Assessment Of English Language Learners Case Study

RUNNINGHEAD: ASSESSMENT 1.

Assessment and Placement of English Language Learners
Anita L. Lewis
ELL 240: Linguistically & Culturally Diverse Learners
Erin Marsano
April 20, 2015

ASSESSMENT 2.
.
Assessment of English Language Learners

The English language is opaque, so a variety of assessment methods will likely produce more reliable data. Students will limited English may fail because they do not have access to effective bilingual or English as second language (ESL) instruction. Teacher must then do assessments on ELLs
to determine what they have learned and what they still need help with for the students.

The purpose of assessment English language learners are to determine initial classification and program placement. Once the student’s initial language acquisition level has been identified, the ESL teacher is responsible for his or her own language proficiency (Syrja, 2011). Another purpose for accessing English language learners is to help guide placement of the student in the appropriate ESL class and also provide useful information for the regular education teachers.
The purpose of annual standard-based assessment of English language proficiency is to provide both ESL and mainstream classroom teachers with accurate information about a student’s language proficiency levels. This will help teachers plan appropriate instruction that will help the student reach the next level of language acquisition (Syrja, 2011) A challenge of assessing would be moving a student to new level before they are ready.”

Not being aware of the scores for all domains for a particular student would greatly impede a teacher’s ability to plan appropriately differentiated lesson for English learners”(Syrja, 2011).
Another challenge of assessment is being uninformed about what level a student is in can lead to several inaccurate assumptions about the student.
Basic interpersonal communicative skills are the skills needed to interact in social situations.
BICS refers to face-to-face communication that is first learned by toddlers and preschoolers.

Cognitive academic language proficiency takes between five to seven years to develop (Syrja,
2011). These skills are necessary needed for obtaining literary and academic success. The dilemma between BICS and CALP is the knowledge of knowing the difference between them two. Many times teachers are confounded by the fact that their ESL students have developed
BICS proficiency but appear to have little success in the formal classroom setting (Stevens,
2013).
There is a known distinction between interpersonal and academic communication skills.
An ELL student can seem to be successful in speaking on an interpersonal level but not know how to apply it on academic level. The problem is that most language teachers concentrate to much teaching BICS skills and do not concentrate enough on CALP skills. In the United States, many schools transition their English Learners out of bilingual programs before they have a chance to develop academic language proficiency (Freeman & Freeman, 2009).

A challenge I see is how teacher can help students improve better on academic language proficiency. Teachers can make sure that ELL students understand the format of words and different types of meanings to each word. Each ESL teachers will benefit from becoming aware that there is a difference between social and academic language. While students may sound fluent socially, it takes much longer and more guidance will be needed to become proficient in the academic vernacular of a new language (Williams, 2009). It will be good to use a communicative approach to learn a language, the same method used by newborn kids to learn the patterns of the surrounding languages and they pick it up. The teachers should try to change
their learning style by perhaps using auditory readings of books where they can listen, and make notes where they can repeat the same thing at home.

RUNNINGHEAD: ASSESSMENT 4.

Teaching English Language Learners ELLs is very challenging for students and it requires special expertise. Academic language acquisition involves four components: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It will start of roughly, easy, and then hard for the students.

References

Syrja, R.C. (2011): How to Reach and Teach English Language Learners. San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass.
Freeman, Y. (2009): Academic Language for English Learners and Struggling Readers. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.
Williams, M.M. (2009): Understanding ESL Students Language Development: Retrieved from http://www.suite 101.com/article/understanding-esl-students-language-development-a14366