TITLE: How to assess a non-natively english speaking high-schooler's mathematical ability?
QUESTION [10 upvotes]: I'm a math PhD who has been asked to interview a high school student and determine what he/she is interested in and how strong the student is.
Usually I would want them to talk as much as possible about what classes they've taken and what parts of the classes they like the best. Generally I'd like to allow them to get comfortable talking about what they like rather than what they think I'd like. However, that might not work this time as the student is a non-native english speaker and may get less comfortable as I try to get him/her to talk more.
Thus far I'm thinking about watching how he/she solves different problems in different areas of math, but I would like to know if anyone has done this before or has any suggestions for evaluating a student who might not be comfortable talking much.

REPLY [2 votes]: Seeing textbooks or other material, in any language, from which this person has learned mathematics, would be useful and relatively easy to interpret for an Anglophone mathematician.   If these are not available then equivalents may exist on the internet.  Pointing to material in books in English and seeing if it is familiar may also reveal something. 
At the high end, the International Mathematical Olympiad problems are available online in dozens of languages, probably including that of the student's native country.  This could at least tell you whether the student has heard of some concept used in a problem, and you would have a translation into English so you know you are discussing the same thing.