Advice on Reaching Advanced-Low on the OPI Part 2

Since I wrote the post Advice on Reaching Advanced-Low on the OPI, it has become the most popular on my blog. As I continue to tutor people who need to achieve this level, I have come to realize that there are other pieces of advice that I usually give that I should include on my blog, so I'm creating a Part 2.


Listen more -a lot more! This is often overlooked since improving speaking is the goal but as a university instructor of Spanish that uses comprehensible input (CI),  I cannot overemphasize how important it is to substantially increase the time spent doing active listening. As a non-native second language user, listening has been the primary skill I have developed and the one I started to work on more that 40 years ago when I first began to hear Spanish. Listening should precede speaking; it can help with pronunciation and developing an ear for the basic structures, so you know what sounds right and expanding your vocabulary. Recently, I came across a video of young lady who went from Intermediate-High to Advanced-Low and also cites how increasing her time spent listening in Spanish was one of the keys to moving up a level.   She had been listening, as I recall, for approximately 6 hours a week, but increased that amount to nearly 20 hours a week, which she says made a great difference for her.  Similarly, this page, from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Minnesota suggests that to reach advanced one should “engage with the language 15-20 hours per week outside of class over the course of several years”.

What should you listen to? Anything you can find that is comprehensible (80% or more) and interesting to you. There are many choices on www.youtube.com, plus podcasts, movies and series on Netflix, online radio, music, etc. Specifically for the OPI, I'd recommend videos that are conversational-like and involve paragraph-length narrations and descriptions, which is primarily what you must produce during the interview. Here are some sites where you can hear natives doing just that on a variety of topics: www.spanishlistening.org , https://www.laits.utexas.edu/spe/, and http://www.coerll.utexas.edu/spintx/home.


Practice telling complete, cohesive stories, especially in past tense. Complete means there should be a beginning, a middle and an end. Part of telling a complete story is the details you include. For example, let's say that you were asked about something you did recently and you tell about how you went to a restaurant to celebrate a friend's birthday. An Intermediate speaker might say :


Fui a un restaurante. Era el cumpleaños de un amigo. Es su restaurante favorito. Nuestros amigos fueron tambien. Tuvimos que esperar un poco cuando llegamos. Había mucha gente ahí. Yo comí pollo pero todos mis amigos comieron carne. Me gustó mucho. Comimos y hablamos mucho y nos divertimos. Nos quedamos en el restaurante 3 horas. Llegué tarde a casa pero dormí bien.


An Advanced speaker might the story this way, adding specific information about the relationship between the people involved and when and why things happened:



El sábado pasado, un amigo mío que celebraba su cumpleaños ese día, me invitó, junto a unos amigos mutuos, a comer a su restaurante favorito. Cuando llegué al lugar, nuestros amigos ya estaban ahí esperando una mesa ya que el sitio estaba lleno de gente que, como nostoros, no había hecho reservaciones. Gracias a Dios no tuvimos que esperar mucho pero no lo notamos porque pasamos el tiempo hablando. Ya en la mesa, llegó enseguida la mesera y menos mal, ya que todos teníamos hambre. Yo pedí pollo mientras que los otros en el grupo pidieron carne. La comida estuvo muy rica y disfrutamos mucho comer y hablar con nuestros amigos especialmente en ocasiones como ésta. La pasamos tan bien que no nos dimos cuenta que ya habían pasado 3 horas y como se hacía tarde todos decidimos que era hora de irnos. Llegué tarde a casa pero dormí bien esa noche.


The Intermediate version is more a series of sentences and only highlight the primary activites without giving details to describe some of the circumstances surrounding them. For example, “tuvimos que esperar” is mentioned in the Intermediate version but in the Advanced version, a why is given- “ya que el sitio estaba lleno de gente que....no había hecho reservaciones”.
The Advanced version takes many of the sentences from the Intermediate version and connects them to form longer ones and also uses more cohesive devices such as ya que, mientras que and como.
It also uses more adverbial phrases like cuando, enseguida, and ya to situate the events of the story to show the relationship between them. All of these features of the Advanced version help to make the sentences flow together and make the story more complete.

As you practice telling more Advanced-like stories, try to include information about when an event took place (el sábado pasado, hace...días, etc.) and also the why behind it - (¿Por qué a ese lugar? ¿Por qué tuvieron que esperar?) Making these types of changes to the way you tell anecdotes will help you start moving closer to achieving Advanced-Low.

