The University of Texas at Austin
The College of Liberal Arts

Spanish Corpus Proficiency Level Training

What level is the Spanish Learner? beginner, beginner-intermediate, intermediate, intermediate-advanced, or advanced? Select a learner and explore each topic they talk about. Answering the questions for each video will help you determine at what level the learner is speaking Spanish.

Learners

Topics

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After watching at least 4 videos of varying difficulty, rate the learner according to the guidelines listed below.

Beginner


Communicates minimally using learned material using isolated words, short phrases and frequent long pauses. May repeat interlocutorís words. Communicates simple, elementary needs and basic courtesies.

Beginner-Intermediate

Can partially fulfill basic communicative exchanges, using learned utterances, sometimes expanded through simple recombinations elements, with frequent errors. Can ask questions/make statements with learned material, showing signs of spontaneity.

Intermediate


Can create language by combining learned language, mainly in reactions. Can communicate successfully in a limited number of uncomplicated task-based and social situations: ask/answer questions, initiate/respond to simple statements, and maintain a limited conversation, with frequent errors and long pauses.

Intermediate-Advanced

Can communicate successfully in most uncomplicated tasks and social situations. Can initiate, sustain and close a general conversation with strategies appropriate to a range of circumstances and topics, but with errors. Hesitation due to limited vocabulary but there is emerging evidence of connected discourse.

Advanced


Can converse fairly easily, in a wide variety of everyday communicative tasks. Can handle complicated tasks and social situations, although not with ease. Can narrate and describe with some details, and can communicate facts about topics of current public and personal interest, using general vocabulary.

  1. In what areas did this learner show fairly accurate grammatical control?

    1. Subject-verb agreement
    2. Gender-number agreement
    3. Subjunctive Use
    4. Verb conjugations
    5. None of the above

  2. Generally, what were the main areas in which this learner showed some grammatical inaccuracies?

    1. Subject-verb agreement
    2. Noun-adjective agreement
    3. Subjunctive Use
    4. Verb conjugations
    5. None of the above

  3. Which errors were most glaring in terms of overall understanding of the learner's response?

    1. Subject-verb agreement
    2. Noun-adjective agreement
    3. Subjunctive Use
    4. Verb conjugations
    5. None of the above

  4. How did the learner often correct his/her grammar mistakes, if at all?

    1. Self-correction without asking for help
    2. Self-correction after requesting help
    3. By repeating what the teacher asked him/her to say.
    4. No correction

  1. Did the learner use any words or expressions that seemed above his/her level?

    1. Yes
    2. No

  2. What are three words and/or expressions that the learner lacked or that the learner did not understand that interfered with the comprehension, if any?

        

  3. How did the learner usually correct his/her vocabulary mistakes?

    1. Self-correction without asking for help
    2. Self-correction after requesting help
    3. By repeating what the teacher asked him/her to say.
    4. No correction

  4. Did the learner seem to use words consistently and with confidence dealing with:

    1. Basic objects, places, and kinship terms
    2. Uncomplicated tasks and social situations like personal history and leisure activities
    3. A wide range of tasks, including those of school and work-related situations, including elaborating, and hypothesizing

  1. Where did the learner insert pauses?

    1. Before beginning a new clause
    2. While searching for a specific vocabulary item
    3. In the middle of words
    4. Before or while attempting to conjugate verbs

  2. Does this learner insert pauses longer than "natural" sounding pauses?

    1. Yes
    2. No

  3. Does this learner insert pauses more often than what sounds "natural"?

    1. Yes
    2. No

  4. Does this learner seem to speak slower or quicker than others of the same level?

    1. Slower
    2. Quicker
    3. Neither

  5. What showed that at times he/she was not sure of him/herself?

    1. The learner paused a lot.
    2. The learner questioned the interviewer when unsure.
    3. The learner switched to English when unsure.
    4. The learner had a questioning tone of voice when unsure.
    5. Not applicable

  1. Why doesn't the learner always use complete sentences?

    1. He/she is interrupted frequently by the interviewer.
    2. He/she lacks the words to finish the sentence.
    3. He/she is in a normal conversation where overlap happens.
    4. He/she seems unsure and often stops to signal that the
          interviewer should take over.
    5. Not applicable. He/she mostly uses complete sentences.

  2. What techniques did the learner and the interviewer use to keep the conversation flowing naturally, without awkward breaks?


  3. If the interviewer seemed to want to interrupt the learner, how was this signaled, and how did the learner keep the floor to continue talking?


  4. Does the learner generally seem to speak in:

    1. Single words
    2. Single sentences
    3. 2 or 3 short sentences
    4. Elaborated and detailed paragraphs

  1. What are the general characteristics of this learner that placed him/her at this level?

    (e.g., timely responses, completes his/her turn with detail, accurate verb tenses, cohesive answers; control of vocabulary, wide range of topics and tasks completed with ease)


  2. Beyond using short pauses, what other ways did this learner typically fill in spaces to stall for time or search for words or forms?

    (e.g., use of fillers like "um" or "y", leaves long silences)


  3. In what ways did the learner show that he/she was unsure of some vocabulary or expressions?

    (e.g., pauses, rising intonation to signal a confirmation is needed)


Select a Learner and Topic to start the video and display questions

Please be aware that answers may vary according to subjective evaluations. Also, in answering the questions, the viewer should answer according to the particular video that is playing. There may also be more than one correct answer to a given question.

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