scholarly journals Achieving testing for English Language Learners, ready or not?.

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sau-Lim Tsang ◽  
Anne Katz ◽  
Jim Stack
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
English Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Mathematics Scores ◽  
High School Graduation Requirements ◽  
National Norms ◽  
High Standards

School reform efforts across the US have focused on creating systems in which all students are expected to achieve to high standards. To ensure that students reach those standards and to document what students know and can do, schools collect assessment information on students' academic achievement. More information is needed, however, to find out when such assessments are appropriate for English learners and can provide meaningful information about what such learners know and can do. We describe and discuss a study that addresses the question of when it is appropriate to administer content area tests in English to English learners. Drawing on the student database of San Francisco Unified School District, we examined the effect of language demands on the SAT/9 mathematics scores of Chinese-speaking and Spanish-speaking students. Our results showed that while the English language demands of the problem solving subscale affect all students, they have a larger effect on English learners' performance, thus rendering the tests inaccurate in measuring English learners' subject matter achievement. Our results also showed that this effect gradually decreases as students become more proficient in English, taking five to six years for students to reach parity with national norms. These results have important implications for the design of school accountability systems and policies with high-stakes consequences for English learners such as high-school graduation requirements based on standardized tests.

The Language Policy of Placement Tests for Newcomer English Learners

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (7) ◽  
pp. 936-968 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendall King ◽  
Martha Bigelow
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Placement Test ◽  
Formal Schooling ◽  
High Stakes

U.S. public schools are required to establish policies ensuring that English language learners have equal access to “meaningful education.” This demands that districts put into place mechanisms to determine student eligibility for specialized English language services. For the most states, this federal requirement is fulfilled through the local administration of the WIDA–Access Placement Test (W-APT), arguably the most widely used, yet under-studied, English language assessment in the country. Through intensive participant observation at one, urban new student intake center, and detailed qualitative, discursive analysis of test administration and interaction, we demonstrate how the W-APT works as a high-stakes assessment, screener, and sorter, and how test takers and test administrators locally negotiate this test and enact this federal and state policy. Our analysis indicates that the W-APT is problematic in several respects, most importantly because the test does not differentiate adequately across students with widely different literacy skills and formal schooling experiences.

scholarly journals Crossing Borders toward Young Transnational Lives

2014 ◽  
pp. 200-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Sue Kasun ◽  
Cinthya M. Saavedra
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Cultural Identification ◽  
Return Visits ◽  
The U.S

Young immigrant youth often live their lives across borders, either by physically crossing them for return visits and/or by metaphorically crossing them through social media and cultural identification. The authors argue these students are better understood as transnational, shifting the focus for educators away from imagining their immigrant students on a straight, one-way path to assimilation in the U.S. to understanding these youths’ abilities to cross borders. Specifically, they call for a redesignation of English Language Learners (ELLs) as Transnational English Learners (TELs). Highlighting examples of educators’ successful border-crossing work, the authors call for educators to cross borders as well in their curriculum and relationships with transnational youth.

Introspections on In-Service Teachers' Intercultural Responsiveness Skills for English Language Learners

2017 ◽  
pp. 181-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina Slapac ◽  
Kim H. Song ◽  
Cynthia C. Chasteen
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Dual Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Group Interviews

This chapter discusses the successes, concerns and challenges faced by in-service teachers in the instruction of English Learners (ELs). The constructs of intercultural responsiveness (IR), cultural competence (CC), linguistic competence (LC) and professional development (PD) are used as conceptual frameworks. The researchers are drawing on data gathered at a statewide conference focused on dual language (DL) education from five focus group interviews and informal conversations with twenty-seven in-service teachers and administrators at all levels of education, and the researchers' field notes .Vignettes of the participants' voices highlight their perspectives and experiences working with ELs. The authors hope that these stories of celebrations and struggles will engage other teachers and administrators to take a deeper look into their personal practices and pedagogies of working with ELs.

Standards-based classroom assessments of English proficiency: A review of issues, current developments, and future directions for research

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Llosa
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Classroom Assessment ◽  
English Proficiency ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Classroom Assessments ◽  
Key Issues

With the United States’ adoption of a standards-based approach to education, most attention has focused on the large-scale, high-stakes assessments intended to measure students’ mastery of standards for accountability purposes. Less attention has been paid to the role of standards-based assessments in the classroom. The purpose of this paper is to discuss key issues and challenges related to the use of standards-based classroom assessments to assess English language learners’ English proficiency. First, the paper describes a study of a standards-based classroom assessment of English proficiency in a large urban school district in California. Second, using this study as an example and drawing from the literature in language testing on classroom assessment, this paper highlights the major issues and challenges involved in using English proficiency standards as the basis for classroom assessment. Finally, the article outlines a research agenda for the field given current developments in the areas of English proficiency standards and classroom assessment.

