1. Budapest, Oct BILC Professional Seminar Authenticity in Training and Testing: Making It Real BILC Update
BILC Secretariat

4. BILC events and courses
Annual Conference (May)
STANAG 6001 Testing Workshop (September)
Professional Seminar (October)
Testing Seminars
Faculty Development Workshops

5. 2015 BILC Professional Seminar, Helsinki, Finland, 4-9 October
Theme: Increasing proficiency levels: What works and what doesn’t
Sub-themes:
- Aptitude vs. Attitude in Language Learning
- Immersion Programmes as Proficiency Enhancers
- Blended Learning
- Applying STANAG to Languages Other than English
- Best Practices in Classroom Based Assessment

6. 2016 BILC Conference Riga, Latvia, 22-26 May
Theme: From goals to outcomes: measuring success
Sub-themes:
- Creating courses and validating their effectiveness
- Accreditation of courses
- Applying quality assurance measures to language programs
- Creating coherence across different assessments
- Portability of STANAG 6001 scores to civilian contexts
- STANAG 6001-based training and the Bologna process
- (Dis)parities between scales and tests
- The impact of digital learning environments on learning success
- Challenges of transitioning from traditional to blended learning
- Enhancing performance through standardization
- Creating templates for success.
Study Groups Topics:
- Quality assurance for language programs
- Portability of STANAG 6001 certificates to civilian context
- Best practices in blended learning
- Successful templates for designing, developing and
validating courses.

7. 2016 BILC STANAG Testing Workshop Brno, Czech Republic, 6-9 September
Theme: TESTING THE TEST – HOW VALID IS OUR VALIDITY ARGUMENT? 
Sub-themes:
Qualitative versus quantitative analysis
Piloting challenges
Test validation partnerships
Think aloud protocols
Data analysis tools
Consequential validity
Modified Angoff procedure and its place in the validation process
Use of validation procedures to inform training

8. ACT-sponsored BILC courses
Funding: NATO Self-Payers NATO Subsidies for eligible partners
A. Hosted by the Partner Language Training Center Europe (PLTCE), Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
Language Testing Seminar
- 2 weeks
- twice a year
Advanced Language Testing Seminar
- 3 weeks
- once a year
Language Standards & Assessment Seminar
B. Hosted by PLTCE, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; FLD, Shumen, Bulgaria; Poljce, Slovenia
English Teaching Faculty Development Workshop
four times a year

11. BILC Cooperative Visits (August 2015- Oct 2016)
Mongolia, August 2015
Georgia, January 2016
Ukraine, March/April 2016
Ukraine, April 2016
Azerbaijan, May 2016
Mongolia, May/June 2016
Azerbaijan, October 2016
Georgia, October 2016

12. Request from Allied Command Transformation Joint Force Trainer
1. In accordance with References A and B, the SGNTG kindly asks BILC to conduct SGNTG 2015 Action Item Numbers 6 and 7 as follows: a. BILC to investigate the portability of NATO military language certification into civilian terms and vice versa, based on discussions during SGNTG 2015 Agenda Item #13.1. b. Integration of Language Education into Military Training & Exercises. Based on discussions during SGNTG 2015 Agenda Item #13.1, it was determined that a Study should be conducted to assess whether Language Education can be integrated into Military Training and Exercises more efficiently. BILC volunteered to conduct an informal review internally.

13. Two BILC Working Groups
Portability and Recognition of STANAG 6001 Certificates
Level 4 Working Group
27-28 Sept. 2016, Bled, Slovenia
- Improving recognition of STANAG certificates both within the militaries as well as by civilian institutions
- Exploring more standardization of STANAG certificates across nations
- Rendering to non-specialists the complexities of comparing the STANAG criterion referenced tests to other types of language tests
- Formation of Working Group on Level 4 – BILC , Istanbul
- Paper: “A Conceptual Model and Implications for Testing” –BILC Website, 2014
- Article: “Defining and Assessing Level 4 Proficiency” Chapter 10 in “Language in Uniform”, Cambridge Scholars 2015
- Prototype Reading Test – Work in Progress

14. Special Initiatives BILC SharP
NATO-Partnership Training and Education Centre (PTEC) collaboration
BILC SharP

16. BILC site

17. 2016 BILC Professional Seminar, Budapest, Hungary, 24-27 October
Theme: Authenticity in training and testing: making it real
Sub-topics
Linking training and testing to real-world target language use
Traditional textbooks versus authentic materials
Co-operating/partnering with local universities
Attaining concordance between linguistic objectives and training outcomes
Benefitting from tele-collaboration between training establishments
Using social media in training
Teaching and learning as two sides of the same coin
Language maintenance
Workshops
Designing reading to write tasks for Student Military Staff Officers
Education programmes for Communicatively and Culturally Literate Military Personnel

18. Questions?
BILC site: BILC address: