Effective July, 2010, the California Administrative Office of the Courts will begin using the written and oral court interpreter certification exams developed by the Consortium for Language Access in the Courts (Consortium). The decision to adopt the exams of the Consortium was based on the results of a comprehensive study conducted by ALTA Language Services. The report is now available electronically for the public to read here (PDF). Questions or comments about the study and the ensuing move to Consortium exams may be submitted to courtinterpreters@jud.ca.gov.

Overview of What’s New in Testing

Video: (click play)

Watch the rest of the videos here:

California Court Interpreter Exam Videos

ALTA Language Services, Inc. is a recognized leader in language services and language testing in the United States. Currently, we are seeking native to nearly native Iraqi-Arabic linguists, preferably with a strong degree of familiarity with the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scales, to be a part of a two-day teleconference panel determining the passing score for government listening comprehension tests.

Passing scores will be set according to the ILR scale for the 0+ – 2 levels. The teleconference is currently slated to take place in late July and will last two full working days. If you are interested in obtaining more details regarding participation in the teleconference panel, please contact Jocelyn McFarlane at jmcfarlane[at]altalang.com with an attachment of your current curriculum vitae.

You may also reach her at 404.920.3826.

Would you like to contribute to ALTA’s Beyond Words blog? We were recently ranked by Lexiophiles as this year’s #2 language blog for language professionals and this year’s #9 overall language blog.

Guidelines for Submission
The article must be about language, and should fall into one of the categories that we write about, from the translation business to language and food. It must be written in English (400 to 800 words) and it must be original and unpublished, either in print or online.

If you’re interested, send your submission to guestblogger [at] altalang.com. We’ll review it and get back to you when we’re ready to post. (We will edit and fact-check your submissions.) If you have your own blog or language related website, please give us the address along with a one or two sentence description of yourself so we can link back to you. If you’d rather us link to a Facebook or Twitter account, we’d be happy to do that as well.

Sample Articles

Native Tongues: Speaking in Estonia
World Cup Report: The Languages of South Africa
Speaking Other Languages in Alabama

The results are in for Lexiophiles’ Top 100 Language Blogs of 2010, and we’re very happy to announce that Beyond Words claimed this year’s #2 spot for Language Professionals, and the #9 spot overall!!

Thanks for your vote, and thanks to the people at bab.la and Lexiophiles (a wonderful language blog in its own right) for sponsoring this contest for the third year!

Each one of the blogs that participated in this competition deserves a shout-out. Please visit them all throughout the coming weeks. You’ll surely find valuable information and entertaining content.

Thanks for reading, listening, and watching.

Voting for Lexiophile’s Top 100 Language Blogs starts today! If you are a fan of ALTA’s Beyond Words, vote for this blog. Also, take a few moments to check out some of the other nominated blogs; Lexiophiles does a great job of compiling the best language blogs and podcasts for their contest every year.

The contest places language blogs into 4 categories: Language Learning, Language Teaching, Language Technology, and Language Professionals. Beyond Words was nominated under Language Professionals, and you can vote for one blog in each category.

ALTA has completed a comprehensive study of court interpreter exams for the Judicial Council of California. The published report, California’s Assessment of the Consortium for Language Access in the Courts’ Exams, appears on the California Court’s website.

In May of 2009, the Judicial Council of California contracted ALTA to assess the Consortium for Language Access to the Courts’ (CLAC or Consortium) test development process. The aim of the study was to perform a comparative analysis between the examinations developed by CLAC to certify its member state court interpreters and the examinations developed by California to certify California state court interpreters.

The study includes literature and document reviews and interviews with members of the Consortium’s staff both past and present, including language consultants and exam writers. Additionally, ALTA and a team of psychometricians performed a psychometric audit of the Consortium’s test development process to identify its key strengths and any areas that were in need of improvement to meet test industry standards according to the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA, & NCME, 1999.)

Once the psychometric audit was complete, a group of subject-matter experts examined both the written and oral Consortium exams to identify the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for successful court interpreting , as determined in the Study of California’s Court Interpreter Certification and Registration Testing. Results from the comparative analysis showed a high degree of overlap between the California and CLAC written and oral exam KSAs, as well as a strong degree of comparability between the structure, content, and level of difficulty found in the oral exams for each program.

