Empowering Multilinguals Worldwide

In our increasingly connected global society, equipping students with intercultural communication skills has become essential. The Global Seal of Biliteracy provides a unique, universally recognized certification validating language proficiency across cultures and communities. From middle school through adulthood, this free inclusive certification expands academic, career, and personal opportunities for individuals with documented language skills. Research shows that when a school implements a Seal of Biliteracy program, language course enrollment and retention increase. Including benchmark assessments and pathways to celebrate progress further ensure learner success.

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.

No matter the start of their multilingual journey, the Global Seal of Biliteracy empowers learners to certify their current skills while aspiring to "level up" their language abilities over time. This meaningful, stackable and portable certification allows schools to identify, celebrate, and empower students with language skills. 

Whether learned in a classroom, at home, or through lived experiences, the Global Seal of Biliteracy distinguishes learners as globally competent and celebrates the cognitive, social, and economic benefits of biliteracy. Cement your students’ multilingual achievements with this powerful certification.

 

The Benefits

The Global Seal of Biliteracy not only opens doors to up to 16 college credits at participating institutions but also provides universities and colleges with a documented level of language proficiency simplifying advanced placement. Possessing the Global Seal of Biliteracy bolsters a student's appeal in both academic and professional realms, making them more competitive for scholarships and distinct in college admissions. Because the Global Seal can be earned prior to high school graduation, it can be included in early admission applications and listed on a student’s Common App as an International Honor.  

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.

 

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 a school representaive. 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)

Global Seal recipients must meet our first language of certification requirements. 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 which the individual can speak, listen, read and write best. Generally, this is the language of one’s primary education. To award the Global Seal of Biliteracy, qualifying grade-level documentation and/or proctored test scores must be submitted to demonstrate first language of certification proficiency. 

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. If a student is multilingual, each language is certified individually with an additional Global Seal of Biliteracy certificate at the qualifying tested level.

 

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.

 

Certifying Bilingual School Staff

CELEBRATE AND EMPOWER SCHOOL EXCELLENCE

Join the growing number of schools that use the Global Seal of Biliteracy to identify and recognize current bilingual staff and to assist them in assessing potential hires. Schools can test administrative, teaching, or support staff using either onsite or remote proctoring and credential qualifying individuals at one of our three certification levels.

Let your community know that you are actively growing a globally competent student body. A multilingual staff offers a variety of benefits to your school environment, and can distinguish your school as a community leader.

  • Enhanced Communication: Facilitates effective communication with students and parents from diverse linguistic backgrounds, improving engagement and understanding.

  • Cultural Sensitivity: Staff members can better understand and respect cultural nuances, promoting inclusivity and a supportive learning environment.

  • Support for Language Learners: Helps students learn a new language by providing support in their native language when needed, reducing barriers to learning.

  • Broader Perspective: Different linguistic abilities bring diverse perspectives and approaches to teaching and problem-solving.

  • Community Engagement: Builds stronger connections with multicultural communities, fostering partnerships and trust.

 

Pathway to Language Proficiency

At the heart of the Global Seal of Biliteracy is our goal to encourage lifelong language learning. We want to support language programs, educators, and learners by providing them with resources to “level up their skills,” “leverage their bilingualism,” and “link to future opportunities to use and grow their languages.” Supporting resources to incentivize and recognize language learning success are critical to meeting these goals. The Global Seal of Biliteracy is excited to provide classroom tools to track and recognize progress on the pathway toward language proficiency.

 

Evaluate Your Students 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.

 

Promotional Resources

To help educate potential recipients and stakeholders such as administrators, counselors, parents and students about the Global Seal opportunity, add our "We Credential With" badge to your organization's website. To accompany the badge, we have put together explanatory text which can be found on our promotional resources page. Additionally, we've created a press release to help you get the word out to local media outlets about your language learners' achievements. 

 

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.

 
 
 
 
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