Carol Eiber, Stow-Munroe Falls HS, Retired

It is surprising where LinguaFolio turns up. I hardly expected to see it while traveling for pleasure in France last April but that’s exactly what happened.

We boarded a train headed for Lyon and took our seats.  The young woman across from us barely looked up; she had her earbuds in and she seemed to be whispering to herself and concentrating on her papers.  After we settled in our places and I had a chance to look at what she was doing, I noticed something familiar about her papers; printed on them was a grid looking very much like LinguaFolio.  I stared, reading upside down.  Yes, that was a LinguaFolio grid with the levels of proficiency across the top.

When the young woman finally took a break and looked up, I had to ask about it.  Yes, it was LinguaFolio, or rather the original European form, and she was studying for a test over it.  I found out that she was Spanish and had been teaching in France for a year.  She now had the opportunity to get a better position but it was a competitive opening and she had to do well on a test, including LinguaFolio, to get the job.

While seeing LinguaFolio being used in France validated its importance, it was surprising to see that it is used as part of a test for employment.  After all the work to implement LinguaFolio as a proficiency tool, hopefully the test is not a discrete answer test.