MaFLA/ACTFL MOPI Training

This two-day workshop is an introduction to the techniques of administering and rating the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) at the Novice and Intermediate levels. Attendees critique and discuss interview elicitation, structure, and rating. All attendees observe and some conduct live practice interviews. Enhance your professional development with the invaluable MOPI training and also become eligible to apply for OPI certification; practicing your interviewing skills with a trainer is a great start towards becoming an ACTFL Certified OPI Tester!

Two strands are available: Spanish and Mixed Languages. The Spanish strand will be conducted in Spanish (powerpoint slides in English) and the interviews will also be in Spanish. The Mixed Language strand will be conducted in English with interviews in English.

Two pricing levels are available: Interviewer and Participant. All attendees will be engaged the entire two-day training including watching and debriefing several interviews.  Interviewers will be coached by our presenters through one of eight live Oral Proficiency Exams with a student learning English or Spanish. Participants will not have the opportunity to practice a live interview during the training.

Learning objectives:

Upon completion of the 2-day MOPI Workshop, participants will be able to:

• Articulate what the OPI is, its purpose, and what it measures
• Describe the characteristics of two major ACTFL proficiency levels and differentiate between proficiency sublevels (low, mid, high) for each relevant major level (Novice, and Intermediate)
• Assess a spoken language sample by comparing its content to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines to determine the speaker’s level of proficiency at the Novice and Intermediate levels
• Apply effective elicitation techniques during a guided OPI, including, role plays, the use appropriate question types and/or level probes for each proficiency level
• Reflect on ways in which the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines apply to classroom foreign language instruction, learning outcomes, and proficiency targets for language learners.
• Submit an application to become a certified OPI tester with limited certification

The MOPI training has a very limited capacity due to the coaching model used. Each strand will be made up of 8 Interview Attendees and 6 Participant Attendees, for a total of 28.

Additionally this year, we have an Advancement Training. This 2-day workshop continues your learning from MOPI (Novice & Mid Proficiency Levels) to a full OPI training (Novice through Superior). Those who seek Full Rater Status must have the full OPI training to qualify. This training is only available to participants who have taken the MOPI training. Our cap for this training is smaller (8 Interviewers) and therefore the price is higher. 

ADRIÁN MASSEI is currently Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature at Furman University, South Carolina. He has been involved in OPI testing for eighteen years. He actively tests in Spanish in both ACTFL and ILR OPI protocols and is a dual trainer in both. An active rater of the Spanish WPT (Writing Proficiency Test), he is a Mentor to newly certified ACTFL OPI testers as well as an ACTFL ILR Tester Support Specialist and an ACTFL OPI Quality Control Specialist.

 

CYNTHIA MARTIN is an Associate Professor of Russian at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she teaches courses in language, literature and culture in both Russian and English. She holds a B.A. in Political Science & Russian Studies from the University of New Hampshire and an M.A. and PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Martin is an ACTFL certified OPI Tester and Trainer for Russian and English and is currently involved in a number of national assessment initiatives for academia, as well as private and government sectors

 

Monica F. Jacobe, Ph.D. is currently the Director of Academic Advising and Support at Moravian College.  She has spent nearly two decades as a faculty member and administrator in higher education, including over seven years at Director of the Center for American Langauge and Culture at The College of New Jersey, where she and her staff built and deployed an ACTFL proficiency-based English language program.  She has extensive experience in academic support and advising, curricular design and revision, faculty development, accreditation and reaccreditation activities, and strategic planning in higher education.  The author of dozens of essays and book chapters, she is the author, most recently of Final Draft 4, a bridging level writing textbook for English language learners from Cambridge University Press (2015).  Her research and writing interests include higher education and academic labor, humanities education, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and 20th-century and contemporary literature, particularly of the American South.  She is currently at work on a scholarly book that examines the evolution of articulated regional identity in novels by Southern writers working across the 20th and 21st centuries.  Dr. Jacobe holds a Ph.D. in English Language & Literature from The Catholic University of America, an MFA in Creative Writing from The American University, and a BA in English and Mass Communication from Emory & Henry College.

 

 

Additional information is available HERE.

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN. Click HERE.