The Multiliterate Mind Podcast

We welcome David Bong, CEO and co-founder of Avant Assessment, and we celebrate Avant’s 25th anniversary with a toast. We begin with David’s personal language journey. He shares that language did not feel relevant in high school, but college changes everything when he becomes fascinated with Japan during the Vietnam War era. Living in Japan for roughly a decade and spending time in Hong Kong, he experiences the moment language “clicks” on a Tokyo commute, when a simple conversation opens an entirely new world.

We connect that lived experience to why Avant exists. David explains how language and cultural misunderstandings in Japan can escalate into real workplace problems, including conflict, mistrust, and serious organizational fallout. Those patterns, combined with Sheila’s experience negotiating across cultures, push them to “change the way language is learned and taught.” In Eugene, Oregon, they partner with Dr. Carl Falsgraf, whose online proficiency assessment brings standards to life at scale. Together, we launch Avant on January 8, 2001, centered on the idea that proficiency is about what learners can actually do with language across reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

From there, we move into the present moment: AI is reshaping communication, learning, and assessment. We challenge the assumption that translation tools will eliminate the need for human language learning, and we spotlight what AI still struggles to capture, especially culture, register, hierarchy, and what sits “inside” the words. We explore how writing changes when people routinely draft with AI, and we distinguish between assessing someone’s independent writing ability and assessing their ability to collaborate with AI while preserving voice and intent. We introduce the idea that teaching writing without AI remains essential, not as rejection, but as a foundation that makes AI use more effective and more authentic.

Finally, we look ahead. We discuss how AI can merge assessment and learning through continuous, low-stress, data-rich practice, giving teachers better insight and more targeted support. We close with a simple call: language learning matters because it builds communication, cultural perspective, empathy, humility, and the human skills we keep saying we want.

00:00 Welcome to The Multiliterate Mind
00:31 Meet David Bong + Avant’s 25th anniversary toast
01:47 Why language did not connect in high school
02:17 Fascination with Japan and moving to Asia
02:59 The “first real conversation” moment in Japanese
03:54 How language misunderstanding drives real workplace risk
05:14 Why David and Sheila want to change language education
06:30 Building STAMP and launching Avant (Jan 8, 2001)
08:49 Proficiency: what we can actually do with language
10:32 AI, translation, and what culture adds beyond words
11:49 Writing in the AI era and what assessment should measure
16:24 Keeping voice and reducing “AI dialect”
21:04 What stays fundamental without AI
22:18 Merging assessment and learning with AI feedback
31:29 Making the case for language as a core subject
39:17 One takeaway: travel where you do not speak the language
39:37 Closing and call to action

The Multiliterate Mind will explore how multilingualism, multiliteracy, and proficiency intersect in a rapidly changing, AI-infused world. Through conversations with educators, researchers, and leaders across languages and continents, the podcast will reimagine what it means to teach, learn, and communicate in the 21st century.

At the heart of the podcast lies Proficiency First Multiliteracies (PFM) — the theoretical framework guiding its vision. PFM looks at multilingualism and multiliteracy through a proficiency lens, positioning language ability as the foundation of meaning-making across languages, cultures, and modes.

In this view:

• Proficiency is not just a metric; it’s the process through which humans construct and share understanding.
• Multiliteracies recognize that communication now spans written, oral, visual, and digital forms.
• Proficiency First unites these ideas into a single, human-centered framework for learning in an AI-driven world.