Using Classroom Assessment Data to Guide Instruction

It is important that assessments used in a classroom reflect the standards that students are expected to achieve. When this occurs, the data collected can be used as indications of a student's proficiency in a language. This chapter focuses on how the data collected in the classroom can be used to guide instruction. The author begins with an overview of assessments that are available to foreign language teachers. This is followed by information on data collection and analysis. The second half of the chapter focuses on how to use the data to develop lessons that provide all students with the instruction they need in order to be successful in the foreign language classroom. Examples of analysis of authentic data and changes in classroom elements, as well as the need for a mastery mindset, are also presented.

I Do and I Understand

As a result of globalization, World Language Education has experienced considerable changes within recent decades. With these changes, there is a need for new approaches to teaching and learning a world language, as there is a growing mismatch between language use in the real world and the approach to teaching a world language in the classroom. This chapter, then, presents a pedagogical model that was implemented in an Introduction to Second Language Acquisition course in order to adequately prepare teacher candidates for their future careers as educators in a globalized society. In particular, the model in this chapter discusses authentic experiences grounded in inquiry-based learning that provide opportunities for teacher candidates to collaboratively research current trends in the field of World Language Education and put them into practice through undergraduate research projects.

Engaging Teacher Candidates

Situated cognition is a theory where engagement in a social activity is essential to learning. Applied to teacher education, this theory is important as teacher candidates need clinical experiences throughout their curriculum. This chapter uses games as a context for teacher candidates to develop a vocabulary curriculum to support native and foreign language learning. Twenty-nine teacher candidates participated in the study. Pre- and post-surveys with both Likert-scale and open-ended questions comprise the data set for the study. Results show that groups created vocabulary lists with different amounts of words for games played during each session. Quantitative results reveal how helpful teacher candidates rated the game for language teaching while from qualitative data, three themes emerged: 1) vocabulary needed, 2) communicative aspect of the game, and 3) unsure of helpfulness. This study provides insight into the ways games can provide teacher candidates a way to explore ideas about using them for vocabulary in language teaching.

Applied Empathetic Instruction for Limited-Level English Learners With Weekly Grade-Level CSOs

With secondary English learners (ELs) often falling behind their peers in reaching grade-level expectations, a push to find research-based strategies to aid instruction to significantly decrease this gap is in place. This chapter addresses where to begin assessment and instruction with limited-level English learners to aid these students in accessing grade-level academic content in a timely manner. It provides key principles and research-based strategies for developing assessments and assignments to help break through initial barriers and provide an affective atmosphere (promoting confidence) for students to begin experimenting with language through meaningful and culturally relevant topics that will also address grade-level content standards. The texts and assignments should be rigorous, challenging the student to higher-order thinking and guiding the student to reach their full potential. Instruction should include multiple opportunities for extended discourse to allow the student to experiment and practice language across all language domains: reading, writing, listening, speaking.

Developing and Analyzing Form and Function of L2 Integrated Performance Assessments for Diverse Learners

From the first day of instruction, it's important to understand the skill objectives in a second language classroom, and for instruction to be aligned with the assessment. In addition, the pace of instruction should be based on qualitative and quantitative data derived from the use of ongoing formative assessments. These assessments are crucial to determine what skills students have mastered, and which ones may require further instruction and practice, with the goal for students to be able to effectively communicate in the target language in real-world scenarios. In this chapter, the author identifies and emphasizes the importance of using integrated performance assessments to drive the pace of instruction. There are three different tools presented which have been used effectively to measure students' speaking skills, vocabulary knowledge, and ability to apply grammatical concepts in a second language (L2) classroom for students with dyslexia and other language-based learning differences. And finally, there is an opportunity to put the practical concepts learned in the chapter into practice.

Teach to Teach the Language

In Poland, the teachers that teach a second language frequently are philologists who do not have any didactic or pedagogical training. This issue initially exposes that teaching practices are part of individual experiences or even “self-taught” training. Significantly, of approximately 10 universities that teach Spanish as a foreign language, none in the curriculum has subjects dedicated to the methods and their didactic applications, forms of evaluation, etc. In this sense, the author analyzes different proposals of the theory of the curriculum in studies of philology and discusses why in Poland studies in a second language do not include these topics.

The Critical Thinking Component in Language Learning

Determined to find a way to keep course content interesting and her students engaged, the author researched past and current approaches to teaching languages during an academic sabbatical. The outcome of her research was the realization that culture is the driving force that propels communication in language learning. Cultural inquiry engages language learners intellectually, and the classroom provides the social environment needed for the exchange of knowledge and ideas within a learning community. The author presents teacher candidates with a systematic approach for the creation of learning tasks that incorporate critical thinking. These tasks are, furthermore, classified according to the role they play in the learning process, whether exploratory, formative, or functional in nature.

Service-Learning as Authentic Practice for Teacher Candidates to Work With English Language Learners

This chapter investigates how the incorporation of service-learning to a teacher education course changes teacher candidates' perceptions of English language learners (ELLs). It also examines the benefits and challenges of the service-learning project in which preservice teachers worked with ELLs individually or in groups in the elementary classroom. Through course artifacts and focus group interviews of 48 preservice teachers at a large Midwestern U.S. university, the impacts of service-learning as authentic practice with ELLs are discussed. Findings reveal that the experience reduced participant anxiety about working with diverse populations, provided opportunities for self-reflection, and promoted a sense of confidence and competence which led to professional growth for teacher candidates. This chapter concludes with recommendations for teacher educators interested in implementing service-learning in a teacher education program as well as directions for future research.

Adapting to the Needs of Adult Language Learners

Many language teacher training programs prepare teacher candidates to teach in a K-12 setting. However, some of these teacher candidates may one day find themselves in adult education whether as part-time or full-time employment. This chapter will focus on teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), but the majority of what is discussed in this chapter can easily be applied to teaching programs targeted towards other second languages. The main purpose of this chapter is to note some of the flaws in many ESOL adult textbooks and how many teaching programs can easily modify their curriculum to prepare their candidates to overcome these flawed materials by providing more age appropriate and relevant lessons to adult learners. By incorporating minor changes to a current program, teacher candidates will become well-rounded educators who are well-equipped to serve learners of all ages.

Audio Description and Its Application in Spanish Language Glottodidactics

Audio description is an intersemiotic translation consisting of translating visual content and images into a verbal layer. Most often, it is used in audiovisual materials, in museums, cinemas, theaters, stadiums, etc. It can also be successfully applied to foreign language classes. On the one hand, it creates excellent opportunities to practice all language skills in an integrated manner and to gain the intercultural competence. The aim of the chapter is to present the audio description technique in terms of transferring it and using it during language classes as a technique supporting the use of audiovisual materials, placing special emphasis on the student's intercultural competence, which, according to the author's assumption, is the result of the learner's ethnographic attitude. The learner, basing on the study of his own culture, being free from prejudices, analyzes the culture of a foreign language and compares it with his/her own culture in order to interpret, understand, and describe it, not to evaluate it.