BILC UPDATE Rome, Italy, June 8, 2009 BILC Secretary & D/Secretary Bureau de Coordination Linguistique Internationale Bureau for International Language Coordination

What Does BILC Do? NATO’s consultative and advisory body for language training and testing issues, since1966 Conference in Spring & Professional Seminar in Fall Responsible for STANAG 6001 Language Testing Seminars Assistance to National Testing Programmes Language Programme Assessments Other projects

BILC Purpose Mission: To promote and foster interoperability among NATO and PfP nations by furthering standardization of language training and testing. Through exchange of knowledge and best practices, BILC supports the Alliance's operations. Vision: To lead towards levels of excellence where progress made by one is shared by all.

UPDATE STANAG 6001 Background: In 2006 NTG/JSSG asked BILC to update STANAG 6001 (Ed. 2) New Labels & Optional + Levels Outcome: STANAG 6001 Edition 3 approved by BILC SC at the June 08 Conference French STANAG 6001 Edition 3 sent to ACT in Dec 08. Status : Approved by NTG in Oct 08 and promulgated by NSA Feb 09

Ongoing Activities Language Testing Seminars Since 2000, about 300 attendees from 38 nations and 4 NATO offices Advanced Language Testing Seminar (ALTS) Target audience: LTS graduates who work in testing

BIH & GEO Initial visits in Recommendations for establishing an official, centralized testing function within the MoD LTS training Series of workshops BIH Piloting test items in Italy in March 2009 First test administrations in June 2009 BILC Assistance to National Testing Programmes

Language Programme Assessments AIM: To Assess Language Training Programmes and Offer Recommendations Assessment teams have consisted of professionals from Canada, Germany Slovenia, Sweden, UK, and US.

Benchmark Advisory Test (BAT) Purpose of BAT: To provide an external measure against which nations can compare their national STANAG testing results Goal: To promote relative parity of scale interpretation and testing instruments across countries Specs: G eneral language proficiency iaw STANAG 6001 Everyday survival and work-related topics Some NATO-related topics at higher levels Not job-specific

Benchmark Advisory Test (BAT) Tasking from Allied Command Transformation (ACT) to standardize testing Survey conducted on need for a NATO-wide Benchmark Advisory Test (BAT) Items collected from BILC member nations (Voluntary National Contributions) WG worked via /web and met 2X per year

BAT STATUS ACT made decision on allocation of the first 200 BAT tests BAT scheduling underway Report on benchmarking process this conference Preliminary results will be given at the BILC Seminar in October Future interest in the BAT will be discussed at SC

Language Needs Analysis- New Nov 08 Meeting – NTG / Mil Committee – BILC was asked to undertake preliminary review of linguistic requirements of NATO CE Posts. COA Info sent to ACT – Feb 09 MN WG meeting during this BILC Report due Nov 09

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