CEFR and ACTFL: The Official Correspondence Chart Between the Two Scales
ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) is the leading US professional association for language education. The proficiency scale it developed — Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Superior, Distinguished, with the first three levels each split into Low / Mid / High — functions as the de facto standard for describing language ability in the United States: K-12 and university world-language programs, human resources, and, increasingly, some government contexts.
Unlike the Canadian NCLC/CLB, the ACTFL scale wasn't built as a mirror of the CEFR: the two frameworks developed independently, with different underlying philosophies of assessment. ACTFL's tradition centers on the guided oral interview (the OPI) and on skill-specific tests, while the CEFR describes generic « can-do » competencies. Comparing the two scales takes documented alignment work — not a simple conversion formula.
That work exists: ACTFL has published its own official correspondence chart to the CEFR. But the chart holds a real surprise, and it's the focus of this page: ACTFL doesn't publish one chart — it publishes two, and they don't tell quite the same story.
The two ACTFL ↔ CEFR correspondence tables
ACTFL assesses receptive skills (comprehension) and productive skills (expression) separately, using distinct tests and separate validation studies for each. The result: two separate CEFR correspondence tables, not one. Both are reproduced in full below, using the original source document's notation — including the « .1 » / « .2 » sub-splits and the « 0 » used for a level with no assigned CEFR rating.
Table A — Receptive skills: reading and listening
Tests covered: RPT (Reading Proficiency Test), LPT (Listening Proficiency Test), L&R CAT (Listening & Reading Computer Adaptive Test).
| ACTFL Level | Corresponding CEFR Rating |
|---|---|
| Distinguished | C2 |
| Superior | C1.2 |
| Advanced High | C1.1 |
| Advanced Mid | B2 |
| Advanced Low | B1.2 |
| Intermediate High | B1.1 |
| Intermediate Mid | A2 |
| Intermediate Low | A1.2 |
| Novice High | A1.1 |
| Novice Mid | 0 (no CEFR rating) |
| Novice Low | 0 (no CEFR rating) |
Table B — Productive skills: speaking and writing
Tests covered: OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview), OPIc (OPI by computer), WPT (Writing Proficiency Test).
| ACTFL Level | Corresponding CEFR Rating |
|---|---|
| Superior | C2 |
| Advanced High | C1 |
| Advanced Mid | B2.2 |
| Advanced Low | B2.1 |
| Intermediate High | B1.2 |
| Intermediate Mid | B1.1 |
| Intermediate Low | A2 |
| Novice High | A1 |
| Novice Mid | 0 (no CEFR rating) |
| Novice Low | 0 (no CEFR rating) |
Note: the productive-skills table has no « Distinguished » row. « Superior » is already the top of this scale, and it corresponds to C2.
Source: ACTFL, « Assigning CEFR Ratings to ACTFL Assessments » (institutional document, published circa 2016). View the document (PDF) · ACTFL overview page
The central nuance: a one-directional correspondence
The most important caveat on this page isn't about any single level — it's about the direction of the correspondence itself. ACTFL states it plainly:
« These are one-directional correspondences, that is to say, CEFR ratings can be assigned to ACTFL tests, however, the reverse cannot be stated. »
In other words: a CEFR rating can be assigned to a result on an ACTFL test — but the reverse has not been established. A DELF B2 result, a C1 rating on the TCF, or any other test built directly on the CEFR does not have an officially validated ACTFL correspondence in the other direction. ACTFL is explicit about this:
« No CEFR-based test, or other international test not developed by ACTFL, has been linked to the ACTFL Framework. »
In practice: it is accurate to say that an ACTFL Advanced Mid result in speaking corresponds to a CEFR B2.2. It is not accurate, based on this same source, to say that a CEFR B2 « equals » an ACTFL Advanced Mid — that direction has never been validated by an equivalent study.
Why « Superior » doesn't have a single answer
There's a second nuance here, and it's an even more surprising one. The ACTFL Superior level doesn't map to the same CEFR rating depending on whether it's measured receptively or productively:
- In comprehension (reading, listening), Superior corresponds to C1.2 — it's Distinguished, one level up, that reaches C2.
- In expression (speaking, writing), Superior is already the top of the tested scale and corresponds directly to C2 — there is no « Distinguished » row in this table at all.
The source document confirms this gap without explaining it in detail: « Note that the correspondences for the productive modalities are different than for the receptive modalities. » It doesn't give the precise reason for the difference, and this page won't speculate on one. What is known (see the next section) is that the two tables rest on separate validation studies, conducted independently — a fact that doesn't resolve why the gap exists, but is a reminder that this isn't a single measurement instrument applied twice.
