An alternative assessment instrument developed to assess oral language skills of students in Spanish immersion programs in the United States is described. Originally developed by the Center for Applied Linguistic to evaluate 6-year-old immersion students' speaking and listening skills in a school in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the Student Oral Proficiency Assessment (SOPA) is now used as a prototype for oral language assessment of 6-to-9-year-olds students in a variety of immersion program types. The SOPA interview consists of four parts: listening comprehension; informal questions; science and language usage; and story telling. Two students are assessed at a time by two examiners in a non-stressful, friendly environment. The goal of the assessment is to show what the students can do with language, not what they cannot do. Students' comprehension and fluency are rated on a six-level holistic scale based on a modified rating scale of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). In addition to a description of the instrument and rating scale, results from a two-way Spanish immersion program are presented, and plans for collection reliability and validity data are discussed. (Author/MSE)