Continuing with the theme of our previous article about language testing, this month we are looking at the application to become a freelance, online language tester for language professionals. This could be a great resource for language teachers and professors to use and make money off of their skills outside of the classroom.
ACTFL is a membership community of language education professionals who focus on enriching language and culture education at all levels. Joining the community is as simple as creating an account and paying the $45 membership fee each year. Members get access to publications with updates on pedagogy, research, technology, and save the $115 registration fee for the yearly convention.
ACTFL is seeking language professionals to serve as freelance language testers for ILR OPI. The Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) is a nationally recognized method of assessing spoken language proficiency. The test assesses what a speaker can do with the language rather than focusing on the structures and abstract vocabulary. The test is administered over the telephone by an ACTFL Certified Tester and graded by a second Certified Tester for quality assurance.
They accept a wide range of languages, they train and certify over 107 languages, but are currently looking for professionals in the following languages:
Afrikaans, Akan-Twi, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic (Modern Standard), Arabic-Algerian, Arabic-Egyptian, Arabic-Gulf (Iraqi), Arabic-Levantine, Arabic-Libyan, Arabic-Moroccan, Arabic-Saudi, Arabic-Sudanese, Arabic-Tunisian, Arabic-Yemeni, Armenian, Assyrian, Azerbaijani/Azeri, Baluchi, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cambodian/Khmer, Cebuano, Chavacano, Chechen, Chinese-Cantonese, Chinese-Mandarin, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Ewe, Finnish, French, Fula/Peul, Ga, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian-Creole, Hausa, Hebrew, Hiligaynon/Ilonggo, Hindi, Hungarian, Igbo, Ilocano, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Korean, Krio, Kurdish-Kurmanji, Kurdish-Sorani, Lao/Laotian, Latvian, Lingala, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Malayalam, Mandingo-Bambara, Hmong (Miao-Yao), Mongolian, Nepali/Nepalese, Norwegian, Pashto-Afghan, Persian-Afghan (Dari), Persian-Farsi, Polish, Portuguese-Brazilian, Portuguese-European, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian-Croatian, Singhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Tigrinya, Turkish, Turkmen, Uighur, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Wolof, Yoruba, and Zulu.
ACTFL offers free access to the training, and if all training is completed then you can be paid for the training. Then all consultants can receive payment for testing work as well as other assignments that may appear. In order to complete the training and work for ACTFL, you must have telephone availability during the 9-5 workday in the week. However, the hourly requirements each week vary per language, so check the website for your specific language. They do require a minimum commitment of two years.
There is no deadline for applications as they are always looking for more language professionals, but the needed languages vary from time to time. Even if your language is not mentioned in the above list, be sure to apply anyway!
Learn more about ACTFL here: https://www.actfl.org/about-actfl
Apply to become a language tester here: https://www.actfl.org/research/ilr-opi-candidate-application