Developing measures of beginner language proficiency in French, German, and Spanish in the Swedish school context

In both second language acquisition research and teaching, there is a need for practical, reliable and valid proficiency tests to be used with learners of various target languages and at different proficiency levels. In the present study, a written proficiency test based on the C-test methodology was developed and tested on 144 Swedish 15-year-olds studying French, German, and Spanish in lower secondary school. The test was tailored to the low proficiency level of the learners and used across target languages. It was followed by a test-taker feedback questionnaire evaluating participants’ perception of the test’s comprehensibility, administration and results. Two different scoring methods were used to evaluate differences in test results within and across language groups; one based on a traditional correct/incorrect scoring, the other involving a nuanced error-type scoring. Our findings indicate that the test format suited the participants’ low proficiency level and was sensitive to the wide variation of beginner language proficiency. In addition, both differences and similarities in test results across language groups were observed in the data, depending on scoring method. Results demonstrate that scoring methods crucially shape how proficiency is interpreted, especially when comparing languages with different linguistic features.