Other caveats
It's specific tests that are aligned to the CEFR — not the scales in the abstract. The underlying academic work puts it directly: « it is not the frameworks that need to be aligned but the assessments derived from them » — and the results are « valid only for the assessments used in that particular linking process ». Table B, for instance, describes the relationship between the OPI, the OPIc, and the WPT on one side and the CEFR on the other — not some abstract equivalence between « the ACTFL scale » and « the CEFR » independent of which instrument was used to measure the level.
The study behind the productive-skills table was built on German-language samples. The empirical validation linking the OPI/OPIc to the CEFR (Tschirner & Bärenfänger, 2012) was conducted using German-language samples, with raters trained under The European Language Certificates (TELC) framework. ACTFL generalizes this result to other languages based on the consistency of rater training and the stability of the test protocol — not on a separate empirical revalidation carried out in each language. This is a methodological limitation ACTFL itself acknowledges in its own validity reports, not an objection raised from outside.
Use cases
The ACTFL↔CEFR correspondence answers a different need than the NCLC/CLB one: it isn't about economic immigration, but about situations where a level measured within the US system needs to be understood — or compared — outside of it.
US schools and universities (K-12 and higher ed)
American world-language programs use the ACTFL scale to set instructional goals and track student progress. The CEFR correspondence is useful for placing a student in both frameworks at once — for example, in a partnership with a European institution, or when placing an international student who arrives with a CEFR-based certification (DELF, telc…) into the right course level.
HR and recruitment
A job posting written around a CEFR requirement (« B2 level required, » for instance) can be compared against an ACTFL result from a candidate tested in the US — as long as the central caveat on this page is kept in mind: that reading is only validated in the ACTFL → CEFR direction.
Government agencies and public-contract employers
Some US government and quasi-government contexts rely on the OPI or OPIc to assess staff second-language proficiency. The CEFR correspondence makes it possible to communicate that level to international counterparts or partners who think in A1-C2 terms rather than the ACTFL scale.
Frequently asked questions
Is ACTFL Superior C1 or C2 in CEFR terms?
It depends on the skill being tested. In comprehension (reading, listening), Superior corresponds to C1.2. In expression (speaking, writing), Superior corresponds to C2, the top level of the productive-skills table, which has no Distinguished row. Source: ACTFL, Assigning CEFR Ratings to ACTFL Assessments.
Does the ACTFL-CEFR correspondence work in both directions?
No. ACTFL explicitly states that this is a one-directional correspondence: a CEFR rating can be assigned to an ACTFL result, but the reverse hasn't been established. No CEFR-based test has been officially linked to the ACTFL scale.
Why are there two different ACTFL-CEFR tables?
Because ACTFL assesses receptive skills (reading, listening) and productive skills (speaking, writing) separately, based on two distinct validation studies. The two tables don't line up exactly, especially at the Superior level.
What CEFR level is ACTFL Advanced Mid?
B2 in comprehension (reading, listening); B2.2 in expression (speaking, writing), per the official ACTFL chart.
Does ACTFL Distinguished have a CEFR equivalent?
Yes, C2, but only on the receptive-skills table. The productive-skills table has no Distinguished row; Superior is already the top level there and corresponds to C2.
Who established the official ACTFL-CEFR correspondence?
ACTFL itself published this chart (Assigning CEFR Ratings to ACTFL Assessments, published circa 2016), drawing on separate technical studies, including Tschirner and Bärenfänger (2012) for speaking, and on the Council of Europe's Standard Setting methodology.
Related
Sources
- ACTFL. Assigning CEFR Ratings to ACTFL Assessments. Institutional document, published circa 2016 (no date is printed in the document itself). https://www.actfl.org/uploads/files/general/Assigning_CEFR_Ratings_To_ACTFL_Assessments.pdf
- Tschirner, E. & Bärenfänger, O. (2012). Assessing evidence of validity of assigning CEFR ratings to the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) and the Oral Proficiency Interview by computer (OPIc). Technical Report. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334132174
- Tschirner, E. (Ed.) (2012). Aligning Frameworks of Reference in Language Testing: The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Stauffenburg Verlag. https://www.actfl.org/assessments/assigning-cefr-ratings-to-actfl-assessments
- ACTFL (2023). Validity Evidence for the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI). Publication no. AAR/OPI/ACE/I—2023-001. https://www.actfl.org/uploads/files/general/Documents/assessments/acereports/OPI_Report_Part_C_Validity_Evidence_2023.pdf
- ACTFL (2023). Validity Evidence for the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview-Computer (OPIc). Publication no. AAR/OPIc/ACE/I—2023-001. https://www.actfl.org/uploads/files/general/Documents/assessments/acereports/OPIc_Report_Part_C_Validity_Evidence_2023.pdf