Delia Pompa: Hello, I M Delia Pompa. Welcome to This Year S First Colorín Colorado Webcast

Transcript

Studio

Delia Pompa: Hello, I’m Delia Pompa. Welcome to this year’s first Colorín Colorado webcast. Today, we’re going to talk about assessment for English language learners. Dr. Lorraine Valdez Pierce is here to help us. She’s coordinator of the ESL Teacher Licensure Program at the Graduate School of Education at GeorgeMasonUniversity in Fairfax, Virginia. Dr. Pierce, before we talk about assessment, tell us a little bit about English language learners, some of the characteristics that make teaching — make teaching them challenging.

Dr. LorraineValdez Pierce: Well, there are three big areas that make teaching English language learners challenging. The three areas are language, culture, and previous educational experience. So when it comes — when we’re talking about assessment, language is right up there as one of the big three with regard to the difference in language between the language that they speak and the language that they’re being assessed or tested in. Then there’s culture, which will maybe lead to some differences in classroom behavior from what native speakers would be producing or preparing. But then there’s also the parental role. When parents come from different cultures they may be less eager to run and participate in the American public school system. And then finally, the previous educational experience that these children bring may include literacy, or not literacy. And this is a very important variable in assessing students.

Delia: You’ve brought up lots of characteristics. Could you go back and define — give us a little more information on each one. Language, could you define how that would be different? What we would see there. What a teacher might see.

Dr. Pierce: Well, children who speak English as a second language, or bilingual children, come from, you know, over 100, 200 different language backgrounds. And what we know is the closer the language is to English, such as a romance language, the easier it would be for that child to acquire the language. But the more distance between their language, such as Russian, or Arabic, or Turkish, the more distance there is between the written language and the spoken language and English, the more challenge there might be in learning the English language. So that’s — and that's the language part. The cultural part comes where children are raised in a home where they are maybe given a rather passive role, and they’re taught to also go to school and just do what the teacher tells you, and not really engage or ask questions. And so the teacher may get the impression that these children are passive, or even not interested, or not making the effort, when really it’s a cultural upbringing issue.

Delia: So the culture really reflects the styles of the different children and what their family values and what childrearing styles.

Dr. Pierce: Right. Childrearing definitely has an impact on the child’s behavior and performance in the school.

Delia: And finally, previous education. How does that play into it? How does that make a big difference?

Dr. Pierce: Well, research tells us now, we have pretty clear evidence that says a child who brings native language literacy to the classroom has a tremendous advantage over the child who does not bring any kind of significant amount of native language literacy. So what we want to determine then when a child comes to the classroom is whether or not they have literacy in the native language. And if they do, then we can use that as a building block to acquiring English as a second language literacy.

Delia: Makes a lot of sense. So, it seems like assessment would be particularly important for this group. What exactly do you mean by assessment? We toss that term around all the time. What are we talking about when we talk about assessment?

Dr. Pierce: Yeah, assessment basically is the gathering of data, information, on a student’s learning or knowledge or skills. And with regard to reading, it’s what kind of information do we have on the student’s reading skills and ability?

Delia: And is that a formal process that we use? Because it seems to me that teachers are gathering information on kids all the time.

Dr. Pierce: Right. It can be formal or informal. At the classroom level, it’ll most likely be informal. And it must take the place of some kind of observation on the part of the teacher and then translating the observation to some kind of documentation.

Delia: So it’s very broad.

Dr. Pierce: Well, the assessment itself has become a key issue when we look at No Child Left Behind, and when we look at Adequate Yearly Progress, which is another term we toss around a lot. What can you tell us about how assessment fits into No Child Left Behind in general, and to Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, which we’ll try not to use, Adequate Yearly Progress we’ll say.

Delia: In particular, how is that interaction taking place when you look at assessment, and then also when you look at the context of the characteristics of these children?

