How Long?

[Chupito]

It's just that I don't know any application deadline that is more than 12 months ahead of the job start. And in order to reach a "limited working proficiency plus" it will require quite some time of learning.
The question is: do you actually have enough time?

I'm guessing they are referring to a job or job+employer combo in general, not a current job opening. "I want to work as a X for company Y or for government entity Z and I know that they require a level of ILR 2+" rather than "I saw a job offer that requires a level of ILR 2+ in a language I haven't even started". For instance, IIRC, there was a member whose dream job was to work in a bilingual childcare center and she knew it would require a specific level in Spanish. She didn't have a specific job opening in mind when she started working on that goal (you are right that it would take too much time), but she found one and got hired after she achieved the necessary level.

[reineke]

You should stick around here and in no time you'll have C1 in your profile.

After 4 semesters at a community college the average language learner would likely not score any higher than 1+ on the CEFR scale.

Such a course of study probably targets something like CEFR B1 / B2 in all the four skills. You should ask.

French cultural institutes often post study timetables on their sites
French B2 is usually listed as requiring around 600 study hours.

FSI targets up to 750 class hours of French in order for ILR 3 in speaking and reading. The instructors are native speakers and classes are usually small.

You should look into who is administering the exam and what kind of exam format you should be preparing for.

FSO/FSO Chatter

"You'll probably pass the phone test if all you need a 2. If you don't have the more formal vocabulary (environmental degradation, nuclear proliferation, healthcare reform and treaties) you'll probably have a harder time reaching a 3. Heritage speakers generally don't face any difficulties carrying out a conversation in the language, but struggle if they haven't previously discussed/read about any of the topics that FSI loves."

Based on my experience (at least with Spanish), this video seems pretty reflective of a 2.
Yes, I'm a native Spanish speaker, have a 3/3 FSI score. That sounds about right.
Wow! A native speaker with 3/3? How is that possible? Isn't native fluency scored at 5?
Last summer, there were many native Spanish speakers that only scored 2's on the language test (given by contractor LTI over the phone and online (speaking/reading). It seems crazy but I guess possible. That's why they changed the Spanish Consular Fellow language threshold to 2/2."

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 7&p=115118

I had a native Korean assistant who was hired on account of her language skills. She was literate in Korean but next to useless at extracting the needed information from news items and Korean documents. Anyway, good luck.

[Chupito]

[...]
There is no chance of reaching that level [in terms of real life actual skills] in that time with just the course, though. [...]

It's not actually possible to be functionally fluent in a reasonably unrelated language in such a small amount of time for regular people.[...]

Someone going Spanish-Portugaise or Norwegian-Swedish or Estonian-Finnish could absolutely do it. You'll just have to put in more hours - even if you didn't reach it in the goal time frame you'd be well on your way.[...]

What time frame? You seem to be addressing the person who asked for advice, but they never specified any goal time frame or deadline. Quite the contrary, they were asking how long it would take.

Not sure where the 11 weeks come from. It's quite specific, but noone suggested that timeframe.

[IronMike]

That isn't to say that the FSI is not successful, it's just that the hours are based on having to teach a classroom of students with their format of over-learning.

And also the fact that FSI students already speak an average of 2.4 languages..

If anything, a monolingual beginner needs many more hours than an FSI student who is already skilled in language learning & getting full time professional instruction...

Hate to disagree with a friend, but I'd say the FSI standard is perfect for monolingual (read: American) students. DLI uses the same standard, and at DLI the Basic course for a Cat I language is 36 weeks long. A majority of those kids (most straight out of high school) come out of that class with a minimum of a (respectable) 2L/2R/1+S. An impressive minority (in the range of the mid to upper 20%) manage a 2+L/2+R/2S in each of the three tested skills.*

*DLIFLC Institutional Self Evaluation Report, p19 [link to a pdf].

[LewArcher]

Thanks everyone for the info.

The job closes in about three months, but they seem to advertise every year or so. I won't be apply for the current one, but would like to apply in 2020 or 2021.

[Chupito]

I don't see how that contradicts what Ani said. FSI claims that their students take 24 weeks to reach ILR 3 in Spanish on average. If monolingual young adults take 36 weeks to reach not-quite ILR 2 for most to ILR 2+ for the best (both respectable results), then that supports the idea that monolingual beginners need more hours to reach the same level.

Edit: It's 600 hours of class to ILR 3 for FSI students vs 1000 hours of class to ILR 2 for DLI, although it's possible that the amount of homework differs (I don't have any info on that).

[zenmonkey]

Joined Saturday, posted once, hasn't come back to ask any questions in 24 hrs?
It will take forever, because learning a language requires more dedication than that.

[rdearman]

Joined Saturday, posted once, hasn't come back to ask any questions in 24 hrs?
It will take forever, because learning a language requires more dedication than that.

To be fair, Lew posted before you, but had to wait until I approved his post.

[zenmonkey]

Joined Saturday, posted once, hasn't come back to ask any questions in 24 hrs?
It will take forever, because learning a language requires more dedication than that.

To be fair, Lew posted before you, but had to wait until I approved his post.

Then my sincere apologies for jumping the snark.

[Skynet]

Yes, I'm a native Spanish speaker, have a 3/3 FSI score. That sounds about right.
Wow! A native speaker with 3/3? How is that possible? Isn't native fluency scored at 5?

I always assumed that you were an English native! Whenever I read your posts, I would give them the voice of the narrator from Winnie the Pooh because that has always been how I imagined you to sound.
Ironically, I expect non-native speakers to actually get better than native speakers at any language. For example, I have never seen a native English speaker with an IELTS 9.0 (or even 7.5 for that matter), but I have seen many, many non-native speakers with IELTS 8.0+.