Have you reached Advanced-Low or higher?  What did you do to get there?  If you'd like, share your story in the comments section below.

Levels of Language: The Revised ACTFL Guidelines

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) has revised its guidelines which describe various levels of proficiency. These newer guidelines now include a higher level, Distinguished, as well as more detailed descriptions of the levels and video excerpts from interviews that serve as examples of what a speaker can do at the different levels. Check this page for some general information about the guidelines and this page to see the videos for Speaking along with the explanations given for the level assigned to each speaker.


The videos of the interviews are in English, which will surely interest my readers who have English as a second language but those of us who speak Spanish as a second language can also benefit by imagining how we would fair in responding to similar prompts in our second language at the different levels that are shown.

What is Your Level?

If you’re interested in getting practice in listening and reading and getting an idea about your level in those skills at the same time, check out GLOSS .  I have used this page personally and have recommended it to others who are learning or perfecting their skills in the languages available there.


This link will take you to the site’s main page where you can choose the language you are working on, the level you’re at or trying to reach, then click on “Search Lessons”. From there you can select one to start on. Each lesson takes about an hour and except for any writing assignments as a final activity for a lesson, there is feedback available when you click on “Check Answers”. What level should you start at? This site is from the Defense Language Institute and uses the government’s ILR scale. You can read the level descriptors for listening here. If you think you might be at level 2, for example, you could try out the lessons for that level. If you get most or all the answers right on a variety of lessons for that level, you are likely at that level. But if you only get answers right about half the time you’re probably at level 1+ for the modality (listening or reading) that you worked on.   Regardless of the level you're trying to reach, you're sure to find the activities challenging.

I hope that the GLOSS site will be a valuable resource to all those who use it.

Advice on Reaching Advanced-Low on the OPI

In the last few years, I have helped several in-service and pre-service teachers reach Advanced-Low on the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI).  Most had already taken the interview and received an Intermediate-High rating; a couple had gotten Intermediate-Mid.  Generally speaking, because their current or future career was at stake, they were naturally nervous, but also uncertain about why they had not been assigned Advanced. There were several misconceptions about what the OPI was, what was expected of them at the different levels and how they would be judged.  I’d like to post here the advice I gave to those I tutored, much of which are answers to frequently asked questions about the OPI.

What is the interview like?

The ACTFL Guidelines describe what a speaker can do at each of 4 major levels, Novice, Intermediate and Superior in terms of global functions. See the description of Advanced here. It takes the form of a conversation but has a structure that includes a warm-up, a series of probes, to see if you can handle higher level speaking tasks, level-checks, to verify the level you function at most comfortably and consistently , a role-play and a wind-down. Even though it feels like a fairly casual conversation, it’s important that you don’t limit your responses to short answers but rather elaborate on them. At the Advanced level the interviewer will try to encourage full length narration and description, albeit indirectly, with questions like “cuéntame más” or “¿cómo es /era?”, for example.

What questions will I be asked?

There is no pre-set list of questions. The interviewer doesn’t have one. Each interview is unique and the questions come from the individual’s own background and experience.

Does my grammar have to be perfect?


No, but overall, your language has to be understandable to a native speaker not used to speaking with a non-native. In other words, the listener doesn’t have to figure out your meaning, despite your errors. You can make your meaning clear using what you know of the language.
Do I have to know the subjunctive?

Not necessarily. Speakers at this level have probably studied the subjunctive and have some familiarity with it, enough to use some of the most common phrases. You may find yourself needing to use it from time to time in sentences like, “Quiero que venga el próximo fin de semana.” or “Yo esperaba que me llamara pero nunca lo hizo.” But if you are not so good at it, you could possibly avoid it, in the above sentences, for example, by saying instead, “Quiero verlo…” or “Esperaba su llamada…”

Do I have to know specific vocabulary or can I circumlocute?


An Advanced level speaker is not expected to have precise vocabulary; it is usually generic. If fact, the ability to circumlocute is expected and needed especially during the role-play, which for the Advanced level is one in that you must handle an otherwise routine situation or transaction that has a complication or unexpected turn of events. It requires you to think on your feet and so, circumlocution will help you do that.

I get nervous under pressure. What can I do about that?

The best thing to gain confidence is by practicing the required functions for this level- narrating and describing in all major time frames, present, past and future and handling a complicated situation or transaction- involving different topics.