Dr. Pierce: Well, I think there’s good news and there’s bad news. I think the good news is at last we have some requirements on the part of the federal government and the states following those requirements, for accountability, accountability for the learning of English language learners who, for the longest time, have been an invisible student population, because their test scores on standardized tests have typically been excluded, or disaggregated. But now this is no longer allowed. And so the good news is we do have accountability requirements for monitoring the progress of these students. The bad news is that most school systems take the approach that one size fits all. And so the same tests that are used with native speakers of English are now being used with English language learners for the most part. And those are not appropriate, because of the language difference. And then, in the case of states that are developing native language assessments, this is still in kind of an — kind of an emerging field. There’s not a whole lot of research out there on native language assessments for accountability at the state level. So you see a lot of states kind of searching for answers, and the whole field is evolving. So it’s a very challenging aspect there, to get issues such as accountability and reliability and validity, important measurement issues addressed at these levels of assessment.

Delia: You used the word "disaggregation" awhile ago, which is probably something a lot of our audience is hearing about. What’s the key thing about disaggregation that’s important about English language learners in the context of No Child Left Behind?

Dr. Pierce: In the context of No Child Left Behind, disaggregation means the ability to find out how specific populations are doing with regard to approaching learning goals and objectives. So it’s very important not to just mix in the English language learners with native speakers, but to pull out that data and information on all English language learners in the school system to find out how this group is progressing as a group from year to year.

Delia: So then how does assessing English language learners become an important piece of what we’re doing? Why is it especially important?

Dr. Pierce: It’s especially important when we talk about accuracy. And accuracy is another word for validity. That is, if we’re going to make inferences from test data then we need to make sure that those inferences about where these students are, what they’ve learned, and what they haven’t learned, that these inferences are accurate. And the only way you’re going to get accuracy if you either use the language of instruction that these students are familiar with or use different kinds of assessments that more closely relate to instruction.

Delia: Okay, so how would a school handle a new student? Let’s take a look at a real-life example.

Video

Narrator: Eight-year-old Marlon Escobar Lopez has an important appointment today. He’s checking into his new school system in Arlington, Virginia. He’s at the ArlingtonIntakeCenter where staff will figure out exactly what he needs from his new teachers.

Silvia Koch: IntakeCenter is the place where children who speak another language or have another language background enter school.

Narrator: The IntakeCenter stays very busy. Arlington’s English language learners speak 104 languages and come from 122 different countries.

Teacher: Most of the children speak Spanish. But those kids are very diverse, too, both culturally and economically.

Teacher: Children from the middle class have had certain experiences that other students may not have had. They’ve been to museums. They have been read to in their own language.

Narrator: Marlon is from Honduras. He looks like he’s ready for school. But will the school be ready for him? The process starts with his dad.

Silvia Koch: Parents are just that part of the learning equation that we cannot do without. You know, it’s the child, the parent, the teacher. They’re the three most basic components.

Narrator: The interview gives Arlington some important information about Marlon, like the fact that he’s been to school in the United States for a year already. [Speaking Spanish]

Silvia Koch: We look not only at the academic background but we also look at the whole child. We look at his health situation. We look at family history.

Narrator: When his dad’s finished with his questions, it’s Marlon’s turn. His teachers need to know how well Marlon can understand spoken and written English.

Teacher: Can you put the girl behind the man?

Teacher: So if you’re assessing a child you not only want to assess their knowledge of letters and sounds and so forth in English, but you want to tap into it in Spanish, too. [Speaking Spanish] Because whatever they know in Spanish, you can be quite certain you can use to help them acquire the skills in English.

Marlon: ...put strawberries and carrots...

Narrator: Marlon can read a little bit in English already. And his comprehension skills in both languages are strong. So the IntakeCenter places him in a second grade class for English language learners.

Teacher: Short sound of "I", everybody.

Narrator: His teachers at Abingdon Elementary have received all the information gathered at the IntakeCenter, both social and academic, so they know exactly where to start with Marlon.

Silvia Koch: Using time for instruction right away at the correct and appropriate level is important to us. We want all our students to achieve at a high level, to be challenged, regardless of where they started.

Marlon: Indigo.

Teacher: Indigo, excellent!

Studio

Delia: That was a very complex process. So what do you do if you're a school that has not had a lot of experience with this? How do you handle a child like Marlon?

Dr. Pierce: Well, first you need to make an assessment, a determination of native language literacy, and prior educational experience. And to the extent that that shows that the child, the learner, has some native language literacy, you will know where you can begin as far as sound/symbol recognition, phonemic awareness, especially if the language is a romance-based language similar to English. If the assessment determines that the child is not literate in the native language then there will need to be some serious, perhaps one-on-one instruction that goes on with the student to acquire literacy, if not in the native language, if that’s not possible, then in a meaningful way, in a very meaningful way, in English.

