Empowering Multilinguals Worldwide

The Global Seal of Biliteracy offers a standardized way to validate language abilities, regardless of how an individual has learned their language skills. Independent learners, homeschooled students, and professionals can all benefit from earning the Global Seal, and may pursue the Global Seal for various reasons, such as personal growth, academic credit, career advancement, or cultural connection.

The Global Seal celebrates bilingualism by offering three distinct certification levels that account for different degrees of fluency:

 

Functional Fluency

This individual can navigate daily routines and predictable situations in their certified languages. They can describe services, follow procedures, and respond to frequently asked questions, though some grammar errors or mispronunciations may occur.

Working Fluency

At this level, the certified individual can handle both routine and unfamiliar situations across formal and informal contexts. They can adjust their language, make recommendations, explain policies in detail, and resolve problems with overall accuracy and understanding.

Professional Fluency

The highest certification validates advanced mastery. These individuals interact with precision on a wide range of complex topics. They excel at persuasion, negotiation, delivering presentations, and participating in the linguistic and cultural nuances of professional environments.

 
 

The Benefits

The Global Seal language certification is digitally shareable and can be forever showcased on a C.V., LinkedIn profile, or job application, and shared across digital platforms, underscoring a candidate’s language proficiency and cultural competence for increased employment opportunities.

Earning the Global Seal of Biliteracy independently opens doors to:

  • Validating one's language proficiency for job applications, resumes and academic applications

  • Enhancing scholarship and college admissions prospects by demonstrating multilingual skills

  • Gaining professional recognition and opportunities, leveraging language abilities into career advancement

  • Achieving personal language learning goals and milestones

  • Connecting more authentically with other cultures and communities

Whether earned for career growth, personal enrichment, homeschool language credit or cultural identity, the Global Seal allows independent language learners to showcase their skills and accomplishments in a globally recognized way.

 

The Requirements

Universal Requirements for Certification

To award the Global Seal of Biliteracy, qualifying proctored test scores must be submitted directly to the Global Seal of Biliteracy by the test provider. The Global Seal of Biliteracy’s qualified tests are scored on one of two language testing scales, the CEFR Scale and ACTFL scale.

First Language of Certification (Dominant Language)

Individuals seeking the Global Seal must provide evidence of their first language of certification proficiency. For credentialing purposes, the first language of certification is defined as the candidate's dominant language or the language in which the individual is most comfortable and can speak, listen, read, and write best. Generally, this is the language of one's primary education. To earn the Global Seal of Biliteracy, qualifying grade-level documentation or proctored test scores must be submitted to demonstrate first language of certification proficiency.

One of the following must be met:

  1. Diploma, transcript, or other official academic record showing completion of the required educational level in the first language of certification.

  2. Qualifying proctored test scores in the first language of certification

First Language of certification Criteria

Second Language of Certification

All Global Seal of Biliteracy candidates must meet Second Language certification requirements through testing in order to receive a Global Seal of Biliteracy. Qualifying test scores from an approved test of the second (or third, fourth, etc.) language must be submitted within 12 months of the test date (defined as the first date of testing) and proctored by an impartial human. Tests must be submitted to the Global Seal directly from the test provider. Additionally, if you have tested through or with a school, university, employer, or organization, your test scores must be submitted by a representative from that school, university, employer, or organization. Any of our approved qualifying tests can be used for individual processing but the test provider must send the scores(s) directly to the Global Seal.

The Global Seal of Biliteracy has set up an easy-to-use direct score-sharing process with our founding sponsor, Avant Assessment for the following tests. Clicking on the test below will allow you to purchase your test to qualify for the Global Seal of Biliteracy.

Approved Tests
 

The Process

A Simple 3-Step Pathway to Certification

Issuing a Global Seal of Biliteracy is straightforward through the program's quick and easy application, and award process - completely free of charge (cost of testing not included). Providing this international certification to your students is as simple as apply, submit, receive.

 

Apply

Apply Online: A school or organization starts by completing the online application to provide your contact information and a few details about your program. This allows the Global Seal to understand your specific credentialing needs and how to best support you.

Submit

Submit Testing: To validate proficiency, you'll need to provide documentation proving skills in two languages for all students. This includes test scores from one of our approved language assessments taken within the last 12 months. All applications for the first certification in the U.S. must include English for either the first or second certification language.

Receive

Receive Certification: After your application and required test scores are reviewed and approved, you will receive an official Global Seal of Biliteracy certificate for each qualifying candidate! Each certificate documents a student’s dominant and tested language and fluency level and is sent directly to your program free of cost.

Learn more
 
 
 

Evaluate Your Language Level

The Global Seal of Biliteracy has developed free adaptive language proficiency self-assessments based on can-do statements from two major proficiency scales. These can-do statements are reflective of an individual’s language ability based on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) Levels and the ACTFL Levels of Language Proficiency.

Learn more
 

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Thanks to the generous sponsors and donors, the Global Seal of Biliteracy is a completely free program that certifies an individual’s biliteracy based on language testing. The Global Seal itself does NOT test candidates. All testing is contracted with test companies directly by educational institutions, organizations, businesses or by individuals themselves and testing costs are paid directly to test companies.

  • The Global Seal website describes the processwhich includes:

    1. Apply by clicking the APPLY tab or button. The Global Seal of Biliteracy is free (cost of testing not included).

    2. Submit qualifying scores on an approved test. A referral for testing will be provided upon request. The Global Seal of Biliteracy list of qualifying tests can be found on this website.

    3. The Global Seal of Biliteracy award and award certification is issued to qualifying candidates at no charge. Schools and/or recipients may choose to select and pay for optional recognition medals or pins.

  • The Global Seal’s Board of Advisors determine which tests best meet proficiency-based criteria. All tests that qualify for the Global Seal of Biliteracy can be found on our test page and/or can be viewed by language. The Board of Advisors’ work is ongoing, and additional tests, including international tests, may be added. Additionally, deletions and/or modifications may be made to currently qualifying tests as the tests and or testing conditions or criteria may change.

  • The Global Seal currently offers tests in over 125 languages. To find a test in a specific language, please see our Languages page. If you don't see the language that you wish to test in, please contact us at info@theglobalseal.com

  • Many universities have provided college credit, advanced placement and even scholarships to Global Seal of Biliteracy recipients. Additionally, almost 25% of Global Seal certificates are issued by colleges and universities to their own students. To see a list of higher education institutions that have recently issued the Global Seal, click here: https://theglobalseal.com/higher-education.

  • The Global Seal of Biliteracy is universal, it crosses state lines and is issued internationally whereas the individual State Seals of Biliteracy (SSB) are generally available to students graduating from a public school in a state with an individual district or school that has adopted the program (with some exceptions). The Global Seal of Biliteracy certifies all qualifying language learners, regardless of age or grade level, including university students and working adults who would like to certify their language skills for academic or work purposes. The Global Seal is used by programs that may not qualify for a SSB such as private schools, community-based heritage language programs, or language immersion programs. The Global Seal is often used to complement the state Seals to provide earlier benchmark awards, an alternative award to language learners above or below state Seal criteria, or to provide students with more ways to leverage their language skills. For example, a state seal is considered a State Honor on the Common App, whereas the Global Seal is an International Honor. Many schools have adopted both programs to create a pathway of awards and/or to maximize the opportunities their recipients have to highlight and share their language abilities. 

For more frequently asked questions please visit our FAQ page.