Why Do People Hate Standardized Tests These Days? Here are just a few of their reasons: Only 14% of parents think standardized testing is very important in evaluating schools, making…
Data Literacy: It Doesn’t Take An Einstein
Art Fry was so frustrated, he almost said a bad word in church. Every time he opened his hymnal, his bookmarks fluttered to the floor. Then he remembered that one…
Avant ADVANCE: Bringing Language Standards To Life
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle Teachers As Raters=Success We gets calls from schools around the country every day….
Training Raters, Transforming Classrooms
Interview with Marzanna Owinski of The Polish Mission Marzanna Owinski spoke with Avant Cofounder Dr. Carl Falsgraf about Polish language education in the United States and the goals of…
Interview With Marzanna Owinski Of The Polish Mission
Language Proficiency is the Goal Proficiency is a much-discussed and frequently used word in the language education field. Our company and others deliver “proficiency” assessments. But which proficiency is most important…
Why Language Proficiency Matters
Who Rates The STAMP Tests? The human-rated responses in the Avant STAMP, PLACE, Arabic Proficiency Test(APT), and the Spanish Heritage Language tests are rated by Certified Avant Raters who are…
How Does Avant Rate Speaking And Writing Responses?
Avant STAMP 4Se was developed especially to assess the language proficiency of elementary students. Why The STAMP 4Se For Grade 2 Through 6 Language Learners Is Important In the past…
Why Avant Recommends STAMP 4Se For Grades 2 And Above
The United States is a country of immigrants, but historically the second generation of these immigrants(heritage language learners) has lost their parents’ language – making our country poorer for it;…
Why Heritage Language Learning Matters
Coding ≠ World Language Some state legislatures have proposed that students who learn to code should earn world language credits. Is learning to code equivalent to learning a world language?…
The Coding is Equivalent to World Language Myth – Should We Look In The Mirror?
Why Test Reliability and Validity are Important “Test reliability” and “validity” are two of the most misunderstood terms in language testing. Both are very important in determining whether a particular…
Test Reliability And Validity
What Are The Differences Between Fixed-Form And Adaptive Test Design? There are two fundamental test designs in language proficiency assessment: Fixed-Form Testing and Adaptive Testing. In a fixed form test,…
Fixed Form VS. Adaptive Test Design In Language Proficiency Testing
Language proficiency assessment can seem complex or even mysterious – a black box that just spits out a score. However, it isn’t that complicated once you get familiarized with a…
How Standards Are Used In Language Proficiency Assessments
What Language Proficiency Isn’t Proficiency is definitely NOT what I learned in my college Japanese courses. Proficiency is a much-discussed word in the language field. But what proficiency are we…
What is Language Proficiency?
Simply stated, Proficiency is the ability to use language in a real-world situation, Performance is the ability to use language in a limited and controlled situation such as a classroom…
Proficiency vs. Performance vs. Achievement