Language Self-Assessment with the “Police Station Test”

The premise is: If you got dropped in the middle of an area that only speaks your target language, could you get yourself to a police station?

I call this The Police Station Test and personally consider “passing” it to be a decent measure of highly practical communication ability, as well as a way for someone to self-reflect on how they want to study a language.

Skills Necessary to “Pass” the Test

To pass this test, someone needs to know…

• How to ask relevant questions. (Ask for help, ask for the nearest police station, or ask if someone speaks an already-known language instead.)
• How to interpret responses. (Are they giving directions, and can you understand them? Are they saying they can’t understand you, and is there a reason for that? Are they asking you why you need the police, and making alternative suggestions? Do they just not know?)
• How to ask someone if they can speak slower or repeat themselves. (Likely needed if lower level.)
• How to approach and appropriately speak to strangers. (Requires some cultural knowledge on basic body language, tone, etc)
• What typical responses should be expected. (Also requires some cultural knowledge.)

For bonus points, advanced learners might throw in constraints and challenges such as needing to speak or interpret regional dialects/accents.

Self Reflection and Assessment

For someone serious about learning a language, considering how the test would be “passed” allows them to consider why they might not, and then target learning towards filling the gaps. It’s also a good shortcut for conversations when anyone is asking you how skilled you are at a language. (“I think I could find my way to a police station if dropped in the middle of Japan” is usually what I tell non-language learners when they ask how my Japanese is going.)

For someone who just wants to know enough to travel, they might develop a “script” along the lines of… “Hello. I am a foreigner and cannot speak much [unfamiliar language here]. I am lost and need to find a police station. Can you please help me?”. And at a basic level, this would pass! However, it does reveal that an individual doesn’t have a certain level of fluency to deal with unforeseen responses, or isn’t even interested in passing the test. Maybe they don’t intend to travel to a country using the language, or maybe they just want to learn a language to get insight on the culture. Even just by considering how much you want to answer the question posed by the test, you find out more about how much you want to learn.

To be honest, calling this a “test” is a bit of a stretch. (There’s no set criteria for passing or failing, so it’s all a bit subjective in the end.) However, I do think it allows someone to self reflect on whether they have certain skills, and also if they want to get to the point of acquiring the necessary skills. Calling it the “Police Station Self Assessment” doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well though!