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6. Designing instruction to address specifically identified weaknessesAll of these applications of assessment information presuppose an alternative program ofinstruction for a school’s LEP students. All assessment decisions should be made in the contextof such a program that systematically identifies potential LEP students, assesses their Englishproficiency, places them in appropriate levels of service, monitors their progress in English andacademic skills, and exits them when their English proficiency warrants. Readers who do nothave such a program in place should refer to the Northwest Comprehensive Assistance Center’sBilingual/ESL Education Project, which provides guidance on legal requirements for servingLEP students and describes various program options. It also details legal requirements regardingassessment of LEP students.When to AssessThe decisions on when to assess are guided partly by legal requirements and partly by goodeducational practice. The various assessment strategies described in this paper should be selectedaccording their appropriateness for different purposes within an alternative program ofinstruction for LEP students. Initial assessment should occur when potential LEP students areidentified as they first register for school. They should be assessed for English-languageproficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing to determine whether lack of Englishproficiency is likely to affect their opportunity to learn, indicating a need for an alternativeprogram of instruction. For initial assessment, select an English proficiency test or assessmentstrategy that represents a range of difficulty, from age- or grade-level performance to little or noEnglish proficiency. If using a published test that states guidelines for determining limitedEnglish proficiency or English fluency, look for evidence that those guidelines were establishedthrough field-testing of the instrument.Good teaching involves ongoing assessment to make sure students are progressing, whether inEnglish proficiency, English or native-language literacy, or academic subjects. Ongoingassessment provides formative information for teachers to use in designing instruction to addressspecifically identified weaknesses. When standards and expectations are clearly communicatedto students, it also allows students to become partners in assessing their own progress. Ongoingassessment can use less formal instruments than those used initially in identifying LEP students.LEP students served in alternative instructional programs should be assessed annually forprogress in English proficiency. Instruments and procedures used should, to the extent possible,be standard across the program; this allows the aggregation of data across grades and buildingsto communicate to the public, parents, or policymakers. It also provides program leaders withpatterns of success or failure among program components so they can improve instructionalservices. Instruments and procedures used in the annual assessment do not have to be the sameones used for initial LEP identification.They should, however, have similar qualities—i.e., they should represent a range of difficulty,from age- or grade-level performance to little or no English proficiency—so the program canshow growth from initial assessment and track the student toward full proficiency and eligibilityfor program exit.Assessing Language ProficiencyHow to assess English proficiency is the main question facing ESL and bilingual educators, oncethey have addressed the “what” questions. They are legally obligated to assess the Englishproficiency of students with a primary or home language other than English to determine© 2008 Dr. Catherine CollierAll Rights Reserved146
whether they are LEP and to provide appropriate services if they are so identified. Schools alsoare obligated to systematically monitor the students’ progress in English. At the classroom level,teachers want to know students’ levels” of proficiency in order to gear instruction appropriately;they want to know what specific aspects of English different students are finding problematic inorder to tailor instruction; and they want evidence that, in fact, their students are makingprogress.Several instruments and strategies are available to meet these various purposes. Some arecommercially published, some are available in the public domain, and some can be constructedby teachers. They rely on different kinds of logic for scoring, and often they represent differentfacets of English proficiency. These instruments and strategies are most effective whenadministered and interpreted by teachers or other staff people who have insight into what we aremeasuring when we measure proficiency in English as a second language. Therefore, it isimportant to take a few minutes to develop an understanding of what language proficiencymeans.Defining Second-Language ProficiencyEveryone agrees that language is used for communicating thoughts, ideas, or information.Communication requires at least two people, and it requires that those two people have acommon system that regularly represents the thoughts, ideas, or information they wish to sharethrough language; one speaks or writes, the other listens or reads. Anyone who has studied oreven encountered a second language immediately recognizes that the second language differsfrom his or her own in that it uses a different vocabulary to represent individual thoughts, ideas,or information.A person who has tried to learn a second language solely by learning word lists soon comes faceto face with the reality that simply stringing words together does not necessarily communicate.Sometimes words in a second language appear in a different order from the native language, andmany other rules govern the relationships among words. For example, different languages attachvery different inflections to the ends of verbs to indicate past time, while some do nothing at allto the verbs. Each language has a systematic grammar, shared among its users, that clarifies therelationships among the words in an utterance. Every natural human language gives physicalform to its words through speech sounds (with a few notable exceptions, such as American SignLanguage). Different languages use different sounds, and different languages may use the samesounds differently. The sounds of a language are also systematically governed by rules ofphonology that are shared by its speakers. The most commonly encountered languages alsorepresent their words in written forms, and written languages also follow elaborate rule systems.To be proficient in a second language means to effectively communicate or understand thoughtsor ideas through the language’s grammatical system and its vocabulary, using its sounds orwritten symbols.Any or all components of this definition may comprise the kind of information you wish to learnabout students when assessing their language proficiency. In one way or another, languageproficiency tests assess the student’s communication ability or knowledge of the components oflanguage. When deciding how to assess, educators must first decide which aspect of languageproficiency they are interested in. Those aspects might include the ability to communicate orallyand in writing similarly to non-LEP grade mates; to use correct or clear pronunciation; or toexhibit knowledge of specific grammatical structures.© 2008 Dr. Catherine CollierAll Rights Reserved147
