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ILR or Foreign Service Level language ability measures

The Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale is a set of descriptions of abilities to communicate in a language. It was originally developed by the United States Foreign Service Institute, and is still widely known as the FSI scale. It consists of descriptions of five levels of language proficiency.

Table of contents
1 Foreign Service Level 1 - Elementary proficiency
2 Foreign Service Level 2 - Limited working proficiency
3 Foreign Service Level 3 - Professional working proficiency
4 Foreign Service Level 4 - Full professional proficiency
5 Foreign Service Level 5 - Native or bilingual proficiency
6 External Links

Foreign Service Level 1 - Elementary proficiency

Elementary proficiency is the first level in the scale. This level is sometimes referred to as S-1 or Level 1. A person at this level is described as follows:

Foreign Service Level 2 - Limited working proficiency

Limited working proficiency is the second level in the scale. This level is sometimes referred to as S-2 or level 2. A person at this level is described as follows:

Foreign Service Level 3 - Professional working proficiency

Professional working proficiency is the third level in the scale. This level is sometimes referred to as S-3 or Level 3. S-3 is what is usually used to measure how many people in the world know a given language. A person at this level is described as follows:

Foreign Service Level 4 - Full professional proficiency

Full professional proficiency is the fourth level in the scale. This level is sometimes referred to as S-4 or level 4. A person at this level is described as follows:

Foreign Service Level 5 - Native or bilingual proficiency

Native or bilingual proficiency is the fifth level in the scale. This level is sometimes referred to as S-5 or level 5. A person at this level is described as follows:

External Links