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Learn About the ACTFL Latin
Interpretive Reading Assessment
As of the beginning of this year,
Latin teachers have a new way
to assess their students’ ability
to read for meaning—the
ACTFL Latin Interpretive Reading Assessment
(ALIRA). The American Classical
League (ACL) and ACTFL collaborated to
create this assessment based on both the
National Standards for Foreign Language
Learning and the Standards for Classical
Language Learning.
“This is a really exciting development
for the Latin community,” says Sherwin
Little, ACL past president, placement
director and ALIRA consultant. “ALIRA
is going to be a huge asset to teachers
and students.”
In addition to being Standards-based,
ALIRA offers test takers a 21 st -century testtaking
experience. It is computer-adaptive
and assesses students’ comprehension of
main ideas and supporting details, inferences
and prediction using a wide variety
of texts from YouTube comment threads,
Wikipedia entries, Ephemeris, as well as
the Classics. All texts and questions are
aligned with the ACTFL Performance
Descriptors for Language Learners.
One driver for the creation of ALIRA
was accountability. “As states are becoming
increasingly driven by accountability,
in many places you have to prove you
know a language in order to teach it. Latin
teachers have been at a disadvantage without
a way to demonstrate proficiency and
there has been concern that we might start
losing Latin certifications,” explains Little.
“So this test will clearly benefit teachers in
that regard.”
Another benefit will be the ability to
document student progress. ALIRA is a
first-of-its-kind assessment for Latin that
will provide a performance rating at four
points within the Novice range and five
points within the Intermediate range. “We
have the National Latin Exam, but that is
curriculum-driven and not designed to deliver
a performance rating,” explains Little.
Colleges can also use ALIRA for placement
of incoming students.
“It’s going to be really interesting to
see where students are assessed by the
exam versus their language level in school.
I could guess as to where my level 2
students might score, but I can’t say with
certainty,” Little says.
ALIRA will aid teachers in developing
their language programs. “You expect to
see a natural progression, but we might
see kids staying at the Novice level for a
long time and then suddenly jumping to
Intermediate. This might mean some kids
were not learning as well as we would like
or that we have frustrated some kids who
were ready to move on,” says Little. “If you
aggregate all your students you will see a
general trend. It is going to be fascinating
to discover those trends.”
Developing ALIRA took about two and
a half years because Latin—as an ancient,
unspoken language—is quite different
from modern spoken languages. “ACTFL
taught us the theory behind text typology
and the assessment, and then we had to
explain to them what was and was not
possible. For example, you aren’t going
to find directions for assembling a toy
in any of our texts. And literary Latin is
very dense and thick, so you need a much
shorter word count for a reading passage
than you would for other languages,”
notes Little.
Teachers across the country began offering
ALIRA to their students in January 2013.
The current testing period lasts through
the end of February. ALIRA is also available
in April/May and in September/October.
“I hope that once students begin taking
this test, it will create a discussion in the
Latin community about how we can help
our students become better readers,” says
Little. “We want our students to understand
the difference between translation
and reading. We as teachers need to learn
different activities that will develop that
reading skill.”
ACTFL and ACL are also offering an
online, self-study course called Classics
in the 21 st Century Classroom. The course
is divided into five parts and takes an indepth
look at standards, communication
modes, proficiency and performance, addressing
21 st century skills, and text-task
alignment. Upon completion, teachers
may claim continuing education credit by
notifying ACL.
For more information about registering
for ALIRA or Classics in the 21 st Century
Classroom, visit www.actfl.org/aappl/latin.
Sample task that is similar to what appears on
the ALIRA.