucative function
9. Reading and writing goals

■ Reading and writing topics are confined to brief but

nevertheless real-life written material
10. Grammar

■ A typical beginning level will deal at the outset with very

simple verbs forms, personal pronouns, definite and indefinite
articles, singular and plural nouns, and simple sentences, in a
progression of grammatical topics from simple to complex.
 TEACHING
INTERMEDIATE
LEVELS
1. Students' cognitive learning processes
■ Phrases, sentences, structures, and conventional rules have been practiced and are
increasing in number, forcing the mental processes to automatize

2. The role of the teacher

■ How to make the students be encourage to ask questions, make comments, and
negotiate certain options in learning where appropriate.
■ Don't set equal expectations for all students
3. Teacher talk
■ Teacher talk should not occupy the major proportion of a class hour
■ Teachers are probably not giving students enough opportunity to talk

4. Authenticity of language
■ Students sometime become overly concerned about grammatical correctness and may
want to wonder into esoteric discussion of grammatical details
5. Fluency and Accuracy
■ Some students are likely to become overly concerned about accuracy, possibly berating
themselves for the mistakes they make and demanding constant corrections for every
slip-up. 
■ fluency exercises (saying or writing a steady flow of language for a short period of time
without any self or other-correction at all) are a must at this level.
 TEACHING
ADVANCED LEVELS
 Already getting closer and
closer to their goals

Can developing fluency along

Advanced Students with a greater degree of
accuracy

Able to handle virtually any

situation in which target
language use is demanded
Student's cognitive learning process

■ Student is competence to put the formal structures and

meaning of language
■ Teacher only assist the student in attempt to automize language
The role of the teacher

■ Teacher only gives them opportunity for them to ask a question and
explore their curiosity
■ Teacher's role is as directive to create the effectiveness in a
predominantly learner-centered classroom
Teacher talk

■ Teacher can talk in natural speed and make sure the students
have enough opportunities to produce language
Authencity of language

■ Academic prose to literature to idiomatic conversation

becomes a legitimate resource for the classroom
Fluency and accuracy

■ The fluency of student is varied

■ Teacher only has correct the error occasionally
Student creativity

■ Students are able to perform classroom material to real context

beyond
Techniques
■ The activities are like group debates, argumentation, complex role plays,
scanning & skimming reading materials, writing essays and critics
Listening and speaking goals

■ Focuses those carefully on all the sociolinguistic nuances of language

Reading and writing goals

■ The goals is to make it closer to native speaker competence

Grammar

■ More concern to functional forms, to sociolingustic and pragmatic

phenomena and to strategic competence