I thought I did pretty well in the interview. Why did I get rated Intermediate-High?


You might not have made many mistakes, although Intermediate and even Advanced-Low speakers are rarely error-free. What is important is that your narrations and descriptions be in cohesive paragraphs, not just a series of sentences. They should include connecting phrases showing sequence or cause and effect, such as primero, después, antes de + inf., más tarde, entonces, aunque, como (since), and por eso, to name a few.  The good news is that Intermediate-High means you can perform the functions of Advanced but not consistently and not across a variety of topics. You may also be able to request an analysis of your interview in which they will suggest an alternate way to respond to the questions you were given.

I hope these comments will aid those who will be taking the interview in the future. If any reader has any other questions about the OPI, please post them here.

Best of luck.

UPDATE:  I've posted a second part to this post with more pieces of advice.  Read it here

How Good Is Your Spanish?

     How do you answer this question?  Many people think that if you don't hesitate and your accent isn't obviously foreign, then you speak the language well.  This is only one facet of overall proficiency, the one on the surface that gets everyone's attention as a marker of being able to use the language.  But this can be quite subjective.  You may say something meaningful but the native speaker listening to you may focus only on your pronunciation flaws.  Likewise, you may say hardly anything at all.  Maybe your "Hi , how are you?" has a near perfect accent, native-like flow and  you could be told you speak wonderfully.  However, for us language educators we think about proficiency as a continuum and look not just at aspects like these but more at what a speaker can do with the language in broader terms.

     There are a couple of scales that describe different levels of proficiency that are used in the United States.  The government has their own- the ILR (Interagency Language Roundtable) scale which is basically used to test their own personnel, for example people who wil be going to fill a post overseas and need to use the language of the host country at a high level or in a professional capacity.  This scale goes from 0 (no functional ability) to 5 (highly educated and articulate native speaker).  See the speaking descriptions here.
This scale is appropriate for its applications used by the government, however since it includes much higher levels of language than are typically achieved by students in formal settings, in academia, the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) guidelines are more commonly used.

     The ACTFL guidelines' major levels go from Novice to Superior and these correspond with the ILR scale's 0-3.  See the descriptions here.  There is something very important to keep in mind when reading these descriptions and that is text type.  For example, novice speakers can only used memorized phrases    intermediate speakers speak at sentence level and advanced speakers can communicate in cohesive paragraphs. Superior level speakers can handle extended discourse.  Advanced-Low is the minimum level required for teacher certification in commonly taught languages in some states.  These guidelines are applied through an Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) with a certified tester.  The OPI measures global proficiency and takes the form of a conversation but there are no pre-set questions.  Topics are determined by the interviewee's background, experiences and level as the interview progresses.

   I first read the guidelines when they were new in the 80's, in a textbook for learning to teach Spanish.  They since have been revised, but at the time, I got the idea from reading them that if you knew all the grammar and could use it spontaneously in conversation then, you were at Superior.  But that didn't take into account text type, so you could be able to say sentences like "si no hubiera llovido, habria ido al parque" but if they are not part of a complete, connected story or part of a longer, more complex discussion on abstract topics, then you would only be rated at an Intermediate level.  Likewise, I thought that since Superior was the ultimate level, implying that those speakers made hardly any errors, native speakers would fall into this category. However, when I went through the OPI tester training, I got a more accurate picture of what the guidelines were about.  What was most surprising, as our professor explained, was that in our own language we tend to speak in the Intermediate and Advanced range in our day-to-day conversation.  Granted, the native speaker will have better pronunciation, flow and accuracy than a learner but the text type is sentence and paragraph level.  It's the back and forth, question and answer and anecdote telling of casual speech.  The higher levels are not as common in the average conversation but are rather either more formal or more linguistically complex such as the language of debates or that needed by diplomats. 

     So, if your accent isn't as good as you would like it to be, remember that there is more to using a language than that. Sure your pronunciation shouldn't interfere with someone understanding you but beyond that it's about what you can do with the language -request, express emotion and needs, tell what happened, counsel, persuade, describe, etc. and how well or to what degree of sophistication.  Keep this comparison in mind. As I have heard,  Henry Kissinger the former Secretary of State, whose first language is German, would be rated a 4+ on the ILR scale. If it weren't for his heavy accent he would be considered as a native English speaker.  Despite the accent, look at what he can do with the language.  That in itself is quite an accomplishment that we can all aspire to.