Bringing the state seal of biliteracy to higher education: A case for expansion

While this edition of Foreign Language Annals (FLA) has outstanding articles on online and remote teaching, speech production and perception, and collaboration and exploration for learning, which I encourage everyone to read; in this President's message, I would like to focus on the two articles that featured the Seal of Biliteracy (SoBL), with an emphasis on how the Seal can be used as a powerful advocacy tool to help elevate our profession.The SoBL is a credential that high school students can earn on their transcripts demonstrating their proficiency in English and at least one other language, regardless of how the proficiency was attained. It has now been adopted in 45 states and the District of Columbia and it increases the perceived value of bilingualism in both academia and the workplace. When we promote a program like the SoBL, we encourage students to further their language learning journey, we honor them and their communities, and we make one of the best cases for fully articulated language programs in the United States. To that end, Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Representative Julia Brownley of California introduced the Biliteracy Educational Seal and Teaching (BEST) Act last year. The purpose of the BEST Act is to provide funding to increase the implementation of the SoBL across the country, especially among heritage students who speak less commonly taught languages, low-income students, and other underrepresented groups. At present, while most states have SoBL programs in place, most US schools do not offer the SoBL to their students (Black et al., 2020); consequently, funding is needed to ensure the equitable implementation of SoBL programs, including subsidies to cover the cost of any required proficiency testing. The passage of the BEST Act will allow all US world language students to demonstrate their proficiency achievement in English and in another language, which will underscore the importance of our work as language educators.Each February, ACTFL board members, volunteers, and staff participate in the Joint National Committee for Languages and the National Council for Languages and International Studies (JNCL-NCLIS) Language Advocacy Days, and this past February we advocated for the BEST Act-among other legislation that supports world language teacher education, PreK-16 language programs

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Advocating for languages through the Seal of Biliteracy

Russell¹

2022

An examination of the postgraduation benefits of earning a Seal of Biliteracy

Davin,

Cruz,

Hancock

2024

Across the United States, students have the opportunity to earn a Seal of Biliteracy (SoBL) when they graduate from high school. Awarded to students who demonstrate proficiency in two or more languages, the SoBL originated to confront English‐only ideologies and promote multilingualism. But critics question the impact of the policy on students and whether English‐dominant students experience greater impacts than their linguistically‐minoritized peers. To that end, this study posed the question, What do recipients report postgraduation as benefits of earning a SoBL? In this qualitative investigation, 33 SoBL earners were interviewed postgraduation to analyze the benefits that they experienced from SoBL attainment. Four themes characterized the findings: increased employability in sales and education, pride and acknowledgment for linguistically‐minoritized students, greater confidence and interest in postsecondary education, and difficulty receiving college credit. The article concludes with implications for strengthening the impact of the policy.

The Seal of Biliteracy as a recruitment tool in postsecondary language study

Eckerson,

Jacobs

2024

As state‐level Seals of Biliteracy for high school graduates become more common, postsecondary language programs face questions about how to recognize this credential. While scholarship has examined the implementation of state Seals in secondary education, less attention has been paid to the role of postsecondary language programs in this new policy milieu. This study examined how receiving a Seal of Biliteracy might motivate students to study language(s) in college and the impact of awarding advanced placement and retroactive credit for the Seal. A survey of Seal of Biliteracy recipients (n = 61) in Nebraska and interviews with undergraduate students who received the award (n = 8) suggest that postsecondary language departments could leverage the Seal of Biliteracy to recruit students to language programs and likewise lend support to state implementation efforts. Findings point to the critical role academic credit policies play in making language study more attractive to Seal of Biliteracy recipients.