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Episode 1 - The Multiliterate Mind

We welcome David Bong, CEO and co-founder of Avant Assessment, and we celebrate Avant’s 25th anniversary with a toast. We begin with David’s personal language journey. He shares that language did not feel relevant in high school, but college changes everything when he becomes fascinated with Japan during the Vietnam War era. Living in Japan for roughly a decade and spending time in Hong Kong, he experiences the moment language “clicks” on a Tokyo commute, when a simple conversation opens an entirely new world. We connect that lived experience to why Avant exists. David explains how language and cultural misunderstandings in Japan can escalate into real workplace problems, including conflict, mistrust, and serious organizational fallout. Those patterns, combined with Sheila’s experience negotiating across cultures, push them to “change the way language is learned and taught.” In Eugene, Oregon, they partner with Dr. Carl Falsgraf, whose online proficiency assessment brings standards to life at scale. Together, we launch Avant on January 8, 2001, centered on the idea that proficiency is about what learners can actually do with language across reading, writing, listening, and speaking. From there, we move into the present moment: AI is reshaping communication, learning, and assessment. We challenge the assumption that translation tools will eliminate the need for human language learning, and we spotlight what AI still struggles to capture, especially culture, register, hierarchy, and what sits “inside” the words. We explore how writing changes when people routinely draft with AI, and we distinguish between assessing someone’s independent writing ability and assessing their ability to collaborate with AI while preserving voice and intent. We introduce the idea that teaching writing without AI remains essential, not as rejection, but as a foundation that makes AI use more effective and more authentic. Finally, we look ahead. We discuss how AI can merge assessment and learning through continuous, low-stress, data-rich practice, giving teachers better insight and more targeted support. We close with a simple call: language learning matters because it builds communication, cultural perspective, empathy, humility, and the human skills we keep saying we want. 00:00 Welcome to The Multiliterate Mind 00:31 Meet David Bong + Avant’s 25th anniversary toast 01:47 Why language did not connect in high school 02:17 Fascination with Japan and moving to Asia 02:59 The “first real conversation” moment in Japanese 03:54 How language misunderstanding drives real workplace risk 05:14 Why David and Sheila want to change language education 06:30 Building STAMP and launching Avant (Jan 8, 2001) 08:49 Proficiency: what we can actually do with language 10:32 AI, translation, and what culture adds beyond words 11:49 Writing in the AI era and what assessment should measure 16:24 Keeping voice and reducing “AI dialect” 21:04 What stays fundamental without AI 22:18 Merging assessment and learning with AI feedback 31:29 Making the case for language as a core subject 39:17 One takeaway: travel where you do not speak the language 39:37 Closing and call to action