Avant Newsletter – June 2017
AVANT NEWSLETTER
June 2017
IN THIS ISSUE:
Avant STAMP And The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines
The Avant Blog
News
AVANT STAMP AND THE ACTFL PROFICIENCY GUIDELINES
David Bong, Avant CEO
STAMP was originally developed by the Center for Applied Second Language Studies at the University of Oregon to meet the need for an online proficiency assessment that was based on the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. The “STA” in STAMP stands for the “Standards” in the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines.
Why Avant STAMP Does Not Add Levels to the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines
Avant STAMP continues to hold true to the main ACTFL Proficiency Guideline levels of Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced and the three sublevels of Low, Mid, and High. The Proficiency Guidelines are the standards that are used to establish the World Language learning standards in virtually all of the states in the US. We believe it is important to maintain the integrity of the three sublevels as defined by ACTFL. Avant does not believe it is appropriate or psychometrically justifiable to create additional sublevels without substantially lengthening the assessment and publishing the specific criteria or details that would differentiate these micro-levels. However, the field has asked for a way of providing more granular levels than the three sublevels the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines define. In order to address this need, Avant has generated scaled scores of 200 to 800 for the Listening and Reading sections based on a psychometric analysis of testing data. We believe that this approach is more scientifically valid than artificially adding sublevels that do not exist in ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2012(2012 publication), and that do not exist in any of the other major proficiency scales, ILR or CEFR.
NEWS AND EVENTS
David Learns Spanish – Almost There
I am sitting in my office listening to Victor Manuelle on my headphones, closing in on the end of my three-month Spanish Learning Challenge. This has been a wonderful experience for so many reasons. Having a structure and a real challenge has pushed me to study every night, or more honestly, most nights. Now when I listen to Victor Manuelle’s salsa songs I actually understand some of the lyrics and the meaning he is singing about. Even that limited insight gives me a feel for where he is coming from and the culture that he is singing about.
Avant STAMP Results – National Averages 2016
Curious about how your Avant STAMP scores compare to others across the country?
The National Average Avant STAMP Results from the 2015-2016 academic year represent the nearly 65,000 test takers from schools across the United States and a number of international schools around the world for which we had adequate data on years of study to use in this report. The data for results in Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking are included in this report and organized by level (Elementary, Secondary, and Higher Ed) and by language in alphabetical order. To view or download the full report click here: Avant STAMP Results – National Averages 2016.