This document describes the language ability of our students according to proficiency level and skill area. As we continue to revise and improve our existing curriculum, these descriptors will serve as a guide to administrators, teachers, and students. Objectives will aim toward helping students reach these proficiency descriptors.
The two proficiency levels next to each ELC level name roughly correspond to ACTFL proficiency levels. The first label is the entry point for students in that level and the second label is for students exiting that level. For example, students entering Academic B will be at the Advanced Low proficiency level. Students who successfully complete Academic B are at the Advanced Mid proficiency level. The descriptors describe what language functions students who are exiting the level are capable of performing.
Each skill area is divided into three groups—function, text, and fluency/comprehensibility:
Another important aspect of these descriptors is the adverbs of frequency that are used to mark difference in ability among various levels. Rarely, usually, often, sometimes, frequently and other similar words are used throughout the document to discriminate among proficiency levels.
Students can perform the following functions while meeting the outlined text and fluency/comprehensibility expectations.
Function: Students are able to understand direct, simple and predictably organized speech. They sometimes demonstrate understanding of short, discrete personal statements, classroom instructions, basic questions, and lists of characteristics through appropriate responses.
Text: Students comprehend short conversations consisting of simple sentences with clear turn-taking about most survival needs with repetition and non-verbal support. Speech samples will be highly modified in rate and clarity and consist primarily of high frequency words and phrases. Speech samples generally consist of no more than 2 speakers and are primarily series of direct statements or self-centric descriptions.
Fluency: Students can listen to discourse appropriate speech at 70% comprehension.
Function: Students can meet very limited practical speaking needs. They almost exclusively speak in present time and typically use recombinations of learned vocabulary and structures. They can handle short interactions in everyday situations by asking and answering a few simple questions. Students express personal meaning by combining and recombining what they learned or memorized.
Text: Students speak in short and discrete sentences that use basic syntax.
Comprehensibility: Students can generally be understood by sympathetic listeners who are accustomed to dealing with non-natives but this usually requires repetition or rephrasing. Students? speech is filled with hesitancy and inaccuracies as they search for appropriate linguistic forms and vocabulary?students? pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax are strongly influenced by their first language.
Function: Students understand short, non-complex texts that convey basic contextualized information. They can understand key words and cognates as well as formulaic phrases. They can understand texts which include learned vocabulary and phrases. Students use titles and headings to preview texts. They use scanning to quickly locate known words.
Text: Students comprehend straightforward, non-complex, predictable language as found on schedules, roadmaps, and street signs. Texts are usually engineered specifically for readers at this proficiency level but often resemble authentic language as found in informational and social texts. The text is primarily made up of single words, phrases, and sentences. These texts primarily contained learned vocabulary.
Fluency: Students can read 200 words per minute or above with 70% comprehension.
Function: Students are able to meet very limited basic practical writing needs using lists and short messages. They typically write learned vocabulary and structures. They rely mainly on practiced material. They write primarily about personal topics and common elements for daily life.
Text: Students recombine learned vocabulary and structures to create simple sentences on very familiar topics, but are not able to sustain sentence-level writing.
Comprehensibility: Students can be understood by native speakers who are accustomed to the writing of non-natives, but gaps in comprehension may occur.
Students can perform the following functions while meeting the outlined text and fluency/comprehensibility expectations.
Function: The language at this level uses simple discrete sentences about factual, concrete, personal topics and simple instructions in the present time. Students can understand, ask, and answer yes or no questions and personal, concrete wh- questions. Target grammar constructions are understood and strategically used to adequately respond to the task.
Input: The text for reading and listening should be short and simple. The content is focused on personal and familiar topics that follow predictable patterns and structures. The content will therefore often be engineered specifically for learners and include repetition and high levels of support from the teacher or text. Comprehension may be impacted by limited knowledge of grammar constructions. Students may occasionally require additional individual words, phrases, or lists for understanding challenging tasks.
Output: Students produce written and spoken English that is marked by limited fluency and a high degree of effort to form a response and for the response to be understood. Students start to go beyond memorization to create language for familiar tasks. They may occasionally produce only individual words, phrases, or lists in challenging tasks.
Function: Students are consistently able to understand main ideas and major details of direct, simple and predictably organized speech. They may understand a speaker's purpose and point of view when presented with contextualized dialogs, but will often struggle with monologs. They demonstrate understanding of short, discrete factual statements, instructions, questions, and descriptions through appropriate responses.
