What does 'Third level of high school Spanish' correspond to?

Question

The SilentHero pointed me to this nice link where you can test your level of Spanish. I (randomly) took the test corresponding to

Third level of high school Spanish. (Grades 9, 10, 11 or 12)

Thing is that I know little of the American highschool system and 3rd level means little to me. Is it comparable to 3 years of Spanish lessons in highschool? This link may be helpful in answering.

Answer 1

Online tests hardly ever do the trick, I would suggest getting to a point in Spanish where you can read things without having to look up anything except for the most esoteric or pedantic aspects of Spanish, and then taking the DELE.

Plus, if High School Spanish today is anything like it was when I took it, you could speak absolutely no Spanish and still get an A in the class. So I wouldn't want to take any tests based off of High School students abilities.

I mean really, don't worry about your Spanish Level as described by some test. You already know how well or how bad you speak Spanish, what you need to do is focus on improving. - Fredbong, Feb 13, 2012

DELE provides good practice material. But I just know that I would probably rank like B1 or B2 in all subjects other than conversation, which would be A1 at best. Just like highschool >. - S1r_Wakka, Feb 13, 2012

Answer 2

Hi Wakka, it looks like the seven levels (01, 1... 6) correspond to approximate grade-levels of Spanish proficiency. It looks like "Third level" would correspond to a student enrolled in a Spanish class in 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grades (high school). The four-year gap seems imprecise, but language proficiency can vary widely from school to school based on the quality of instruction, curriculum, etc. If you're looking for a way to gauge your proficiency outside the context of school, you might try this Spanish language speaking self-assessment used by the U.S. Foreign Service to evaluate applicants. They also have a writing and reading assessment (bottom-left of the page) you can try as well. Hope this helps!

But this says nothing about the amount of experience. So, does the 9th grade student already need to have the experience from Spanish classes in grades 6 to 8? - S1r_Wakka, Feb 13, 2012

Thanks for the other links, btw. They're a bit difficult to assess since they sound quite general. We have comparable (and equally difficult to assess) standards in Europe. I guess I'd better do some research in those if I wanna put Spanish on my cv... - S1r_Wakka, Feb 13, 2012

They = the requirements - S1r_Wakka, Feb 13, 2012

Hi Wakka, yup that's what it looks like. I'd assume someone at level 2 would have to also meet the requirements of level 01 and 1 to achieve the level of 2. Long story short, a high-school level student would be more proficient than the students in... - StuartSD, Feb 13, 2012

grades 6-8. If you're hoping to use this level of proficiency in Europe, however, you may want to find guidelines from a European institution as they might be easier to understand/explain to prospective employers, professors/teachers, etc. Good luck! - StuartSD, Feb 13, 2012

Answer 3

nice site