Districts are invited to host a Washington World Language Assessment Day of your own by offering nationally available world language proficiency assessments at a suitable time and location in your district. These assessments may include the Standards-based Measurement of Proficiency (STAMP), ACTFL Writing Proficiency Test (WPT), ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) or OPIc (OPI computer-based), and Proctored Writing Tests provided by OSPI – depending on the needs of the students in the area. A number of districts, including Seattle, Aberdeen, Bellingham, Burlington-Edison, Peninsula, and Tukwila, have already begun hosting World Language Assessment Days with great success.

Here’s the process:

1. Contact us. Dr. Bridget Yaden, byaden@plu.edu, Assessment Coordinator for the Washington Association for Language Teaching (WAFLT), and Dr. Michele Anciaux Aoki, michele.aoki@k12.wa.us, OSPI World Languages Program Supervisor, to let us know of your interest and which languages you want to assess.
   
   
2. Select assessments. Decide on which assessments your district wants to offer. Most districts start with the STAMP because it includes Spanish and other commonly tested languages, it is reasonably priced ($30 per student), and straightforward to administer. (More about ACTFL WPT, OPI, and OPIc below.)
   
   
3. Run technology check. If you are offering STAMP, run the technology diagnostics in your computer lab. In particular, you need to make sure that you have adequate Internet bandwidth and headphones with microphones for recording the spoken samples. (If you don’t have headphones with microphones now, you can purchase them for about $25 each.) For more information, visit: http://www.avantassessment.com/sites/default/files/AvantTechnology Guide.pdf and http://209.162.210.7/diagnostics.php.
   
   
4. Choose dates/times. Decide on which dates you want to offer the assessments. Usually a Saturday is good so that students are well rested. Most sites run STAMP from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm, so there is time for students to complete it. You should allow at least a 3 ½ hour window for students to complete the STAMP because it is not timed, and since it is computer-adaptive, more proficient students may take longer to complete it.
   
   
5. Consider payment process. Before your test site can be added to the registration form, WAFLT needs to know if your district will be sponsoring (i.e. paying the registration fee for) students taking the test. If the district is not paying for the tests, then students can either pay WAFLT through PayPal or by sending a check to WAFLT or bringing the test fee in cash or check ($30 for STAMP) on the test date. If the district sponsors the students, WAFLT will send an invoice to the district after the test date.
   
   
6. Add dates/locations to registration. Email Bridget (byaden@plu.edu) to add the dates and locations when you want to host Washington World Language Assessment Day to the online registration form: http://tinyurl.com/Register-WA-WL-Assessment-Day. The registration form will also be updated to indicate whether students in your district are being sponsored or not. You can also limit registration at your site to students from your district.
   
   
7. Hold WA World Language Assessment Day. WAFLT/OSPI will provide you with a final registration list before the test day and will also send out confirmation email reminders to the students who registered for that test date.
   
   
8. Receive letters and certificates from OSPI. Within a week or two after the Assessment Day, OSPI will receive the test results from the testing companies. Then OSPI will create letters and certificates for the students and copies of the test results for your district. These will be mailed to your district to distribute to the students, with a copy for the district files.

Summary of Information Needed:

• Which languages do you want to test?
• Which assessments do you want to offer?
• Do you have an adequate lab for offering STAMP (or ACTFL OPIc)?
• Which dates do you want to schedule?
• Will any students in your district be sponsored (by your district)?

Additional Information about ACTFL OPI, OPIc, WPT, and Proctored Writing Test
The ACTFL assessments are more costly, but cover a wider range of languages than STAMP. If you have students needing to be tested in languages like Russian, Vietnamese, Korean, Amharic, Nepali, and others, then you will likely need to offer the ACTFL tests as an option. 

Usually districts start by having students complete the writing part – either the ACTFL Writing Proficiency Test (WPT), if it is available for that language, or a Proctored Writing Test, provided to the testing site by OSPI. These pencil-and-paper writing tests last for 1 1/2 hours and must be strictly proctored. After receiving the results from the writing portion, then the district might schedule the oral part.

The Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) needs to be scheduled for a specific time and place for each student being interviewed. So, once an interview is scheduled, the district (or student) is responsible for paying for it. The OPIc (OPI computer-based) for languages like Russian, Korean, and Persian can be administered in the same computer lab as the STAMP tests and the district is not charged for the test until the student logs into the computer to take it.

For more specific information about these options, be sure to contact Dr. Bridget Yaden, byaden@plu.edu, Assessment Coordinator for the Washington Association for Language Teaching (WAFLT), and Dr. Michele Anciaux Aoki, michele.aoki@k12.wa.us, OSPI World Languages Program Supervisor.

Creating a LinguaFolio Online Collection of Evidence
Students participating in WA World Language Assessment Days have the option of creating a LinguaFolio Online Collection of Evidence to provide further evidence of their proficiency in the language. This is a more lengthy process, so it is usually scheduled separately from WA World Language Assessment Day. Some districts are requiring students to do this before the district sponsors them to take one of the ACTFL assessments. To learn more, contact Dr. Michele Anciaux Aoki, michele.aoki@k12.wa.us, at OSPI.