This guide provides descriptions of standards for assessing students' skills in French as a second language, accompanied by samples of student work in the four language skills (listening comprehension, reading comprehension, writing, and speaking) at each of nine competency levels. An introductory section discusses basic principles in reporting student progress and using the samples included here to assess student work. It also offers background on the samples and describes the process used for their analysis. Four subsequent sections address the four language skill areas. For listening and reading comprehension, performance criteria are detailed for three performance levels (beginning, intermediate, advanced), with examples of student performance for each level. In some cases, samples are for tailored texts in a teaching/testing situation, in others for authentic texts. The sections on oral and written production outline specific features to be assessed at each of the three basic performance levels, with examples offered at nine levels for oral production and seven levels for written production. Appended materials include charts of standards criteria for performance in each language skill area, summaries of reasons for listening to or reading texts, background information contained in the authentic texts (on an accompanying cassette tape), and grids for analysis. Contains 21 references. (MSE)