Avant Assessment CEO Mike Patterson has been appointed to lead U.S. delegates to the International Standards Organization TC232/WG2 (learning services for non-formal education and training technical committee workgroup focused on language learning services) meetings in Beijing, China this week.

Workgroup delegates to ISO TC232/WG2 represent over a dozen countries and have the task of ensuring that the views and positions of their country are known and understood by the committee. The goal of the international committee is to develop consensus and an international standard for providers of language learning services in the non-formal sector (outside the mainstream school and higher education curriculum).

Mike and Avant Vice President of Research and Assessment, Paul Tucker, have participated in three previous international meetings and have been delegates to the workgroup since its inception. Both bring critical experience to the U.S. delegation having served on the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) Testing Committee which is a network of Federal, academic, private business and NGO language specialists and managers who share a common goal of improving the nation’s capacity to learn, teach and effectively use foreign languages in the national interests.

Additionally, Paul Tucker served as the Lead Writer for the ASTM Standards of Practice for language education and now chairs the testing subcommittee (F43.04) which is looking at differentiating standards per testing purpose. Mike Patterson served as a committee member at the U.S. Department of Education National Educational Technology Planning Sessions in 2003 and 2004, and has been actively involved with SIIA, CoSN, SIF, Software Association of Oregon and other industry organizations where he has served as a presenter and panelist at national and regional conferences.

“It is an honor to represent the interests of our country in the field of language acquisition” says Mike Patterson, Avant’s CEO. “As a country, we are a leader in developing thorough and rigorous standards on language training. It is important to the future of global communication that international standards meet or exceed those same standards. I look forward to these experiences working with colleagues from around the world on common goals. They are as rewarding as they are educational and challenging.”

Via EPR Network
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