Trying to use measures of language proficiency levels to figure out how bilingual a child is can be really problematic. Worse yet, it has some pretty huge implications for our speech evaluations or targets we choose in therapy. If we confidently know how much a child speaks or hears a home language, we know whether or not to use an interpreter to test and we know if less-than favorable results might be due to cross-linguistic influence.
But here’s the problem, most of us don’t trust the information we get about a child’s language use. If you feel queasy or unsure about language proficiency estimates, you are not only not alone and are completely justified. How special education has been collecting language proficiency information really doesn’t paint an accurate picture. At the same time, all of the measures out there were not designed for us (special educators). They typically describe people who are trying to learn a second language as adults or are used for (general education) classroom decisions.
I am happy to say that we built a free tool to calculate language exposure and use! In this essay, let’s talk about why our current measures are so inaccurate and which data we need to be comfortable with our estimate. We will show you how to easily arrive at a trustworthy percentage. Then, we need to explain how degrees of language proficiency are calculated for non-special educators. This is as interesting as it is important because we need you to walk away from here knowing that levels of language proficiency are not a bad thing. We just need to know how to gather the right information.
Like this!
Language Exposure and Use Calculator
Why Most Measures Language Proficiency Levels Are Untrustworthy
We’ve all been here: You find out that a new bilingual child will join your caseload or is your next student to test. You wonder how bilingual she is so you will have an idea on how to proceed. You look at the paperwork, talk to mom, possibly the teacher, and then meet her. With experience, you definitely have a sense for her dual-language capabilities, but for most of us it’s just a rough guess.
If you have ever doubted the results of a parent report, teacher report, or home language survey you are not alone. Moreover, looking at this list of reasons why we can’t rely on the most common levels of language proficiency should make you feel good about your gut sense:
1. Many language proficiency results are old.
Most language proficiency levels were determined when a child enters the education system. This could have been years ago, and they are rarely updated.
2. Most are used for classroom placement decisions, not for special education placement decisions.
For schools that have bilingual programs or bilingual teachers, levels of language proficiency help get the child under the right support. For smaller districts, it can even change the campus they attend. Or, it informs decisions around English Language (EL) support.
3. Many use negatively-framed language which doesn’t lead to reliable reporting
Second-language, English as a Second-Language, Non-dominant language, all suggest an inferiority of one language. Special education and clinics are doing a good job modernizing their vocabulary but you can see that questionnaires that position the home language as being sub-standard, may not get accurate reporting by parents as to how much it is used.
4. Most language proficiency questionnaires only use two foundational questions:
Two questions, are you ready? Say ‘em with me! “What language is spoken at home?” What language is spoken at school?”
Boo!!!!
That’s supposed to determine a level of bilingualism? Anyone ever heard of receptive language? And who are we talking to in all of those environments? Friends? Parents? Teachers? Siblings?… What we actually need is information 1) from parents and teachers about 2) who they are speaking with 3) during the different times of day.
And while we are waving our magic wand and ignoring the other 100 things we have to do, it would be easy to calculate and give us an immediate answer. Basically, it would (and does!) look like this:
How to Calculate an Accurate Level of Language Proficiency
In order to build a calculator to give us accurate language use percentages, we had to make some assumptions related to time. By doing this, it allows us to create math that gets us to a fairly accurate result. Here are our assumptions:
- 168 hours in a week
- 8 hours per day sleeping
- 72 hours outside of school
- 40 hours at school.
- 8-hour school day3 hours of which spent interacting with teachers3 hours of which spent interacting with other students
- 2 hours of which spent interacting with other school personnel.
For those of you have been following us for a while, you know that this is an evolution in our thinking. We originally created and document with instructions on calculating language use. That evolved into a spreadsheet and online course that is still widely used today. It works but needs you to manually enter the data that you collected.
