What can you expect from your language classes? How much should you be able to understand and communicate? What steps are needed to advance to the next level of fluency?

Remember: You will always understand the language before you can speak it fluently.

Step 1: Beginning Level

Students at this level may struggle with understanding spoken language, often needing phrases repeated, and typically respond with one-word or short answers.

• To advance: Listen as much as possible. Repeatedly engage with songs, stories, and poems in the target language to improve your comprehension. Listen every chance you get!

Step 2: Intermediate Level

Students at this level understand spoken language more quickly, need less repetition, and can respond in complete sentences, though open-ended questions may still be challenging.

• To advance: Practice using complete sentences whenever possible. Continue listening actively and work on responding more quickly to questions.

Step 3: Advanced Low Level

Students can understand spoken language, respond fairly quickly to simple questions, and start forming sentences into paragraphs during conversations.

• To advance: Begin to combine simple sentences into larger ideas. Describe your surroundings and create simple stories using short sentences.

Step 4: Advanced High Level

Students can understand and respond quickly, speak in paragraphs, and describe simple stories with increasing detail at the superior level of language proficiency,

• To advance: Practice telling stories about past events, humorous incidents, or embarrassing moments. Aim to make your stories more complex each time.

Step 5: Superior Level

Students can understand and respond with detailed information quickly. They can tell stories and begin to construct more complex narratives.

• To advance: Expand your vocabulary, especially technical or less familiar terms. Practice discussing a variety of topics, read stories, poems, and novels, and discuss them in detail.

While you can’t skip any steps toward fluency, you can accelerate your progress by focusing on the skills required at the next level.