Delia: I’m guessing that some assessments are more appropriate for English language learners than others. Could you tell us about what an inappropriate assessment might look like?

Dr. Pierce: Well, some of the problems with inappropriate assessments, there’s at least three problems. One of them is a heavy language load. Another one is that the test item is presented out of context. And the third one is that the test item might have a cultural base. And so if we talk about heavy language load, a heavy language load is where the wording of a test item or directions to take the test presents an obstacle in and of itself to the student responding to the item and giving you the information that you’re actually looking for. And so if I can’t get past the directions or the wording of the item to give you the answer, that’s going to pose a problem. That’s what I’m calling heavy language load. The second problem is that the items tend to be decontextualized on a standardized or multiple choice test where you have these items separate from any meaningful reading passage or meaningful personal experience, and these items, in and of themselves, may out of context provide a challenge, a stop to the student who goes, "Out of context this doesn’t really make a lot of sense." That’s what I mean by meaningful. It’s got to be in some kind of context. Finally, the cultural base, itself. A lot of cultural assumptions are made on the background knowledge of the learner. And depending on whether it’s a teacher-made test, or even a standardized test, these assumptions may be incorrect. And if the student has to get past these assumptions to answer the item in reading then — and if he’s not able to do so successfully then the item itself will not serve the purpose for which it was intended.

Delia: This is something that people ask about all the time. And I’d like you to talk a little bit more about the cultural background and what is an example of cultural bias in a test? If you could just give us a sample.

Dr. Pierce: Oh, sure. An example, I’ve seen so many reading tests, standardized reading tests with samples of cultural base, or some have called cultural bias. If it’s a test of reading and you have a question in there about Halloween and there’s a picture of a witch in there, and the student comes from a country where — or background — because many of these students can be native-born — a background where they’re not familiar with Halloween or witches, then your purpose of determining the reading ability has been defeated. Because if I’m not familiar with witches and Halloween, even if I’m able to read every word on that item, I will not be able to determine the answer.

Delia: A good example. So how does all this relate to assessment of reading skills in English language learners?

Dr. Pierce: Well, the way this relates is that the assessment of reading for English language learners needs to be very much tied to classroom instruction and exposure to the kinds of literacy that students are exposed to in K-3 and upper elementary grades, and beyond. That is, there has been, I think, a serious gap occurring between the standardized test that we see now more and more on the market, and the actual kinds of assessments that are taking place in the classroom that teachers are using to diagnose, very specifically, decoding skills, reading comprehension skills, reading strategies and so on, that take place in an interactive, hands-on way that provides the context that I’ve been talking about, the context for learning, which is pretty much absent on a paper/pencil, standardized test.

Delia: So those are the benefits of a classroom assessment in reading skills. Is there a way that a teacher can then connect that to the broader test, or the standardized test? Are they useful in supporting that?

Dr. Pierce: Absolutely! Teacher-made assessments can be used. First of all, they can be linked to state standards, which is the basis for most state standardized tests. So, first of all, teacher instruction and teacher assessment can be linked to state standards assuring that connection to the state test. Secondly, they need to reflect what the student's experience has been in the classroom as far as learning. So if you’re having the student do a retelling — or retelling of a story, or a reading passage, then this same activity can become an opportunity for assessment.

Delia: So, as a teacher is listening to you right now and wondering how her assessment is going to prepare the child, what should she be thinking about? What kind of classroom assessment should she be creating, or thinking about assessing in the child?

Dr. Pierce: Well, when we talk about classroom-based assessment, there’s two kinds: The first kind is the teacher-useful assessment, and the second kind is the student-friendly assessment. So the teacher assessment can be observations of student behavior and performance, such as ability to read letters, recognize letters and sounds, sound/symbol discrimination. The teachers can keep a checklist of reading skills. They can take anecdotal records. They can keep notes of when a student is making progress or having a particular problem. Documentation is such an important part of assessment, because all of us have our days go by very quickly, and we can quickly forget specific diagnostic details of student progress and learning. So it’s so important to keep records such as checklists, anecdotal records, scoring rubrics. Scoring rubrics which detail expectations for reading performance on a criterion reference scale.