Avant Newsletter – January 2021

Dear Friends of Avant,

Over the years we have been honored that many of the leading language programs in the country have chosen to partner with Avant to assess their students.

AATSP Strategic Alliance:
Today, I am excited to announce a strategic alliance between Avant and the AATSP (American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese), the first, and the largest language-specific professional association. Both AATSP and Avant share the mission of improving the teaching and learning of Spanish and Portuguese for all students – including Heritage Learners, Second Language Learners, and Dual Language Immersion Learners. As AATSP Executive Director, Dr. Sheri Spain Long said, 

“This alliance will open up opportunities for our members to qualify their students and themselves for their state or Global Seals of Biliteracy. Avant is a thought leader, pioneering ways for language assessment to support effective language learning and program development. The cutting-edge Avant MORE LearningTM trainings and ADVANCETM online proficiency-standards training tool can supplement our AATSP professional development opportunities to support schools in implementing and improving our members’ dual immersion, heritage language, and world language programs.”

You can click on this link to today’s press release for more information on the alliance. 

I also wanted to introduce you to additional partnerships that we have formed recently with leaders in the language field.

Asia Society Alliance
In March of 2020, Avant was selected by the Asia Society as their assessment and professional learning partner, expanding access to Avant STAMP, MORE Learning professional learning and ADVANCE for all of their Chinese Language Partner Schools and the International Studies Schools Network schools. As Cleopatra Wise, Director of Chinese Learning Initiatives at the Asia Society said, “This is a significant partnership that will help to generate improved student learning outcomes in the Chinese language programs in our Center for Global Education network schools.” For more information, click here to read the press release!

NCOLCTL (National Council of Less Commonly Tested Languages) Partnership
As you know, a core part of Avant’s mission is to support Heritage and Less Commonly Tested Languages. Avant currently delivers tests in 35 languages (with 3 more in development), including 21 WorldSpeak tests of Speaking and Writing that can be used to qualify for the state and Global Seals of Biliteracy. Because of this, we are particularly proud that NCOLCTL (The National Council of Less Commonly Tested Languages) has chosen Avant to be its exclusive assessment partner. Each year Avant will develop one WorldSpeak test for a language that the NCOLTCL members choose. ncltcl.org

NALRC (National African Language Resource Center Partnership
Avant is also honored to have finalized an agreement with the NALRC (National African Language Resource Center) at Indiana University. Under the agreement, Avant will expand the levels of STAMP tests of Swahili and Yoruba originally created at CASLS (Center for Applied Second Language Studies) at the University of Oregon and NALRC, and deliver and score the tests. To read more about Avant’s partnership with the NALRC, click here. 

It is an exciting time to be at Avant. We will have more updates on our Remote Proctoring Solution, our new STAMP Medical for Spanish test, and more, coming soon. 

Wishing you all health and success this year. 

David