The Graduation Proficiency Test (GPT) was sparked by a student initiative in the early 1980s. At the time, the College of Liberal Arts had a two-year seat-time requirement, meaning that students were required to complete two years of language courses in order to fulfill their second language requirement. The students were concerned, because each language department and each professor could set their own curriculum. One professor might focus on grammar instruction. Another would emphasize oral pattern drills. Yet another would center on reading literary classics, as if all the students in the class were intending to complete majors in foreign language literature. The students stated clearly, and much to the surprise of many language faculty, that they did not want to spend the entire second year of the course sequence reading Cervantes, Goethe, or Racine. The students were also troubled, because the determination of whether they passed or failed their language requirement was solely in the hands of their sixth-quarter teacher. The argument was repeatedly raised, "What if my teacher doesn't like me?" Overall, the students wanted a college requirement, not a departmental requirement. They wanted uniform, measurable standards to which all language departments must adhere. And they wanted an objective evaluation of their language requirement, which was not dependent on a single individual.
University faculty outside the language departments and outside CLA also joined the initiative. The faculty's chief concern was that their students who completed the second language requirement basically had no usable language skills and were unable to access the research of their major field which was published in a foreign language. The students might be able to recite a grammar rule or a passage from Bertold Brecht, but they were unable to read a basic paragraph of unfamiliar text.
The student initiative coincided with a University-wide interest in internationalizing the curriculum to bring it more on par with the rest of the industrialized world. Therefore, the students' concerns about their language requirement gained not only the attention of language faculty, but the interest of the CLA Dean's office as well. Internally, the language department had been discussing the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the two-year seat-time requirement. However, this discussion would soon be taken state-wide when CLA Dean Lukermann formed the 1983 Task Force on Foreign Language Instruction to make recommendations to "insure quality education and reverse the trend of entering students unprepared for typical college workloads." The concerns of students, faculty, and administrators regarding the nature and quality of the second language requirement was recognized as being part of the same larger issue. Thus, the Task Force membership comprised faculty, students, high school teachers, and representatives of the Dean's office and the Minnesota Department of Education. The Task Force addressed not only the conditions of language education at the University of Minnesota, but also how the state-wide system of primary and secondary education was inextricably linked to what occurred in the college classroom. The entire educational system should ideally be connected in one continuous, articulated stream from the primary grades, through high school, to the University. With regard to foreign languages, this emphasis on articulation meant that the high schools would need to be involved in appropriately preparing their students to continue their language education at the University level.
The 1983 Task Force Report concluded that a proficiency-based system of instruction and evaluation would best solve the problems identified by administrators, faculty, and students. Prevailing research in second language acquisition identified that teaching for proficiency was the best pedagogical method for encouraging usable language skills. Creating a uniform proficiency requirement across all languages would not only help assure quality education, but the new standards would also address the concerns of the various groups. Through the GPT, students were evaluated against nationally recognized standards, rather than by the criteria of one person. Each language department developed an articulated curriculum designed to raise students' proficiency to the required level, instead of having widely varying course objectives. The high schools in Minnesota began to refocus on second language instruction, either by adding new languages or by joining the College in the Schools program, whereby high school students took University-level language courses in high school for college credit and then took the GPT while still in high school.
The GPT was implemented in 1986 in French, German, and Spanish. Later, the GPT would be offered in 24 languages. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proficiency system, another Second Language Task Force was convened with members from the Student Intermediary Board, CLA Advising offices, and faculty from various colleges. The 1991 Task Force Report recommended that CLA "should continue to require the completion of the Graduation Proficiency Test due to its beneficial effects on student and instructor performance."
Official reports and internal departmental analyses have revealed multiple consequences of the GPT, some anticipated, some unexpected. With the University's commitment to high quality proficiency-based language education came the commitment to reduce class sizes. Previously class controls reached 35 or more students, and it was not unusual to have sections with 40-50 students. In order to create a better learning environment, the college lowered class sizes to 22. The college also provided resources for increased teacher training and to purchase needed audio-visual materials and computer software. Additional side-effects included greater vertical articulation with high schools and a corresponding increase in third-year language course enrollment at the University as students arrived on campus better prepared for upper-division courses. Overall, the proficiency system has solved the original concerns of students, faculty, and administration and has resulted in a higher quality education.