TELPAS Proficiency Level Descriptors: The Four Levels and the 2024 Changes

The proficiency level descriptors, usually shortened to PLDs, are part of the Texas English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS). For each of the four language domains (listening, speaking, reading and writing) they describe what a student at each level of English proficiency can typically understand and do.

TELPAS uses them in two ways. In kindergarten and grade 1, and in special holistic administrations for some students in grades 2–12, teachers rate students directly against the PLDs. On the online tests in grades 2–12, the PLDs describe what each rating means, and the test result places the student at one of those levels.

The PLDs describe English language proficiency only, not subject knowledge, first-language ability or effort.

TELPAS has four levels: Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced and Advanced High. They are the same in every domain and at every grade. The table summarizes how the 2007 descriptors, which define the four TELPAS levels, describe each one in general. The wording here is a paraphrase, not TEA's text.

Each domain has its own descriptors, written for the kind of English that domain involves. In listening, the 2007 descriptors talk about understanding spoken English. In speaking, they talk about the ability to speak English, from "little or no ability" at Beginning to speaking "in a simple manner" at Intermediate.

Writing for grades 4–12 is framed around vocabulary and command of English language structures: a Beginning writer lacks the English needed to address grade-appropriate writing tasks meaningfully, while an Intermediate writer can address them in a limited way. In kindergarten and grade 1, reading and writing are framed around using English to build foundational reading and writing skills.

The detailed 2024 descriptors make the differences concrete. Here is one example per domain from the transition-year documents, showing how a descriptor reads at two levels. Each pair is paraphrased.

• Listening (grades 4–12): a student rated Intermediate can follow oral directions with repetition or in familiar contexts. A student rated Advanced can follow multi-step oral directions in familiar and unfamiliar contexts with increasing accuracy.
• Speaking (grades 4–12): at Intermediate, the student speaks in phrases using some high-frequency vocabulary, including key words and expressions needed for basic classroom communication. At Advanced, the student does the same in sentences.
• Reading (kindergarten and grade 1): at Intermediate, the student answers questions or recalls details about a text using some information from it. At Advanced High, the student answers questions about or retells a text using relevant information from it.
• Writing (grades 4–12): at Advanced, the student writes sentences using content-area vocabulary with increasing accuracy. At Advanced High, the student does so with accuracy.

In fall 2024 the State Board of Education adopted new ELPS. From the 2026–27 school year, all of the 2024 ELPS, including new PLDs, must be implemented in instruction.

The 2024 PLDs use five levels instead of four: Pre-Production, Beginning, Intermediate, High Intermediate and Advanced. Pre-Production is the early stage TEA also calls the silent period, when a student's understanding is developing and responses are mostly nonverbal. At the new Beginning level, speech is emerging in single words or short phrases. High Intermediate students begin to use a variety of sentence types and express opinions, and Advanced students can take part in classroom interactions with little to no linguistic support.

TELPAS itself is not switching to the new levels yet. 2026–27 and 2027–28 are transition years: the current TELPAS blueprints and the four proficiency levels stay in place, and TEA plans a new assessment for 2028–29. So a TELPAS report in spring 2027 or spring 2028 will still show Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced or Advanced High.

For the holistically rated assessments in the transition years, TEA has published documents that line up each 2024 level with one of the four TELPAS levels. Note that the names do not match one to one. The 2024 Advanced level corresponds to the TELPAS rating Advanced High, and the 2024 High Intermediate level corresponds to Advanced.

The mapping is the same in every domain and in all three grade-band documents (kindergarten–grade 1, grades 2–3 and grades 4–12).

Only the 2024 descriptors that overlap with the 2007 descriptors are used. In TEA's documents, any descriptor text that does not overlap is crossed out, and raters must not consider it. For example, the grades 4–12 writing descriptors about spelling content-area words are crossed out.

The mapping matters wherever TELPAS is rated holistically by teachers. That means all four domains in kindergarten and grade 1. It also means special administrations for eligible students in grades 2–12, who are rated holistically in listening, speaking and writing and take reading on paper.

Most students in grades 2–12 take the online tests instead, covered below.

A holistic rating is a judgment about a student's English as a whole, built from observation over time in both social and academic settings. Raters complete TEA's online holistic rating training, and new raters must pass calibration activities, rating sets of sample students, before they rate. Our guide to TELPAS calibration explains that process.

In the transition years, raters use the eligible-PLD document for the grade band of the students they rate. For each domain, the rating is the level at which the student performs most consistently, not the best or worst moment. Raters are also told to compare each student with the descriptors rather than with other students, and to leave out abilities unrelated to English proficiency.

For families of young children, the guide to TELPAS in kindergarten and first grade describes what this looks like in a K–1 classroom.

On the online listening and speaking test and the online reading and writing test in grades 2–12, each domain receives a scale score, and the scale score places the student in one of the four levels. In every grade cluster, Advanced begins at 1525 and Advanced High at 1600. The point where Intermediate begins varies by test and year, and TEA publishes it.

The four domain ratings then combine into a composite rating, with each domain counting 25 percent. The guide to TELPAS scores explains scale scores, the composite and how to read a report, and the TELPAS reading and writing test guide describes that test.

The descriptors are a useful way to read a result. If your child is rated Intermediate in speaking, for example, the speaking descriptors for the next level up show what growth looks like. The free TELPAS practice tests on this site cover all four domains from grade 2, and a composite of Advanced High is one of the criteria in the TELPAS reclassification guide.

This site is independent and not connected to TEA. If anything here disagrees with TEA's documents, TEA is right.

TELPAS Alternate, for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, uses a separate set of five levels and its own descriptors. See the TELPAS Alternate guide.

• The 2007 TELPAS proficiency level descriptors
• Grades K–1 eligible PLDs for 2026–2027 and 2027–2028
• Grades 2–3 eligible PLDs for 2026–2027 and 2027–2028
• Grades 4–12 eligible PLDs for 2026–2027 and 2027–2028
• TEA's TELPAS resources page, which collects the assessed curriculum documents
• TEA's TELPAS proficiency standards, with the scale score tables