Okay, I’ve got to brag a little bit.

We had our Language Proficiency Interview (LPI) last week that evaluates our language proficiency based on the American Council of Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) scale. The possible rankings are: Novice Low, Novice Mid, Novice High, Intermediate Low, Intermediate Mid, Intermediate High, Advanced Low, Advanced Mid, Advanced High, and Superior. We need to reach Intermediate-Mid rating by the end of training in order to become a volunteer, and they give us one LPI mid-way through training in week 5 and then a final LPI at the end of training in week 10 in order to assess how we’re progressing and change things up if they notice anyone is struggling.

Considering the fact that I could barely say hello in Portuguese before coming here, I didn’t have very high expectations for my LPI results. I assumed that my mid-service LPI goal would be to reach Intermediate-Low, which is a pretty ambitious goal after only 5 weeks of a studying a new language. Reasonable.

Ready for this?

Advanced Low. Right??? At first I thought it was a mistake, but then I read the ACTFL blurb of what that level entails and I was shocked to realize that, yeah, I’m totally there! Granted, I still have a looooong way to go, but it was such a self-esteem boost to see how far I’ve progressed already in such a short time-frame. It definitely is a positive affirmation that I CAN do this, because if by “this” I mean go out to the middle of nowhere on my own and actually be productive/ make a difference/ help someone… then the first step I need is to be able to communicate with that person.

Okay, I’ll quit tooting my horn now.

Até logo!