Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Educational Equity: Connecting Academic Language Proficiency to Student Achievement

Figure 1.5 Assessment Terms and Their Definitions 

Description: This figure is a list of assessment terms that is often bantered about by educators in school settings.

Audiences: Teachers (pre-service and in-service), teacher teams, or school leaders

Purpose: To promote assessment literacy and to clarify the often intersecting terminology of school-based assessment

Uses:

1. Cut up the terms and their definitions. Have pairs or small groups create an open sort of categories of related terms and offer a rationale for each grouping.
    
2. Cut up the terms and their definitions; have partners match the two.
    
3. Add a third column to the chart and in small groups, provide an example of each. Exchange examples and discuss at grade-level meetings.
    
4. Apply the Frayer model to the definition of those tricky terms with teachers providing features, examples, and non-examples.
    
5. Add assessment terms and definitions to the list throughout the school year or as you read the book. Here is a starter for your expanded glossary: reliability, validity, inter-rater agreement.
    

Resource 1.4 A Sample Literacy Use Survey for English Language Learners

Description: This checklist offers examples of different reading material that ELLs can tackle from the beginning to intermediate language proficiency levels and types of writing that they are typically asked to produce.

Audiences: Persons collecting intake data; classroom or home room teachers at the beginning of the school year, students

Purpose: To gain a sense of ELLs’ extent of literacy experiences in their home language and in English in order to better place them into instructional groups

Uses:

1. As an extension of the intake process during school registration
    
2. As a self-assessment for older students that individual teachers or paraprofessionals can dictate
    
3. As an estimate of ELLs’ exposure to reading and writing experiences in more than one language; to ascertain the extent of home language use as a potential resource during instruction
    
4. As a baseline measure, to use with A Sample Oral Use Survey (page 34)
    

Figure 2.5 Abbreviated Performance Definitions for Receptive and Expressive

Description: This 5-point holistic scale provides overall descriptors of ELLs’ progression of language development for listening and reading (receptive language) along with speaking and writing (productive language).

Audiences: Content and language teachers, school leaders (e.g., coaches, principals)

Purposes:

To become familiar with criteria that serve as an umbrella for English language proficiency/development standards

To help interpret student performance on language proficiency assessment

Uses:

1. Have the entire school become familiar with the criteria associated with each level of language proficiency and apply the scale to student oral or written (productive language) samples
    
2. Match language proficiency levels in the performance definitions to those represented in English language proficiency/ development standards to gain a more comprehensive picture of ELL language expectations
    
3. Plan curriculum across the content areas with consideration for language proficiency levels
    
4. Group ELLs and ELLs with disabilities for differentiated language instruction and assessment according to their language proficiency levels
    
5. Mix up criteria from different proficiency levels and have teachers or school leaders assign 1-5 based on the levels; then discuss why educators made their specific matches
    

Resource 3.1 Features Associated With Assessment of Content and Language Across the Curriculum

Description: This table lays out content and language features to consider in planning and implementing instructional assessment in the areas of mathematics, language arts, science, social studies, and the arts.

Audience: Teachers (pre-service and in-service), content and language teams, content specialists, school leaders

Purpose: To ensure the integration of content and language in curriculum

Uses: 

1. As a guide for planning, implementing, or evaluating curriculum
    
2. As a check against extant curricula to ensure language representation
    
3. As an articulation tool for content teachers
    
4. As a collaboration tool for language and content teachers to coordinate instructional assessment of ELLs
    
5. As a starting place for exploring the place and role of two languages in curriculum
    

Figure 4.3 An Assessment Checklist for Listening Comprehension Across the Core Content Areas

Description: This checklist, applicable across language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies, provides examples of listening tasks that require students’ processing of oral language.

Audience: Content and language teachers

Purpose: To measure students’ listening comprehension in content area classrooms

Uses: 

1. Convert activities to ‘I can’ statements with students and then have students apply them to self- and peer assessment
    
2. Construct performance tasks that are indicative of what students can do around receptive language
    
3. Compare students’ listening comprehension across the content areas
    
4. Document students’ listening comprehension over time using comparable tasks
    
5. Examine listening in English language proficiency in relation to listening in home language proficiency for students in dual language settings
    

Figure 4.11 A Holistic Rubric of the Stages of Early Reading Development

Description: This scale describes the beginning stages of reading development for language learners in English or in an additional language. Although the continuum spans five levels, it does not reflect the full spectrum of reading development.

Audience: Teachers of Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE), newcomers, teachers of students in the early grades, and teachers of young language learners in bilingual or dual language settings

Purpose: To document specific groups of language learners’ reading development over time

Uses: 

1. Have students maintain a log of their reading strategies
    
2. Have students note and then rank the different instructional supports embedded in reading passages (e.g., visual, graphic) that are most to least helpful in comprehending text
    
3. Have students relate their experiences with informational and narrative text by recording oral summaries
    
4. Have students complete an interest survey as a precursor to selecting (or having teachers select) texts that advance language learners’ reading comprehension
    

Figure 5.8 A Self-Assessment Checklist of Math Strategies for Language Learners

Description: This checklist offers students opportunities to think about how they approach solving mathematics problems and decide whether they apply the strategy or not.

Audience: Language learners (ELLs, dual language learners) in grades 2-5

Purpose: To raise students’ metacognitive awareness of a variety of strategies that are useful in understanding the language of mathematics in relation to problem solving

Uses: 

1. Laminate the suggested strategies (or add to them) and have students refer to the list when engaged in mathematics
    
2. Monitor students’ transition to self-regulation and independence of mathematical problem-solving through self-assessment
    
3. Invite students to keep tallies on each strategy to determine their frequency of use
    
4. Provide feedback to students based on their use of strategies for different types of mathematics problems
    

Figure 6.12 A Checklist for Planning Common Instructional Products for Teacher Teams and School Leaders of English Language Learners

Description: This checklist offers a tool for teachers to self-assess their crafting and implementation of common instructional assessment for units of learning.

Audience: Grade-level teacher teams, professional learning communities with school leader support

Purpose: To offer a step-by-step process for planning and carrying out common assessment that addresses both content and language

Uses: 

1. Guide teacher teams in the design of instructional assessment in a uniform and reliable way
    
2. Promote collaboration and communication among teacher teams as they plan instructional assessment
    
3. Provide opportunities for teachers to integrate academic language and content into instruction and assessment
    
4. Create dedicated digital space to store and share common instructional products
    

Resource 6.5 Common Instructional Products: A Review Sheet for Projects Involving English Language Learners

Description: This checklist outlines features of common instructional products that should be present in classrooms with ELLs.

Audience: Teachers, grade-level teacher teams, professional learning communities

Purpose: To identify features of products as part of common assessment

Uses: 

1. Have teachers complete the checklist for different projects associated with units of learning and compare results
    
2. Discuss how to improve projects based on the suggested features
    
3. Have teachers provide examples of each feature in their current work
    
4. Expand the number of features to be inclusive of all students
    

Resource 8.1 An Assessment Portfolio Checklist

Description: This resource helps teachers think about the parameters for assessment portfolios followed by the specifics of their contents.

Audience: Professional learning communities with school leader support, grade-level teacher teams, students, family members

Purpose: To suggest contents of digital or paper-based student assessment portfolios

Uses: 

1. Decide on the level of implementation- individual students, classes, programs, schools- and make adjustments to the number and types of entries
    
2. Reach agreement at a grade, department, or school level on the considerations for portfolio design
    
3. c.) Prepare students to engage in student-led conferences with teachers and family members based on portfolio entries
    
4. d.) Allow students to have choices in selecting their entries