We took this one step further and created an online tool with nifty sliders for you to dial the percentages up and down. It provides the results that look like this:
Note that is the exact calculation from the blue parent and teacher slider images right above it. How cool is that? You can access it and try it out for free here: Language Exposure and Use Calculator
By entering your email you get the full summary to add to your report, but it gets better. With rampant over-identification and the current laborious process to get this information, we wanted to make this tool from for SLPS. It also lives inside our Evalubox report writing tool where the questionnaires are sent out to parents and teachers electronically and the data is collected and entered directly into your report! It looks like this:
CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND
Spanish is the primary language spoken in the home. It was reported that Ava was born in Mexico and came to the United States at the age of 3. It was reported that Ava had minimal exposure to English starting around that time and regular exposure to English starting in August of 2023, when she started in a school program.
Ava’s family reported that she hears Spanish 90 percent of the time and uses Spanish 90 percent of the time, and that she hears English 10 percent of the time and uses it 10 percent of the time.
Language use at school was reported by Ava’s teacher as follows. Ava is in a General Education. Ava hears Spanish 0 percent of the time and uses it 80 percent of the time, and hears English 100 percent of the time and uses it 20 percent of the time.
Taking all reports of language exposure and use into account, current overall exposure and use of Spanish is 65 percent and of English is 35 percent.* It should be noted that she has only been at this level of exposure since August of 2023.
| Home Language Heard | Home Language Spoken | English Heard | English Spoken | |
| School with Teacher | 0 | 80 | 100 | 20 |
| School with Students | 0 | 80 | 100 | 20 |
| School with Other School Personnel | 0 | 80 | 100 | 20 |
| After School | 90 | 90 | 10 | 10 |
| Evening/Night | 90 | 90 | 10 | 10 |
| Weekends | 90 | 90 | 10 | 10 |
*Percentages are weighted for hours spent in each environment. Current research in the area of bilingual language development (Bedore, Peña, Anaya, Nieto, Lugo-Neris & Baron, 2018; Peña, Bedore, Lugo-Neris, Albudoor, 2020) indicates that if a child has greater than 70% exposure and use of one language, then standardized and non-standardized results from testing that language alone reliably measures language skills if they are within normal limits.
What Are Actual Language Proficiency Levels? How They are Determined
We have one more topic to cover in this story because we want to bring home the point that 1) language proficiency levels are not a bad thing and 2) they serve an important purpose. It’s just that we are after exposure and use, rather than proficiency, to make informed decisions.
Language proficiency levels generally refer to a framework that categorizes a person’s ability to use a language in various contexts. These levels are commonly used to assess and describe someone’s proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing a particular language. The most widely recognized framework for language proficiency is the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), which defines proficiency levels from A1 (beginner) to C2 (proficient/fluent). Here’s a breakdown of the CEFR levels:
- A1 (Beginner): Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce themselves and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where they live, people they know and things they have.
- A2 (Elementary): Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment). Can communicate in simple and routine tasks.
- B1 (Intermediate): Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics that are familiar or of personal interest.
- B2 (Upper Intermediate): Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in their field of specialization. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects.
- C1 (Advanced): Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognize implicit meaning. Can express ideas fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes.
- C2 (Proficient/Fluent): Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read. Can summarize information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation. Can express themselves spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in more complex situations.
These levels provide a standardized way to evaluate and describe language proficiency across different languages and contexts, helping individuals, employers, educators, and institutions understand a person’s ability to communicate effectively. They are used in language learning programs, certifications, job applications, educational institutions, and immigration processes to assess and describe language skills accurately and consistently.
This is a far cry from the children we are evaluating for special education. What we actually need, and the reason we built the online calculator, is information on language exposure and use. This will help guide our evaluations and the goals we choose for therapy.
Bedore, L. M., Peña, E. D., Anaya, J. B., Nieto, R., Lugo-Neris, M. J., & Baron, A. (2018). Understanding disorder within variation: Production of English grammatical forms by English language learners. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools , 49 (2), 277-291.
Peña, E. D., Bedore, L. M., Shivabasappa, P., & Niu, L. (2020). Effects of divided input on bilingual children with language impairment. International journal of bilingualism , 24 (1), 62-78.
