A Pathway to Biliteracy

Logo of the Biliteracy Pathway Certificate Program.

The Biliteracy Pathway Certificate Program is designed to celebrate the linguistic diversity of students in Massachusetts and encourage long-term language learning through a series of Biliteracy Pathway Certificates that celebrate and recognize a student’s language skills. They can be awarded to students at different points in their education, based on proficiency assessments in English and one or more partner languages.

Biliteracy Pathway Certificates can be given to any student, at any age and grade level, and in any type of language learning program, including students in World Language, English Language Education, Dual Language Education, Language Immersion, and Transitional Bilingual Education programs, as well as students who are  learning languages at home, in after school language programs or in private schools.  

Logo for the Massachusetts State Seal of Biliteracy.

In addition to celebrating current language learning, the Biliteracy Pathway Certificate Program is designed to help prepare students to earn the State Seal of Biliteracy upon high school graduation, but it is not part of the state program. Please see the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website for information about the State Seal of Biliteracy. 

The Biliteracy Pathway Certificate Program is overseen by the Language Opportunity Coalition (LOC), which was founded in 2014 to bring together diverse organizations in Massachusetts and increase language learning opportunities for learning English, native, heritage, and world languages. The Coalition led advocacy for passage of the LOOK Act of 2017, which restored bilingual education and established the State Seal of Biliteracy. From 2014 to 2018, prior to passage of the LOOK Act, the Coalition coordinated the Massachusetts Seal of Biliteracy Pilot Project. This website is currently maintained for the Language Opportunity Coalition by Massachusetts Association of Teachers of Speakers of Other Languages (MATSOL) and Multi-State Association for Bilingual Education (MABE).

New address! We have updated our URL to: BiliteracyPathwayMA.us to better reflect the current focus of our work. Our previous URL SealofBiliteracyMA.org also forwards to this site.