Andrea Strachan (TESL, M.Ed.) is the Director, Design and Innovation at Touchstone Institute, an organization that develops and administers competency assessments and education programs for internationally educated health professionals in Canada. Early in her Career, Andrea led research projects focusing on the language and communicative demands of professional practice, and developed English for specific purposes (ESP) curricula and assessments. For many years, Andrea worked as a curriculum designer, teacher trainer, test developer, examiner trainer and advisor on language proficiency policies. During that period, she contributed to the implementation and evaluation of training and assessment programs for adult immigrants and bridging programs for internationally educated professionals, through immigrant settlement and integration initiatives funded by provincial and federal governments. Following a successful career as a consultant, Andrea joined Touchstone Institute in 2014 to implement the centre of excellence for communicative competence assessment. Since that time, the Communication Competency Program has evolved into the national administrative office of Canada’s largest ESP assessment and a centre for innovative thinking about communication competency.