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"Those who arrive by age 12 or 13 m
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Article I.2 Are Signed Languages "R
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Biological analyses of the status o
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and beyond, speaking and signing ch
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Conclusion: Are Signed Languages Re
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Article I.3 The Interpreter: Has a
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A few weeks earlier, I had called F
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“We struggled even getting to the
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herself by strapping a cassette rec
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In 1998, after nine years as the ch
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momentary burst of excitement that
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can shape core grammar. Because the
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The authors compared animal and hum
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monkey moved. He followed it with h
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delight, fear, laughter, and surpri
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Piipaío in a hut: Pirahã huts typ
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LEP students, and equitable organiz
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4. Second language development crea
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curriculum or "teaching to the test
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portfolio work was scanned and stor
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experiences of many groups of stude
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While not disagreeing that interpre
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sound educational practice, however
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arises from the efforts to abstract
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Article II.2 Cross-Cultural Communi
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males who can serve as positive rol
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Understanding another culture is a
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Pets and AnimalsWhich animals are v
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to teach standard English is reflec
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Asking personal questions of a pers
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Using Cross Cultural Communication
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Why Do Nonstandard English-Speaking
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Before beginning to teach standard
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• Negative attitudes toward low p
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New standardized tests and assessme
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Each of the behaviors listed above
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Article II.3 Hard Work Hypothesis:
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each point higher in SES, students
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This case does not provide strong s
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Article II.4 Language Acquisition a
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1992, p. XI). These researchers, wh
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comprehend a word within a specific
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more to the truthfulness of the chi
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This idea of “semilingualism” c
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Article III.1 A Brief Description o
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Page 99 and 100: As with all stages of BICS acquisit
Page 101 and 102: Assessment techniques at stage 3 ca
Page 103 and 104: different. Therefore, the social di
Page 105: integrative motivation. Basically,
Page 109 and 110: (Ellis, 1985; Hakuta, 1986). Howeve
Page 111 and 112: that sociocultural processes have o
Page 113 and 114: Article III.3 How Children Acquire
Page 115 and 116: phonetic units (unique to signed la
Page 117 and 118: Article III.4 Toward a Sociocultura
Page 119 and 120: emember is that the fundamental goa
Page 121 and 122: The best practices models can be th
Page 123 and 124: By focusing on the dialectic betwee
Page 125 and 126: intergenerational wisdom shared by
Page 127 and 128: Daily Realities RecappedThe above v
Page 129 and 130: traditions. At a time in our histor
Page 131 and 132: We will now look at two examples of
Page 133 and 134: Speakers communicate fluently, main
Page 135 and 136: question the effects of such attitu
Page 137 and 138: Article IV.3 Culture Change: Effect
Page 139 and 140: and psychological characteristics o
Page 141 and 142: Contraryto what wewere expecting, t
Page 143 and 144: Article V.1 Assessment in ESL & Bil
Page 145: vocabulary does the student lack?Is
Page 149 and 150: Fourth, ESL and bilingual program s
Page 151 and 152: competent reader/writer. All versio
Page 153 and 154: Table 1Comparison of Recent Accultu
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Page 159 and 160: Article V.3 Assessment of English L
Page 161 and 162: 8. Change answers only for a very g
Page 163 and 164: Riles, 1979; Jose P. v Ambac, 1983)
Page 165 and 166: proficiency is often underestimated
Page 167 and 168: Finally, when second language reade
Page 169 and 170: for their decisions, noting issues
Page 171 and 172: As mentioned above, when the transi
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Page 175 and 176: their imagined points of view. Ther
Page 177 and 178: English texts and demonstrate progr
Page 179: using inter-district teams). In the
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