Academic Activities

Workshop title: Proficiency Guidelines Assessment by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages ACTFL 

Workshop Place: EDEP Center. 

Presenter Biography: Dr. Ghazi Abuhakema is the director of the Asian Studies and Arabic programs at the College of Charleston, South Carolina. He earned his Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education specializing in Applied Linguistics from the University of Texas and he is an ACTFL-certified trainer and tester. 

Workshop Goal: This workshop aimed to educate teachers on how to perform oral proficiency tests and to accurately determine the levels of examinees according to the ACTFL oral proficiency interview guidelines, generally considered to be among the most prominent oral tests standards. 

In the workshop, Dr. Abuhakema tackled the following topics:  

1. Identify an assessable linguistic sample to measure students’ proficiency and oral performance. 
2. Explore the highest and the lowest linguistic levels of a student. Determine the level at which the student can function consistently and the level at which the student can no longer sustain performance to accurately determine the proficiency level. 
3. Determine the tasks required of the student at each level.
4. Evaluate students based on accuracy, fluency, context, discussion, vocabulary, phrases, and language function. 
5. Train testers to gradually ask questions and raise discussions that are seemingly spontaneous but distinctly systematic as the interview progresses. 

In the second part of the workshop, samples of model interviews were reviewed for evaluation and discussion. In the end, trainee teachers conducted  assessments of foreign students, evaluated, and conducted a discussion with other teachers under the supervision of Dr. Ghazi Abuhakema.