Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI)

Trade Agreement: NAFTA / CFTA / FTAs with Peru / Colombia / Panama / Korea
Tendering Procedures: All interested suppliers may submit a bid
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: 

Trade Agreement: NAFTA/CFTA/Canada FTAs with
Peru/Colombia/Panama/Korea

Tendering Procedures: All interested suppliers may submit a bid


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 Military Personnel Generation Group (MPGG) of the Department of National Defense (DND) 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.5 (http://www.natobilc.org/en/products/stanag-60011142_stanag-6001/);

- 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 70 languages (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.5. 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: 

· Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) 
·  
· 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. 

Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA): Article 513.

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 three (3) years, from
April 1, 2020 to March 31st, 2023. 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
319,538.80$(GST/HST extra). 

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 March 25, 2020 at 2:00p.m. EDT

13. Inquiries and submission of statements of capabilities 
Inquiries and statements of capabilities are to be directed to: 

Contracting Authority:

Jordan McAran Bourque
Supply Officer
Public Works and Government Services Canada
Terrasses de la Chaudière, 5th floor
10, Wellington Street
Gatineau (Québec) K1A 0S5
Telephone : 819-661-2725  
Facsimile : 819-956-8303
Email: jordan.mcaranbourque@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-Egyptian
Arabic-Iraqi
Arabic-Jordanian
Arabic-Levantine
Arabic-Libyan
Arabic-Moroccan
Arabic-Sudanese
Arabic-Syrian
Arabic-Tunisian
Arabic-Yemeni
Armenian 
Azerbaijani 
Baluchi
Bengali 
Bosnian
Bulgarian 
Burmese 
Cambodian 
Cantonese
Cebuano 
Chavacano
Chinese-Mandarin
Czech
Danish
Dari
Dutch
English
French
Ga
Georgian
German
Greek
Gujarati
Haitian Creole
Hausa
Hebrew
Hindi
Hmong
Hungarian
Igbo
Ilocano
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Javanese
Kashmiri
Kazakh
Kikongo
Kinyarwanda
Kirundi
Korean
Kurdish-Kurmanji
Kurdish-Sorani
Lao
Malay
Malayalam
Mandingo-Bambara
Marathi
Marshallese
Mongolian
Nepali
Norwegian
Pashto
Persian-Farsi
Polish
Portuguese-Brazilian
Portuguese-European
Punjabi
Romanian
Russian
Serbian-Croatian
Sindhi
Sinhalese
Slovak
Somali
Spanish
Swahili
Swedish
Tagalog
Tajik
Tamil
Tausug
Telugu
Thai
Tigrynia
Turkish
Turkmen
Uighur
Ukrainian
Urdu
Uzbek
Vietnamese
Wolof
Wu 
Yoruba
Uzbek


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

CFLS: Canadian Forces Language School

MPGG: Military Personnel Generation Group

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.


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.