ACTFL WRS

What exactly are...

ACTFL World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages

The ACTFL World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages "create a roadmap to guide learners to develop competence to communicate effectively and interact with cultural competence to participate in multilingual communities at home and around the world."

The World-Readiness Standards are made up of five goal areas, commonly referred to as the "five C's": Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities. These goal areas stress the application of learning a language beyond the instructional setting, preparing learners to apply the skills and understandings measured by the standards, and to bring a global competence to their future careers and experiences. Within the five goal areas, 11 content standards were created to guide and influence assessment, curriculum, and instruction.

The first goal area, Communication, has three content standards for the three modes of communication: Interpersonal, Interpretive, and Presentational. The four other goal areas outline what students do with the language and how they utilize it in a wide variety of contexts. See the short video below for a more detailed description.

In summary, the World-Readiness Standards are organized around the five C's with sample performance indicators for identifying what learners can do in communication and sample progress indicators demonstrating a wide variety of applications using language. Combined, these elements show us what learners should know, be able to do, and how well they can do it. The standards help learners understand their growing ability to communicate effectively and interact with global competence and provide language educators at all levels a clear roadmap to follow in order to guide their students to a place of world readiness.