Text: Students comprehend short conversations consisting of simple sentences with clear turn-taking about all survival needs and limited social demands with some repetition and non-verbal support. Speech samples will be modified in rate and clarity and consist primarily of high frequency words and phrases. Speech samples generally consist of no more than 2 speakers.
Fluency: Students can listen to discourse appropriate speech at 70% comprehension. Errors in comprehension may affect students' ability to understand main ideas and major details.
Function: Students can participate in conversations and make presentations on some familiar topics. They almost exclusively speak in present time and typically use recombinations of learned vocabulary and structures. They can create with the language to give some information relating to self, home, daily activities, personal interests, as well as physical and social needs. They can handle short interactions in everyday situations by asking and answering a few simple questions. Students express personal meaning by combining and recombining what they know and hear from others.
Text: Students speak in short and discrete sentences that use basic syntax.
Comprehensibility: Students can generally be understood by sympathetic listeners who are accustomed to dealing with non-natives but often this requires repetition or rephrasing. Students' speech may be filled with hesitancy and inaccuracies as they search for appropriate linguistic forms and vocabulary'students' pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax may be strongly influenced by their first language.
Function: Students are able to understand main ideas that are clearly stated in titles and topic sentences. They can usually identify major details. They can sometimes guess unfamiliar words that are highly contextualized with definitions, repetition, and images. Students use previewing to facilitate better understanding prior to reading texts. They use scanning to quickly locate key words or phrases.
Text: Students comprehend straightforward, non-complex texts that convey basic information and deal with personal and familiar topics. Texts are usually engineered specifically for readers at this proficiency level but often resemble authentic language as found in informational and social texts. These texts have predictable patterns. The text is primarily organized in charts, loosely connected sentences about similar topics, captions of images, or clearly defined simple paragraphs that contain predominantly high-frequency vocabulary. These texts primarily use simple sentence structures although there may also be some basic compound sentences.
Fluency: Students can read 200 words per minute or above with 70% comprehension. Errors in comprehension may affect students' ability to understand main ideas and major details.
Function: Students are able to meet some limited practical writing needs. They almost exclusively write in present time and typically write recombinations of learned vocabulary and structures. They can create statements and formulate questions based on familiar material. Topics are tied to highly predictable content areas and personal information. Students have limited ability to distinguish between informal and formal situations and tend to write about personal topics in concrete terms.
Text: Students mostly write simple sentences, phrases, and strings of words with basic word order and repetitive structures.
Comprehensibility: Students can be understood by native speakers who are accustomed to the writing of non-natives, although additional effort may be required. There may be basic errors in syntax, word choice, punctuation, and spelling.
Students can perform the following functions while meeting the outlined text and fluency/comprehensibility expectations.
Function: The language at this level uses individual or sometimes grouped sentences in present time about concrete concepts about personal and familiar topics. Students can understand, ask, and answer yes or no questions and personal, concrete wh- questions. Target grammar constructions are understood and strategically used to adequately respond to the task.
Input: The text for reading and listening should be short and simple. The content is focused on personal and familiar topics that follow predictable patterns and structures. The content and task will therefore often be engineered specifically for learners and include repetition and high levels of support from the teacher or text. Instruction should be given in the present time and as needed in the past. Comprehension may be impacted by limited knowledge of grammar constructions. Students may occasionally require additional individual words, phrases, or lists for understanding challenging tasks.
Output: Students produce written and spoken English that is marked by limited fluency and a high degree of effort to form a response and for the response to be understood. Students start to go beyond memorization to create language for familiar tasks. They may occasionally produce only individual words, phrases, or lists in challenging tasks.
Function: Students are consistently able to understand the main ideas and major details of direct and some collective organized speech. They understand concrete concepts about personal and familiar topics. They can understand a speaker's purpose and point of view in narrative or informal speech. Students demonstrate understanding of factual statements, instructions, questions, and descriptions through appropriate responses. They understand high frequency vocabulary and syntactic structures that may resemble formulaic or memorized words and phrases.
Text: Students comprehend short conversations consisting of sentences with clear turn-taking about all survival needs and most social demands with limited repetition and restatement. Speech samples may be modified in rate and clarity, may demonstrate some variety of high frequency words and phrases, and may include more than 2 speakers.
Fluency: Students can listen to discourse appropriate speech at 70% comprehension. Errors in comprehension rarely affect students' ability to understand main ideas but may affect understanding of some major details.
