An Overview

The Seal of Biliteracy is an award given by a school, district, or state in recognition of students who have studied and attained proficiency in two or more languages by high school graduation.  The Seal encourages students to pursue biliteracy, honors the skills they have attained, and serves as evidence of skills that are attractive to future employers and college admissions offices.

All students are eligible to attain the seal based on evidence of achieving the required level of language proficiency in English plus one or more other languages during their high school years, whether that might be a native or heritage language, or a language learned in school or another setting.  Biliteracy refers to having a functional level of proficiency in each language; the level of proficiency for all languages need not be identical.

Some languages may have unique requirements that may require special allowances.  For example, not all languages have writing systems; not all languages are spoken.  Students seeking the Seal for languages with unique characteristics will demonstrate the expected level of proficiency on an assessment of the modes that characterize the communication in that language.

For additional information, you can check out the Vermont Agency of Education/VOCALE's Seal of Biliteracy website by clicking here.