The final step of the study involved performing a standard-setting session applying the Angoff Method to establish the level of functional equivalency between the passing requirements of each program’s oral examinations.
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ALTA is a leader in language testing and large-scale language solutions for government agencies and corporations nationwide. In addition to being the official language testing provider for the cities of Los Angeles and New York, ALTA has worked with the Judicial Council of California on language testing studies for several years. Learn more about us at altalang.com

Spring has arrived and we’re taking a look back at the articles we’ve posted since January. Here are a few from the past four months that you might have missed. Hopefully, they’ll provide an informative and entertaining break to your day:

Top Multilingual U.S. Cities
If you haven’t already filled out your 2010 Census form, this article might inspire you to bust out a pen and a stamp. Using data from the previous census, we ranked the United States’ 40 largest cities according to their multilingual characteristics.

Fictional Languages in Film:
The Linguists Behind Na’vi, Sindarin, Klingon and Ulam
Get your geek on! Jennifer discusses the linguists who created a few of the most popular fictional languages in film, and she provides short clips of the languages in use.

10 Confusing English Words and How to Conquer Them
Beyond Words contributor, Maria, looks at five pairs of words that English speakers often muddle up. After reading this, you’ll never “flout” your mastery of English again.

Beyond Words Podcast: Landing in Morocco, An Arabic Lesson
This is the first episode of Beyond Words’ new language podcast. Take a few minutes to learn how to get from an airport to a hotel speaking Modern Standard Arabic, and download the lesson for later playback.

Periodic Table Manners, Wordnik.com, and other Notes on Language from Erin Mckean
Is it possible to not love Erin Mckean? We don’t think so. If you still don’t know who Mckean is, this article serves as a great introduction to the lexicographic work she has been doing for years.

Hegan: The New Male Vegan
The latest neologism of 2010 is hegan. Beyond Words contributor, Jes, analyzes the development of the new word, and offers insights on its cultural sticking power.

10 Foreign Language Covers
Studies show that singing in a foreign language might help learn that language faster. In this article, we compile ten fun English language songs and pair them with their foreign language counterparts. You can listen to both versions of the songs, which should leave you walking like ein Ägypter.

Top 10 Languages Tested
This article breaks down the top languages ALTA’s clients tested for in 2009. The results provide an interesting glimpse at language trends for business and government.

5 Must-See TED Talks on Language
We sorted through all of the TED talks about language from past TED conferences. These are five of the most thoughtful, interesting, and entertaining talks on the subject.

If you’re interested in getting more language-related articles and media from around the web, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Happy reading, listening, and watching!

- photo by mccoryjames

ALTA Language Services is conducting a pilot study for non-native English speakers. If you have taken the TOEFL or another spoken language test such as the ACTFL OPI, or the DLPT OPI within the last 6 months, please contact us at lhopkins [at] altalang.com.

ALTA will pay you US$50 to complete a test of your English speaking skills and fill out a short survey about your experience taking the test. All tests are conducted by telephone.

When you write to us at lhopkins [at] altalang.com, please provide the date you took the TOEFL or other validated spoken language test, and your score on the speaking portion.

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ALTA Language Services has provided language testing to U.S. corporations and government agencies for 30 years. For more information about us, please visit our website at www.altalang.com.

For Beyond Words readers who know ALTA primarily as a translation company, it may come as a surprise to learn that we are national leaders in the Language Testing sector. Since ALTA does not develop academic language tests (like the TOEFL & SAT, which get so much attention) it’s not surprising that our services might fly under many people’s radar. Our leadership in medical, government, and corporate language testing, however, keeps us busy with interesting projects for clients and partners who you’ve definitely heard of: Kaiser Permanente, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the City of Los Angeles, major US airlines, financial institutions, and non-profit organizations throughout the world.

We test nearly 100 languages, but just as our top translation services provide an interesting glimpse at language trends for business and government, the top languages we test reflect much about current political and economic conditions, and the importance of valid and reliable language skill verification for business, health care, and national security. Here is the data on the top languages we tested in 2009:

Top 10 Languages Tested (2009)

Rounding off the list, the next 10 most-tested languages after Russian are: German, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Portuguese, Somali, Turkish, Cantonese, and Sorani.

Other Language Testing Articles

Language Testing and Health Care Reform:
ALTA and Kaiser Permanente Breaking Cultural Barriers

Psychometricians: What They Are, and What They Do

What is the Angoff Method?

Norm Referenced vs Criterion Referenced Testing

Multiple Choice Test Development 101

The Value of Independent Language Testing