Function: Students can participate in conversations and make presentations on a wide variety of familiar topics including short social interactions in everyday situations. They consistently speak in present time but may make references to other time frames. They can readily give information related to self, home, daily activities, personal interests, as well as physical and social needs. They are able to narrate and describe with limited success. They can ask and answer a variety of questions. Students express personal meaning by creating with the language, in part by combining and recombining known elements. They use high frequency vocabulary and syntactic structures that may be formulaic or memorized.
Text: Students speak using a series of complete sentences that may be loosely connected.
Comprehensibility: Students can generally be understood by sympathetic listeners who are accustomed to dealing with non-native speakers. In most expression, meaning is preserved even in situations of frequent errors. Speech displaying the strategic use of pauses, reformulations and self-corrections as students search for appropriate language is acceptable.
Function: Students are able to understand the main ideas and major details of texts about personal and familiar topics. They understand concrete concepts about personal and familiar topics. They can sometimes guess unfamiliar words that are highly contextualized.
Text: Students comprehend straightforward, non-complex texts that convey basic information and deal with personal and social topics. Some informal texts such as advertisements, social media, letters, and other informational materials are generally authentic while formal texts are usually engineered specifically for readers at this proficiency level. Almost all texts feature narrative conventions. These texts have predictable patterns. The text is primarily organized in simple paragraphs containing predominantly high-frequency vocabulary. These texts primarily use simple and compound sentence structures.
Fluency: Students can read 200 words per minute or above with 70% comprehension. Errors in comprehension rarely affect students' ability to understand main ideas but may affect understanding of some major details.
Function: Students are able to meet a number of practical writing needs. They consistently write in present time but may make references to other time frames. They typically use vocabulary and grammar that closely resemble those of the spoken language. They can write short, simple communications, compositions, and requests for information. Students write loosely connected texts about personal preferences, daily routines, common events, and other personal topics in concrete terms. They are able to write in informal situations.
Text: Students mostly write collections of discrete sentences and/or questions loosely strung together. There is little evidence of deliberate organization.
Comprehensibility: Students can be understood readily by native speakers who are accustomed to the writing of non-natives. They generally use the proper syntax although grammatical errors may be present. They often have run-on sentences and/or sentence fragments that may resemble spoken language.
Students can perform the following functions while meeting the outlined text and fluency/comprehensibility expectations.
Function: The language at this level uses grouped sentences in major time frames about concrete concepts about familiar personal and community topics. Students can understand, ask, and answer yes or no questions and personal, concrete wh- questions. They can negotiate familiar situations with unexpected complications. Target grammar constructions are understood and strategically used to respond to the task.
Input: The text for reading and listening should be straightforward and deal with personal and social topics. Informal input should generally be authentic texts, while formal texts may be engineered for the learner. The content follows predictable patterns and structures and is organized in simple paragraphs. Learners often struggle with academic texts, but they rely on grammar knowledge for global comprehension.
Output: Students create written and spoken texts about personal, everyday topics in concrete and sometimes abstract terms. Students produce written and spoken English that is marked by disruptions to fluency and/or errors in meaning. Students may connect ideas within and between written and spoken paragraphs. They can be understood by those unaccustomed to non-native language.
Function: Students are consistently able to understand the main ideas and major details. They understand concrete concepts and issues about personal and general topics. They can understand a speaker's purpose and point of view in narrative or informal speech, but often struggle when presented with formal or academic language. Students use contextual and suprasegmental cues to guess the meaning of unfamiliar spoken language.
Text: Students comprehend conversations on routine social and work-related demands and community lectures or speeches that are of normal rate, normal clarity, but at times repeated. They understand basic vocabulary and syntax. This language may include one or more speakers discussing a single topic with possible related sub-topics.
Fluency: Students can listen to discourse appropriate speech at 70% comprehension. Errors in comprehension rarely affect students' ability to understand main ideas but may affect understanding of some major details.
Function: Students can participate with ease and confidence in conversations on familiar topics. They are often able to narrate and describe across major time frames with some detail. They can often handle the essential aspects of a familiar situation with unanticipated complications. Students can present information related to school, work and community topics in a generally organized way using concrete terms. They primarily use high frequency vocabulary and syntactic structures, but may occasional use academic vocabulary and syntax with limited success. They are able to speak in informal situations and in some formal situations.
Text: Students articulate their ideas in complete and interconnected sentences that often reach the paragraph level.
Comprehensibility: Students can usually be understood by those unaccustomed to non-native speakers. They speak at a consistent rate with minimal fluency disruptions although there may be infrequent pausing or repetition between sentences. The language produced demonstrates only occasional errors that disrupt meaning.
