Avant Newsletter: December 2016

AVANT STAMP RESULTS – NATIONAL AVERAGES 2016

By: Kyle Ennis, Avant’s VP of Education and Assessment

Avant delivers language assessments with the objective of improving language learning and teaching through meaningful data and reports. We are very happy to release our 2016 Avant STAMP National Averages data. The report compiles data on elementary immersion, middle/high school, and higher ed. results from Avant STAMP 4Se and Avant STAMP 4S. The norms identify average proficiency levels of ability in each domain at the end of specific grades (Avant STAMP 4Se elementary) or years of study (Avant STAMP 4S middle school/high school and higher ed.).

Several points stand out:

• Across languages, students generally advance to Novice-Mid within one year of study in most domains. Thereafter, growth and progress among students is generally one half a sub-level (composite score of all domains) in each subsequent year of study.

• There is a ceiling for many students at the Novice-High/Intermediate-Low threshold. Growth and progress into and through the Intermediate levels takes more time and will show different areas of strength during this phase of development and acquisition.

We thank all of our Avant STAMP customers for giving us the ability to provide this report to the field. Please let us know if you have any comments or feedback from this report.

Click on the link to view and/or download a copy of
Avant STAMP Results — National Averages 2016

NEWS AND EVENTS

NEWS
We continue to improve our assessments and support materials, and expand the number of languages that we assess. Here are a few of the things that we have been working on: 

Item Refresh
Beginning this month Avant will implement its annual 100% refresh of assessment items for Writing and Speaking across all languages.

Avant WorldSpeak
In response to requests from leaders in the language learning field for a valid, reasonably priced online assessment for Less Commonly Tested Languages (LCTLs), Avant is developing a series of Avant WorldSpeak online assessments. WorldSpeak can be used in the same way as Avant STAMP and will assess Writing and Speaking for LCTLs using Avant’s technology for online test delivery, rating of test-taker responses and reporting. We are launching with five languages: Alaskan Yup’ik, Filipino (Tagalog), Somali Maay Maay, Somali Maxaa and Vietnamese.

New Languages Announced

Avant is happy to announce that we will be adding Hindi and Russian as Avant STAMP assessments for middle school to adult in the spring of 2017. For more information contact .

Avant PLACE Sample Tests
Avant’s placement solution for grades 6-adult now has sample tests available for all Avant PLACE languages: Arabic, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin (Simplified and Traditional) and Spanish. See how Avant PLACE will place your students quickly, easily and accurately, saving time and money! Sample Tests

WHERE YOU’LL FIND US!

After the New Year you’ll find Avant exhibiting at the following conferences:

• NECTFL – Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in New York, NY, February 9-11, 2017.

• CLTA – California Language Teachers Association 2017 Annual Conference in Monterey, CA, February 16-19, 2017. 

• SWCOLT – Southwest Conference on Language Teaching 2017 Annual Conference in Oklahoma City, OK, March 2-4, 2017.

Beginning in January, visit the new Events tab on our website for information about other upcoming conferences, webinars and workshops.