ORAL PROFICIENCY INTERVIEWS

Trade Agreement: WTO-AGP/NAFTA/AIT/Canada FTAs with Peru/Colombia/Panama Tendering Procedures: All interested suppliers may submit a bid Attachment: None Non-Competitive Procurement Strategy: Government Objectives Representing Best Interests/Value to Govt Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement: No Vendor Name and Address: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages 1001 N. Fairfax St. Suite 200 Alexandria Virginia United States 22314 Nature of Requirements: Advance Contract Award Notice For terminology (description of acronyms) see Annex 2.

1. Advances Contract Award Notice (ACAN) An ACAN is a public notice indicating to the supplier community that a department or agency intends to award a contract for goods, services or construction to a pre-identified supplier, thereby allowing other suppliers to signal their interest in bidding, by submitting a statement of capabilities. If no supplier submits a statement of capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, on or before the closing date stated in the ACAN, the contracting officer may then proceed with the award to the pre-identified supplier. 2. Definition of requirement The Canadian Defense Academy (CDA) of the National Defense Department requires approximately 200 Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPIs) per year, on a "when requested basis" in a minimum of 70 languages listed in Annex 1.

These interviews (tests) must

- be based on the language proficiency level descriptors set forth in the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) descriptors (http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale1.htm ) and/or NATO STANAG 6001 Ed.4 (http://www.natobilc.org/STANAG6001.html);

- be administered by telephone to Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members and Canadian Forces Language School graduates;

- follow the OPI format defined further in Annex 3; and

- be recorded in order to enable CDA to conduct a random quality control of the OPI administered.

Once the evaluation is completed, the Contractor must publish OPI tests results on the CDS's secure site within 3 working days.

3. Criteria for assessment of the Statement of Capabilities (Minimum Essential Requirements) Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a statement of capabilities that it meets the following requirements:

A) Ability to administer and double-rate (by another tester) the Oral Proficiency Interviews on a "when requested basis", within at least a 5 day advance notice or for urgent operational requirement, a 2 day advance notice. Interviews will be in a minimum of 70languages (refer to Annex 1), based on the language proficiency level descriptors set forth in the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) descriptors and/or NATO STANAG 6001, Ed.4. The tests must be administered by telephone in Canada and be recorded for quality control. B) Ability to administer the Oral Proficiency Interviews according to the format prescribed by DND, as defined in annex 3. 4. Applicability of the trade agreement(s) to the procurement This procurement is subject to the following trade agreements: · Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) · World Trade Organization - Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP) · North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 5. Justification for the Pre-Identified Supplier

The pre-defined supplier was selected based on the following capabilities:

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) is the only known supplier capable of offering OPIs administered by trained and certified testers in over 70 foreign languages in accordance with ILR/STANAG 6001 and the format prescribed by CDA. For this reason it is proposed that this requirement be directed to ACTFL.

6. Exclusions and Limited Tendering Reasons

Subsection 6 (d) of the Government Contracts Regulations is being invoked in this procurement as only one person or firm is believed capable of performing the work.

Agreement of Internal Trade (AIT): Articles 506.12 (a) and 506.12 (b) under Annex4.4.

North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): Articles 1016.2 (b) and 1016.2 (d);

World Trade Organization - Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP) Article XV (b). 7. Ownership of Intellectual Property

Ownership of any Foreground Intellectual Property arising out of the proposed contract will vest in the Contractor. 8. Period of the proposed contract or delivery date The proposed contract is for a period of one (1) year, from October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2016. The contract includes an irrevocable option to extend the contract period by four (4) additional periods of one (1) year, under the same conditions. 9. Cost estimate of the proposed contract The estimated value of the contract, including option(s), is 174,000.00$(GST/HSTextra). 10. Name and address of the pre-identified supplier:

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) 1001 N. Fairfax Street, Suite 200 Alexandria, Virginia 22314 United States 11. Suppliers' right to submit a statement of capabilities Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the services described in the ACAN, may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this notice on or before the closing date of this notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements. 12. Closing date for a submission of a statement of capabilities. The closing date and time for accepting statements of capabilities is June 5, 2015 at 2:00p.m. EST 13. Inquiries and submission of statements of capabilities Inquiries and statements of capabilities are to be directed to:

Contracting Authority: Chantal Charette Supply Officer Portage III 10C1 - 11 Laurier Street Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0S5 Canada Telephone: 819-956-1376 Facsimile: 819-956-2675 E-mail: chantal.charette@tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca ANNEX 1 NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN WHICH OPIs MAY BE REQUESTED Afrikaans Akan-Twi Albanian Amharic Arabic - MS Arabic-Algerian Arabic-Jordanian Arabic-Lebanese Arabic-Libyan Arabic-Moroccan Arabic-Sudanese Arabic-Syrian Arabic-Tunisian Arabic-UAE Arabic-Yemeni Armenian Azerbaijani Baluchi Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Burmese Cambodian Cantonese Cebuano Chavacano Czech Dari Dutch English French Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hausa Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Igbo Ilocano Indonesian Iraqi Italian Japanese Kashmiri Kazakh Korean Kurdish-Kurmanji Lao Malay Malayalam Mandarin Levantine Malay Malayalam Nepali Norwegian Pashto Persian-Farsi Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian-Croatian Sindhi Sinhalese Slovak Somali Spanish Swahili Swedish Tagalog Tajik Tamil Tausug Telugu Thai Tigrynia Turkish Turkmen Turkish Turkmen Uighur Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Wolof Wu Yoruba

ANNEX 2 TERMINOLOGY ACTFL: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

CFLS: Canadian Forces Language School

CDA: Canadian Defence Academy

DET: Detachment

ILR: Interagency Language Roundtable

NATO STANAG 6001: NATO Standardization Agreement 6001

OPI: Oral Proficiency Interview

TCO: Test Control Officer

Tester: Qualified person who administers and rates OPIs

Rater: Qualified person who rates the speech sample elicited by a tester during an OPI

ANNEX 3

The Oral Proficiency Interviews format: The Contractor must respect the following mandatory phases: A warm-up, a core comprised of level-checks and probes, and a wind-down. The testers must establish the floor and ceiling of performance for each test-taker. The minimum number of probes will be two, and a minimum of three probes must be elicited if the final rating is to be a plus level. The number of level-checks depends on the level tested (two for level 0+, three for level 1, seven for level 2, four for level 3, five for level 4 and 5. Role-play situations are used either as tasks or probes. Two role-plays are mandatory for level 4. A plus rating will be considered invalid if it is based only on the partially successful probes, that is, if clear instances of the prescribed number of level checks are not present in the OPI. In other words, ratings must NOT be derived from partially successful probes only. All OPIs must be double rated.

Delivery Date: Above-mentioned

You are hereby notified that the government intends to negotiate with one firm only as identified above. Should you have any questions concerning this requirement, contact the contracting officer identified above.

An Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) allows departments and agencies to post a notice, for no less than fifteen (15) calendar days, indicating to the supplier community that it intends to award a good, service or construction contract to a pre-identified contractor. If no other supplier submits, on or before the closing date, a Statement of Capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, the contracting authority may then proceed with the award. However, should a Statement of Capabilities be found to meet the requirements set out in the ACAN, then the contracting authority will proceed to a full tendering process.

Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the services/goods described herein, may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this Notice on or before the closing date of this Notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements.

The PWGSC file number, the contracting officer's name and the closing date of the ACAN must appear on the outside of the envelope in block letters or, in the case of a facsimile transmission, on the covering page.

The Crown retains the right to negotiate with suppliers on any procurement.

Documents may be submitted in either official language of Canada.