On My Mind: University Faculty—Making Classroom Connections

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 488-489
Author(s):  
Denisse R. Thompson ◽  
Gladis Kersaint
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
University Faculty ◽  
Full Time ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Graduate Teacher Education

University teacher educators typically wear many hats. Their many roles may include providing professional development (i.e., workshops) for practicing teachers on various topics (e.g., use of technology, teaching English Language Learners); teaching mathematics or methods courses to teachers or teacher candidates enrolled in undergraduate or graduate teacher education programs; and working with various groups or entities related to policy issues in mathematics education (e.g., teacher licensure, high-stakes assessment). Although mathematics teacher educators contribute to the field in various ways, a perception exists that university faculty are in an “ivory tower,” having few or ancient connections to schools. In some cases, their credibility may be questioned because of the time that has elapsed since they were in a classroom full time.

The statistics of English in China

English Today ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rining Wei ◽  
Jinzhi Su
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
National Language ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
The World ◽  
Populous Country

In the mid-1980s, Crystal (1985) lamented that there were no reliable figures available for the number of learners to whom English is taught as a foreign language in many regions of the world, and that ‘China has always been excluded from the statistical reviews, because of the shortage of information from inside the country’ (Crystal, 1985: 9). More recently, Bolton (2008: 6) similarly notes that because of ‘the absence of accurate language surveys’ academics have to make educated guesses regarding the total number of those learning/knowing English. The figure of the total English learners/users in China has been estimated to be somewhere between 200 and 350 million (cf. Bolton, 2003: 48; Kachru, 1997; McArthur, 2003; Zhao & Campbell, 1995; Graddol, 2006: 95). Fortunately, a national language survey in China conducted at the turn of the century does provide some hard statistics on the number of English language learners/users in the world's most populous country, and also sheds some light on the realities of use of English and English proficiency among the Chinese people.

scholarly journals LISTENING COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES APPLIED BY ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

ELT-Lectura ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-47
Author(s):  
Sitti Hadijah ◽  
Shalawati Shalawati
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Listening Comprehension ◽  
English Language ◽  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Monitoring And Evaluation ◽  
Comprehension Strategies ◽  
Mixed Method Research ◽  
English Students

This paper depicts a part of a research project, focused on exploring three listening comprehension strategies applied by the English learners in interpretative listening subject; (a) meta-cognitive strategies consist of directed attention, selective attention, planning, monitoring, and evaluation; (b) cognitive strategies include listening for gist and detail, inference, prediction, visualization, summarizing, and note-taking; (c) Social/affective strategies, such as cooperation. Hence, mixed-method research was employed to describe what listening comprehension strategies used more often by English Students at Universitas Islam Riau. Thirty-seven fresh year learners taking interpretative listening subject were encouraged to participate in this research by filling out questionnaire adopted form Cross (2009). The data collected will both qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. Thirty-two statements included in the questionnaire were categorized intro three groups; cognitive (15), meta-cognitive (15), and socio-affective (2). The finding reveals that the learners had been familiar will the strategies and frequently apply them based on their needs in listening processes, such as before, while, and after listening.

scholarly journals Peddling Pedagogies: The Winners and Losers of a Standardized Testing Economy

2014 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 153-155
Author(s):  
Lucy Arnold Steele
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
English Language Learners ◽  
Standardized Testing ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Urban Students ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Teacher Roles ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
The Impact

This review compares the ethnographic research of Jessica Zacher Pandya’s Overtested: How High-Stakes Accountability Fails English Language Learners with the programmatic prescriptions of Yvette Jackson’s Pedagogy of Confidence. Both texts are concerned with the impact of standardized testing on urban students, but the focus of each book is quite different in terms of public policy on education and the way teacher roles are construed.

scholarly journals The impact of language and high-stakes testing policies on elementary school English language learners in Arizona.

2006 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne E. Wright ◽  
Daniel Choi
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Ell Students ◽  
Sheltered English Immersion ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Sheltered English

This article reports the results of a survey of third-grade teachers of English Language Learners (ELLs) in Arizona regarding school language and accountability policies—Proposition 203, which restricts bilingual education and mandates sheltered English Immersion; the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB); and Arizona LEARNS, the state’s high-stakes testing and accountability program. The instrument, consisting of 126 survey questions plus open-ended interview question, was designed to obtain teacher’s views, to ascertain the impact of these polices, and to explore their effectiveness in improving the education of ELL students. The survey was administered via telephone to 40 teacher participants from different urban, rural and reservation schools across the state. Each participant represents the elementary school in their respective school district which has the largest population of ELL students. Analyses of both quantitative and qualitative data reveal that these policies have mostly resulted in confusion in schools throughout the state over what is and is not allowed, and what constitutes quality instruction for ELLs, that there is little evidence that such policies have led to improvements in the education of ELL students, and that these policies may be causing more harm than good. Specifically, teachers report they have been given little to no guidance over what constitutes sheltered English immersion, and provide evidence that most ELL students in their schools are receiving mainstream sink-or-swim instruction. In terms of accountability, while the overwhelming majority of teachers support the general principle, they believe that high-stakes tests are inappropriate for ELLs and participants provided evidence that the focus on testing is leading to instruction practices for ELLs which fail to meet their unique linguistic and academic needs. The article concludes with suggestions for needed changes to improve the quality of education for ELLs in Arizona.

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