USCIS Announces Nationwide Trial Process to Redesign Naturalization Test

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that we will conduct a nationwide trial of proposed changes to the naturalization test. The trial will include changes to the English-speaking portion of the test and content and format updates to the civics portion. The trial will not include changes to the reading or writing portions of the test as they are already standardized.  (text of the full announcement)

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) invites you to participate in a national engagement on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023, from 2 to 3 p.m. Eastern, to learn more about a nationwide trial for the naturalization test redesign initiative.  To register for the 1/12/2023 event:

  • 1. Visit the USCIS registration page
  • 2.  You will be asked to provide your email address and select “Submit”
  • 3. On the next screen, you will see a notification that you successfully subscribed to this event.

During the first part of the engagement, we will give an overview of the proposed changes, provide the trial testing parameters and explain the volunteer process for trial testing opportunities. During the second part of the engagement, we will respond to questions and hold a listening session to hear your comments and feedback on all aspects of the trial testing process. We also invite you to email comments on the trial testing to natzredesign22@uscis.dhs.gov.

We look forward to participating in the redesign to the English-speaking portion of the test and content and format updates to the civics portion.

Comments

Since the speaking part is the interview, including going over the N400 with some legalese questions, hopefully this will include clarification about how much the adjudicating officer needs to rephrase, as opposed to expecting the applicant to be able to define these terms.

Good comment.  Clarification is a critical language skill but the stakes are too high for some to benefit from the process.  I think some of the Part 12 War Crimes vocabulary can be traumatic for some applicants (and their teachers / legal representatives as well).  It would be enlightening to hear how adjudicators deal with traumatized interviews during the interview.  But these questions also reflect changes to the national security code.  I think that the recent N-400 revision ironed out some grammar issues but I didn't see any significant vocabulary updates.  The question remains how to administer a fair and equitable naturalization interview that reflects community values (ex: family unification) while upholding the federal immigration code.

I am also very interested in changes to the form and content of the civics questions.  How can we develop a set of civic questions that reflects the diverse experience of the American people?  For example, in the current set of civics questions, there  are a lot of references to military conflict--what does that say about American core values?  Yes, if you dig into the causes of war, you tap a deep desire for peace and freedom.  But the problem is that so many students are struggling with the language of the test, that they glide over the deeper historical and political information to master the "answer" and "pass the TEST."  This is a constant struggle in a EL Civics / ABE classroom, let alone dedicated US Citizenship class.

I would interested to hear further comments on what you would change the naturalization "test"?   How can use the "test" to talk about American values and identity?  What questions/topics would you add/remove?