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Admission > Placement Testing > Hawaiian & Foreign Language Testing

Hawaiian & Foreign Language Placement and Waivers

To insure that students are placed in Hawaiian and foreign language courses suited to their academic skill level, placement testing is available in 'Iliahi 127 for languages offered at Kapiolani CC.

Call the Testing Center at 734.9144 for the latest information.

Tests Available: As of Fall 2002, tests are available for Chinese, Filipino (Tagalog), French, Hawaiian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.

Students may also be tested and placed in American Sign Language (ASL) courses by the coordinator of the ASL program. Call 734.9154 for more information.

Taking the Test: To take a test at the Testing Center, a student must have a photo I.D. and provide a social security number. During the test, a student may not use any reference materials, such as dictionaries, textbooks, etc. Maximum time allowed for each test is 2 hours.

Results: Based on the results of the placement tests and/or oral interviews with language teachers at the college, students are placed in 100 or 200 level language courses. If their test results show language proficiency beyond the 102 level, students are waived from the language requirement for an AA degree.

Students who want to have the placement results sent to them should provide a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the Testing Center.

Back Credits: Students placed at levels above the 101 level in Hawaiian and foreign languages are exempted from the previous courses in the 101-102 and 201-202 series. Upon completing a course above 101 with a grade of C or better, students can receive, at no additional cost, credits for the courses they are exempted from. For example, upon completing 102 with a C or better, a student will also receive credits for 101; upon completing 202 with a C or better, a student will also receive credits for 101, 102, and 201. Students passing a UH-approved post-202 class may receive back credits for all four courses in the series (e.g. 101-102 and 201-202).

Language Waivers for Native Speakers: Native speakers of a language other than English may be waived from the language requirement at KCC if they provide the chair of the Language Arts department with academic transcripts or graduation certificates showing they have graduated from a high school at which instruction is conducted in a language other than English. (A student's high school transcripts may be on file at the KCC records office; a student can request a copy be sent to the chair.)

Native speakers of languages not taught at Kapiolani CC may be certified as native speakers and waived from the language requirement by professors at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Contact the Dean of the College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature at UHM for more information. The certifying professor must send a letter of certification to the chair of the Language Arts department at KCC.