What language level does your team actually need?

Ask most people what B1 means and you'll get a shrug. Ask them whether a B1 colleague can handle a client call on their own and you'll get a much longer pause.

That's the problem with the labels. They're precise and completely uninformative. A2, B1, B2 tell you where somebody sits on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. They don't tell you what happens when that person is in a meeting and gets asked a direct question.

We work on a ten-point scale, because the jump from one CEFR band to the next is far too big to be useful when you're planning training. But for deciding what your team needs, it helps to think in stages rather than points on a scale. So here's what each stage looks like on a normal working day.

Getting started (A0 to A1)

From nothing to the basics. Someone at A1 can introduce themselves, ask and answer simple questions, and get through a first exchange if the other person slows down and helps them along. They can't follow a conversation between two native speakers, and shouldn't be expected to.

This stage is about building the habit of speaking out loud from day one, rather than quietly stockpiling vocabulary that never gets used.

Functional (A2)

The language starts doing real work. They can describe what they do, handle routine exchanges, make a booking, get through the everyday parts of the job without falling back on their native language. By the top of this stage they can open, hold and close a conversation, flag a problem and suggest a fix.

In a meeting, though, they'll follow the shape of the discussion and lose the detail. This is where most learners feel the gap open up: they understand far more than they can say.

Working level (B1)

This is where a language becomes genuinely usable. They can hold a conversation on familiar topics, give advice, handle routine client interaction without a colleague sitting next to them, write a straightforward note or message without needing constant correction. At the higher end of the stage, they can give a coherent report and answer questions on the spot at work.

They'll still hesitate under pressure and reach for simpler words than they'd use in their own language. But they're contributing, not just following.

Professional (B2)

Now they can lead. A B2 speaker can hold their own with several native speakers at once, put forward a proposal, disagree with someone and defend the position, present without a script. They start catching what wasn't said.

For most business roles, this is the level that changes what someone is able to do, rather than just how comfortable they feel doing it. It's also where most companies should be aiming for anyone client-facing.

Advanced (C1 to C2)

Fluent and flexible. They handle complex or sensitive situations, adapt their register depending on who's in the room, present at a conference, write a professional email, report, or proposal without needing a second pair of eyes. At the top of the scale, they're using the language with exceptional fluency, precision and ease.

The language stops being the thing they're managing. It's just the thing they're using.

So what does your team actually need?

It depends entirely on what you need them to do.

If the goal is that people can welcome a client and get through the small talk, A2 is enough. If you need someone to hold their own in a project meeting, you're looking at B1. If they need to run the meeting, negotiate, or present to a room, that's B2, and there's no shortcut to it.

The mistake is aiming at a level instead of a capability. “We want the team at B2” is a target with no shape to it. “Our account managers need to run client calls without switching to their native language” is a target you can actually build a course around, and one you'll know you've hit.

Why one number is never the whole picture

We screen before anyone starts, and it isn't to hand out a grade. It's to find the gap.

Someone can sit at B2 on comprehension and A2 on speaking, and a course built around their level as a single number will miss that completely. That gap is usually where the real work is, and it's why we build training around what somebody needs to do in the language, not just where they score.

The full ten-level scale, with what each one means in detail, is set out on our levels page.

And if you want to know where your team actually sits today, that's what our language testing is for.