Function: Students are consistently able to understand the main ideas and major details. They can understand an author's purpose and point of view in narrative or informal speech, but often struggle when presented with formal or academic language. Students understand and make inferences about concrete ideas within texts about personal and general topics.
Text: Students comprehend straightforward, non-complex texts that convey basic information and deal with personal and social topics. Informal texts are generally authentic while formal texts may be engineered specifically for readers at this proficiency level. Non-fictional content is often expressed in narrative form but may also have features of expository texts. These texts have predictable patterns. The text is primarily organized in simple paragraphs containing predominantly high-frequency vocabulary and some academic words. These texts use simple, compound, and complex sentence structures.
Fluency: Students can read 200 words per minute or above with 70% comprehension. Errors in comprehension rarely affect students' ability to understand main ideas but may affect understanding of some major details.
Function: Students are able to meet all practical writing needs. They are usually able to write in all major time frames. They use basic vocabulary and syntax that typically corresponds to spoken language. They produce texts about personal topics, everyday events and situations in concrete terms, such as work and/or school experiences. They sometimes produce texts about personal topics in abstract terms. They are able to write in informal situations and in some formal situations.
Text: Students usually write texts with multiple paragraphs. They use some basic cohesive devices in texts to connect ideas within and between paragraphs.
Comprehensibility: Students can usually be understood by those unaccustomed to non-native writing, though there will likely be gaps in comprehension due to significant errors.
Foundations C uses the LEAP Packet 1, lists 1-12.
Students can perform the following functions while meeting the outlined text and fluency/comprehensibility expectations.
Function: The language at this level uses paragraph-length responses in all major time frames about concrete concepts about familiar personal and community topics. Students can understand, ask, and answer questions using the target grammar. They can negotiate familiar situations with unexpected complications. Target grammar constructions are understood and strategically used to adequately respond to the task.
Input: The text for reading and listening should be clear and deal with personal, social, and community topics. Informal input should generally be authentic texts, while formal texts may include repetition for the learner. The content follows predictable patterns and structures and is organized in simple paragraphs. Learners sometimes struggle with understanding general academic texts, but they rely on grammar knowledge for global comprehension.
Output: Students create written and spoken texts about familiar, everyday topics in concrete and sometimes abstract terms. Students produce written and spoken English that is marked by disruptions to fluency and/or errors in meaning. Students connect ideas within and between written and spoken paragraphs with limited consistency. They can be understood by those unaccustomed to non-native language.
Function: Students are consistently able to understand the main ideas and major details. They understand concrete concepts and issues about personal and general topics. They can understand a speaker's purpose and point of view in narrative or informal speech, but often struggle when presented with formal or academic language. Students use contextual and suprasegmental cues to guess the meaning of unfamiliar spoken language.
Text: Students comprehend conversations on routine social and work-related demands and community lectures or speeches that are of normal rate, normal clarity, but at times repeated. They understand basic vocabulary and syntax. This language may include one or more speakers discussing a single topic with possible related sub-topics.
Fluency: Students can listen to discourse appropriate speech at 70% comprehension. Errors in comprehension rarely affect students' ability to understand main ideas but may affect understanding of some major details.
Function: Students can participate with ease and confidence in conversations on familiar topics. They are often able to narrate and describe across major time frames with some detail. They can often handle the essential aspects of a familiar situation with unanticipated complications. Students can present information related to school, work and community topics in a generally organized way using concrete terms. They primarily use high frequency vocabulary and syntactic structures, but may occasional use academic vocabulary and syntax with limited success. They are able to speak in informal situations and in some formal situations.
Text: Students articulate their ideas in complete and interconnected sentences that often reach the paragraph level.
Comprehensibility: Students can usually be understood by those unaccustomed to non-native speakers. They speak at a consistent rate with minimal fluency disruptions although there may be infrequent pausing or repetition between sentences. The language produced demonstrates only occasional errors that disrupt meaning.
Function: Students are consistently able to understand the main ideas and major details. They can understand an author's purpose and point of view in narrative or informal speech, but often struggle when presented with formal or academic language. Students understand and make inferences about concrete ideas within texts about personal and general topics.
Text: Students comprehend straightforward, non-complex texts that convey basic information and deal with personal and social topics. Informal texts are generally authentic while formal texts may be engineered specifically for readers at this proficiency level. Non-fictional content is often expressed in narrative form but may also have features of expository texts. These texts have predictable patterns. The text is primarily organized in simple paragraphs containing predominantly high-frequency vocabulary and some academic words. These texts use simple, compound, and complex sentence structures.
