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Measuring language knowledge. To bridge the articulation gap, it was
necessary first to develop a system to measure language knowledge in order to
be able to describe what it is that learners should know at given points intheir
careers. None of the existing measurement tools was adequate. The ACTFL
proficiency guidelines measure only what a speaker is actually able to perform,
and does not measure structural knowledge in any systematic fashion.
Traditional written tests, on the other hand, are notoriously inadequate to the
task of telling what functional tasks students can actually perform. Thus, the
assessment system for describing a student's knowledge of Russian that is
presented below was designed to measure along more than one axis of this
complex domain, just as the battery of medical tests that accompany a physical
exam are designed to provide a snapshot of the physical status of one's body.
As noted at the beginning of this chapter, this measurement system looks at: 1)
skill levels and functional abilities; 2) lexical goals and topical knowledge; and
3) structural knowledge.
The next step in developing these guidelines required us to define units
of measure that would provide programs in both high schools and colleges a
target at which to aim each level of their programs. The principle difficulty here
lies in developmental differences between high school and college students.
The primary goal of this framework was always to develop a pragmatic
approach to managing Russian language learning careers, but in the end,
believe that we have hit upon an approach that simultaneously makes good
cognitive sense for both high school and college programs.
The intent of this framework being pragmatic, we began with the belief
that a semester of in-country study was an ideal "capstone" experience for the
study of a foreign language in a general setting. Following this experience,
course work will tend to be for special purposes. In recognition of the fact that
semester-length in-country programs in Russian typically require three years of
study, we took as a long-range goal the definition of three stages--which we
call elementary, intermediate, and advanced--in the study of Russian leading
up to a semester of in-country study.2 7By defining the content of the first two of
these stages we felt that we would be able to facilitate the process of articulation
in the vast majority of cases.
In addressing the articulation problem, we started with the general rule of
thumb that two years of high school experience translates into one year of
college experience as an example of how articulation has traditionally been
practiced. This rule reflects both a great deal of practical experience with
college placement and general cognitive maturational differences in high
school and college students. Furthermore, experience with the ETS
Comprehensive Russian Proficiency Test confirms this correspondence. In
listening proficiency, after two years of high school Russian 64% typically reach
at least the Novice-High level, and after one year of college Russian 69% reach
27Our use of the term "stage" creates the possibility of confusion with the same term in the report
Articulation and Achievement . Unfortunately, there is a limited number of words from which to
choose; ironically, we rejected the use of the term "level" precisely to avoid confusion with the
terminology of the proficiency guidelines.
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