Bearing in mind this cultural-minority reality and the fact that we need to evaluate Francophone AFB learners in Ontario who are already involved in a path of training such as preparation for employment or preparation for Apprenticeship, we ask ourselves whether the assessment tasks used with these learners to assess the particular Essential Skill, Document Use, should be based on authentic documents. If the answer is yes, then TOWES and PDQ should be further adapted to a minority Francophone culture, and certain assessment tasks in the tests should be consequently modified. More questions then arise about the ability to adapt and provide valid assessments in a specific training culture within a linguistic minority context. We should also think about the relevancy of having authentic bilingual documents available to assess the particular skill Document Use when preparing a learner for employment in Ontario, or, for that matter, when preparing the learner for an Apprenticeship program.

Conclusion

We deem it important that a careful study be made of the cultural adaptation issues as they apply both to the two assessment instruments field-tested for this project, and to any other assessment instrument or system to be evaluated in the context of the Learner Skill Attainment Framework initiative. We deem it also important to further examine the validation process of these French versions to ensure a cultural adaptation appropriate to the minority situation of AFB programs.