Fluency: Students can read 200 words per minute or above with 70% comprehension. Errors in comprehension rarely affect students' ability to understand main ideas but may affect understanding of some major details.
Function: Students are able to meet all practical writing needs. They are usually able to write in all major time frames. They use basic vocabulary and syntax that typically corresponds to spoken language. They produce texts about personal topics, everyday events and situations in concrete terms, such as work and/or school experiences. They sometimes produce texts about personal topics in abstract terms. They are able to write in informal situations and in some formal situations.
Text: Students usually write texts with multiple paragraphs. They use some basic cohesive devices in texts to connect ideas within and between paragraphs.
Comprehensibility: Students can usually be understood by those unaccustomed to non-native writing, though there will likely be gaps in comprehension due to significant errors.
Academic A uses LEAP Packet 2, lists 13-24.
Students can perform the following functions while meeting the outlined text and fluency/comprehensibility expectations.
Function: The language at this level uses multiple paragraph-length responses to narrate and describe in all major time frames about familiar and general academic topics. They can negotiate familiar situations with unexpected complications. Students can begin to support opinions and hypothesize about familiar situations and some general academic topics while using the target grammar appropriately. Target grammar constructions are understood and strategically used to adequately respond to the various tasks at this level.
Input: The text for reading and listening should be clear and deal with community and some general academic topics. Informal input should be authentic texts, while authentic formal texts may require adapted tasks for the learner. The content follows typical patterns and structures and is organized in multiple paragraphs. Learners sometimes struggle with academic texts, but they rely on their grammar knowledge and additional external support for comprehension.
Output: Students create written and spoken texts about familiar, everyday topics and general academic topics in concrete and some abstract terms. Students produce written and spoken English that is marked by occasional disruptions to fluency and/or errors in meaning. Students connect ideas within and between written and/or spoken paragraphs, although they may lack consistency. They can be understood by those unaccustomed to non-native language.
Function: Students are consistently able to understand the main ideas and major details. They understand concrete concepts and issues about personal and general topics. They can understand a speaker's purpose and point of view in narrative or informal speech, but may struggle when presented with formal or academic language. Students use contextual and suprasegmental cues to guess the meaning of unfamiliar spoken language.
Text: Students comprehend conversations on routine social and work-related demands and community lectures or speeches that are of normal rate, normal clarity, but at times repeated. They may also understand longer speeches that focus on general academic topics. They understand basic vocabulary and syntax. This language may include one or more speakers discussing a single topic or multiple topics that are closely related.
Fluency: Students can listen to discourse appropriate speech at 70% comprehension. Errors in comprehension rarely affect students' ability to understand main ideas but may affect understanding of some major details.
Function: Students can participate with ease and confidence in conversations on familiar topics. They are able to narrate and describe across major time frames with some detail and handle the essential aspects of a familiar situation with unanticipated complications. In addition, they can talk about some general and academic topics concretely. Students can give fairly organized presentations on a variety of topics and across time frames. They have minimal control of academic syntax and vocabulary. They are able to speak in most informal situations and in some formal situations.
Text: Students are consistently able to speak at the paragraph level and present their ideas using typical organization patterns.
Comprehensibility: Students can be understood by those unaccustomed to non-native speech, although understanding may occasionally require repetition or restatement (because of errors related to grammar, fluency or pronunciation).
Function: Students are consistently able to understand the main ideas and major details. They can understand an author's purpose and point of view in narrative or informal speech, but often struggle when presented with formal or academic language. Students understand and make inferences about concrete ideas within texts about personal and general topics.
Text: Students comprehend straightforward, non-complex texts that convey basic information and deal with personal and social topics. Informal texts are generally authentic while formal texts may be engineered specifically for readers at this proficiency level. Non-fictional content is often expressed in narrative form but may also have features of expository texts. These texts have predictable patterns. The text is primarily organized in simple paragraphs containing predominantly high-frequency vocabulary and some academic words. These texts use simple, compound, and complex sentence structures.
Fluency: Students can read 200 words per minute or above with 70% comprehension. Errors in comprehension rarely affect students' ability to understand main ideas but may affect understanding of some major details.
Function: Students are able to meet basic academic writing needs. They consistently write in all major time frames with some control. They have minimal control of academic syntax and vocabulary. They produce personal, general and some academic texts in concrete terms. Students will occasionally produce texts about academic topics in abstract terms. They are able to write in most informal situations and in some formal situations.
