ASSESSMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

Dr. Comfort Pratt

RATIONALEDetermine the L1 and L2

proficiencies of CLDs to ensure that they acquire the CALP they need to be successful in the grade-level classroom.

WHY ASSESS L1?Necessary in bilingual or dual language

programs.Skills and knowledge from the L1 are

transferable to L2 acquisition. Looking for foundational referents. Eg. Common underlying proficiency (CUP) (Cummins 1984). Once cognitive linguistic knowledge is acquired in one language, those concepts become part of a common underlying proficiency the speaker can access and apply to other languages.

WHY ASSESS L2?English is the primary vehicle of instruction.

BICS is informal conversational language used in non–academic contexts.

The required skills are different—cognitively demanding and requiring a strong repertoire for CALP but much less demanding for BICS.

SAMPLESSAMPLE CATEGORY

1. I have a dog little.

2. They not study.

3. Their dead is a beeg man.

4. I walks there yesterday.

5. The cut had a long tale.

6. I saw a leetle beet.

7. She come here last night.

8. They meet always to their uncle.

9. Mothers can fid their babies anywhere.

10. Not move the triangle.

CATEGORIES OF LANGUAGE ISSUESPhonologyStudy of how sounds function in a languageMorphologyStudy of word structures of a languageSyntaxStudy of the sentence structures of a languageSemanticsStudy of the meaning of words and gestures used in a languagePragmaticsStudy of the ways in which context influences the interpretation of language

PHONOLOGICAL ISSUESPhonologyStudy of how sounds function in a languagePhoneme: The smallest distinct sound

unit in a given language which causes differences of meaning.

PHONOLOGICAL ISSUESMINIMAL PAIRS OR SETSThey are pairs or sets of words with

different meanings which are identical except for one sound segment which occurs in the same position in the string.

MORPHOLOGICAL ISSUESMorphologyStudy of word structures of a languageMorphemeDerivational and Inflectional

Morphology

SYNTACTIC ISSUESSyntaxStudy of the sentence structures of a languageDifferent types of sentences have

different structures

SEMANTIC ISSUESSemanticsStudy of the meaning of words and gestures used in a language

PRAGMATIC ISSUESPragmaticsStudy of the ways in which context influences the interpretation of languageWhat do these words mean?Wonderful, great, bad, …Key word: CONTEXTWhat to say, when to say it, to whom,

and under what circumstances?

INFORMAL ASSESSMENTObservationHome language survey Fig. 6.3Lily (Pg. 160)Parent interviewsLily (Pgs. 160-161)Communication Functions ChecklistJean (Pg. 162)

INFORMAL ASSESSMENTInformal Assessment of Academic

Language Proficiency - BICS/CALPFigure 6.5 (Pgs. 164-165)Mrs. AdelajaAnecdotal LogsFigures 6.6 & 6.7Matrices and RubricsFigures 6.8 & 6.9

INFORMAL ASSESSMENTNarrative AssessmentStory Retelling AssessmentWritten and Oral Cloze AssessmentsFigure 6.10Listening Skills Assessments

FORMAL ASSESSMENTSStandardized Formal AssessmentsTable 6.1State-Developed or State-Adopted

Variations of Standardized Formal Assessments

Language learners are not deficient or unintelligent. On the contrary, they are very smart. They are learning English in addition to other languages they already know and must be recognized for their high linguistic abilities. The only way they will not be able to achieve high proficiency levels in English is if they are not taught well or understood by the teachers who are responsible for them. Therefore, teachers must make sure they are well informed and highly competent before they take on that responsibility.

THE END