RA Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Zhanna Andreasyan received Director of the “Izmirlian” Foundation Armen Chobanyan.

ESCS Deputy Minister Arthur Martirosyan and Chairman of the Language Committee Siranush Dvoyan attended the meeting.

The “Armenian for Non-Armenian Speakers: Teaching, Testing and Assessing the Armenian Language” program, implemented by the Language Committee in collaboration with the “Izmirlian” Foundation, was at the core of the discussion.

Minister Zhanna Andreasyan greeted the Director of the “Izmirlian” Foundation, Armen Chobanyan, emphasizing the importance of collaboration between the ESCS Ministry and the “Izmirlian” Foundation, which contributes to the efficient achievement of the strategic goals set by the Ministry.

“Stressing the significance of the program, I would like to highlight the productive cooperation with the “Izmirlian” Foundation as a positive achievement,” said the Minister.

Director of the Foundation Armen Chobanyan noted that it is a pleasure to contribute to such an important program, which creates an opportunity to promote the Armenian language and contribute to its development and preservation in times of rapid technological development.

Within the framework of the “Armenian for Non-Armenian Speakers: Teaching, Testing and Assessing the Armenian Language” program a professional group developing criteria for Armenian language assessment was formed, which studied the pan-European frameworks of language knowledge (awareness) and assessment, related documents and, based on them, developed, localized, generalized the standards of the system of learning, testing, assessing of Armenian language in six levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 (Ա1, Ա2, Բ1, Բ2 Գ1, Գ2 ). With the assistance of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Yerevan State University, national systems developed for oriental languages ​​were also studied.

According to the chairman of the Language Committee, Siranush Dvoyan, a meeting was convened at the end of 2024 to discuss the fundamental principles of the developed standards with specialists from relevant structures. Representatives of the RA universities and language learning centres participated in the discussion. Currently, the set of standards has been sent to the relevant organizations for expert opinions. An open competition has been used to form the professional team that will create the tasks.

The Language Committee discussed the program implementation with the British Council and the Armenian Office of the British Council. In particular, an agreement was reached to conduct training for the group of specialists who will create the assignments.

Within the framework of the program, the Armenian Language Automated Readability Index (ARI ) was also developed based on reference texts of English A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 levels and texts of 11 textbook samples used in Armenia.

During the discussion, the parties also considered the potential for extending the collaboration with the “Izmirlian” Foundation.