Text: Students use a limited number of cohesive devices in texts and may resort to redundancy or awkward repetition. They are able to combine and link sentences into texts of multiple paragraph length but may lack the ability to consistently maintain coherence among paragraphs. Students incorporate some organizational conventions of academic writing but may also use atypical organizational conventions.
Comprehensibility: Students can be understood by those unaccustomed to non-native writing, although some additional effort may be required. Errors sometimes interfere with understanding.
Academic B uses LEAP Packet 3, lists 25-36.
Students can perform the following functions while meeting the outlined text and fluency/comprehensibility expectations.
Function: The language at this level uses extended discourse to narrate and describe in all major time frames about familiar and academic topics. They can negotiate general situations with unexpected complications. Students can support opinions and hypothesize successfully when discussing familiar situations and general academic topics using the target grammar appropriately. Target grammar constructions are understood and strategically used to adequately respond to the various tasks at this level.
Input: The text for reading and listening should deal with community and general academic topics. Informal input should be authentic texts, while some authentic formal texts may require adapted tasks for the learner. The content usually follows typical patterns and structures but may use atypical organization in extended discourse. Understanding academic texts may require additional effort, but learners can rely on grammar knowledge for comprehension.
Output: Students create written and spoken texts about general and academic topics in concrete and abstract terms. Students produce written and spoken English that is rarely marked by disruptions to fluency and/or errors in meaning. Students connect ideas within and between written and/or spoken paragraphs. They can be understood by those unaccustomed to non-native language without difficulty
Function: Students are consistently able to understand explicit and implicit main ideas and major details. They understand concrete concepts and issues and some abstract speech about familiar topics. They can understand a speaker's purpose and point of view. Students connect ideas within the text and between texts and can draw appropriate conclusions from these relationships. They are able to understand most informal and some formal speech.
Text: Students comprehend different forms and styles of spoken academic language that is of normal rate, normal clarity, and rarely repeated. They understand speech that is well organized, but may struggle with atypical organization conventions. This language may include one or more speakers discussing at length one or more ideas about personal, general, or academic topics. They can understand a wide range of academic syntax and vocabulary.
Fluency: Students can listen to discourse appropriate speech at 70% comprehension. Errors in comprehension rarely affect students' ability to understand main ideas and major details.
Function: Students can participate with ease and confidence in conversations on familiar, general, and academic topics. They are consistently able to fully narrate and describe in all major time frames and effectively deal with unanticipated complications. They are also able to discuss personal, general and academic topics concretely. Students will sometimes be able to discuss topics in abstract terms, support opinions, and hypothesize. They use a wide range of academic syntax and vocabulary correctly. Students have some success in adapting their language to fit the audience, material and context. They are able to speak in most informal situations and in some formal situations.
Text: Students are consistently able to speak in well-organized and connected paragraphs. They provide abundant language to support their expression and sometimes are successful at speaking with extended discourse.
Comprehensibility: Students can be understood without difficulty by those unaccustomed to non-native speech. Usually there is no pattern of error. When difficulties with accuracy or fluency occur, they almost never interfere with communication or distract the listener from the message.
Function: Students are consistently able to understand explicit and implicit main ideas. They can use context to associate meaning with unknown words and phrases. They can understand a speaker's purpose and point of view. Students use inference to connect ideas within the text and between texts and can draw appropriate conclusions from these relationships. They are able to understand most informal and some formal text.
Text: Students can comprehend different forms and styles of written academic language and authentic prose about personal, general, and academic topics that may be familiar or unfamiliar. They understand texts that are well organized, but may struggle with atypical organization conventions. This language may include one or more ideas discussed at length. They can understand a wide range of academic syntax and vocabulary.
Fluency: Students can read 200 words per minute or above with 70% comprehension. Errors in comprehension rarely affect students' ability to understand main ideas and major details.
Function: Students are consistently able to meet a range of academic writing needs. They consistently write in all major time frames with good control. They use a wide range of academic syntax and vocabulary correctly. They produce personal, general, and academic texts in concrete terms and will sometimes produce texts about academic topics in abstract terms. Students have some success in adapting their language to fit the audience, material, context, and time constraints. They are able to write in most informal situations and in some formal situations.
Text: Students use a variety of cohesive devices in texts that may include several well-organized and connected paragraphs. They incorporate organizational conventions of academic writing. They provide abundant language with some elaboration to support their writing.
Comprehensibility: Students can be understood without difficulty by those unaccustomed to non-native writing. Errors do not interfere with understanding but may occasionally be distracting.
University Prep uses LEAP Packet 4, lists 37-48.
