A Practical Guide to Assessing English Language Learners


Book Description

For many teachers of English language learners, the field of assessment is foreign territory. Assessment has its own culture, traditions, and terminology. This training guide is intended to help classroom teachers become more comfortable creating and using assessments. A Practical Guide to Assessing English Language Learners provides helpful insights into the practice and terminology of assessment. The text focuses on providing the cornerstones of good assessments—usefulness, validity, reliability, practicality, washback, authenticity, transparency, and security—and techniques for testing. It devotes a chapter to the assessment of each of the four main skill areas (reading, writing, listening, and speaking), and also covers placement testing, such as using TOEFL® and MELAB, diagnostic testing, evaluation, and instructional decision-making with regard to testing. Tips to improve students’ test-taking strategies are offered, and each chapter ends with a helpful list of Ten Things to Remember, as well as informative case studies featuring two teachers and their assessment decisions. Incorporating its own principles, A Practical Guide to Assessing English Language Learners opens with a short quiz for the reader called Are You Testwise? that quickly determines how each teacher will benefit from this indispensable guide.




Assessing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students


Book Description

This is the first book to present a practical, problem-solving approach and hands-on tools and techniques for assessing English language learners and culturally diverse students in K-12 settings. It meets a crucial need among practitioners and special educators working in today's schools. Provided are research-based, step-by-step procedures for conducting effective interviews with students, parents, and teachers; making the best use of interpreters; addressing special issues in the prereferral process; and conducting accurate, unbiased assessments of academic achievement, intellectual functioning, language proficiency, and acculturation. Among the book's special features are reproducible worksheets, questionnaires, and checklists--including several in both English and Spanish--in a ready-to-use, large-size format. This book is in The Guilford Practical Intervention in the Schools Series, edited by T. Chris Riley-Tillman.




Assessing English Language Learners


Book Description

Assessing English Language Learners explains and illustrates the main ideas underlying assessment as an activity intimately linked to instruction and the basic principles for developing, using, selecting, and adapting assessment instruments and strategies to assess content knowledge in English language learners (ELLs). Sensitive to the professional development needs of both in-service and pre-service mainstream teachers with ELLs in their classrooms and those receiving formal training to teach culturally and linguistically diverse students, the text is designed to engage readers in viewing assessment as a critical part of teaching appreciating that assessments provide teachers with valuable information about their students’ learning and thinking becoming aware of the relationship among language, culture, and testing understanding the reasoning that guides test construction recognizing the limitations of testing practices being confident that assessment is an activity classroom teachers (not only accountability specialists) can perform Highlighting alternative, multidisciplinary approaches that address linguistic and cultural diversity in testing, this text, enhanced by multiple field-tested exercises and examples of different forms of assessment, is ideal for any course covering the theory and practice of ELL assessment.




Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Educational Equity


Book Description

Build the bridges for English language learners to reach success! This thoroughly updated edition of Gottlieb’s classic delivers a complete set of tools, techniques, and ideas for planning and implementing instructional assessment of ELLs. The book includes: A focus on academic language use in every discipline, from mathematics to social studies, within and across language domains Emphasis on linguistically and culturally responsive assessment as a key driver for measuring academic achievement A reconceptualization of assessment “as,” “for,” and “of” learning Reflection questions to stimulate discussion around how students, teachers, and administrators can all have a voice in decision making




Assessing Language and Literacy with Bilingual Students


Book Description

From expert authors, this book guides educators to conduct assessments that inform daily instruction and identify the assets that emergent bilinguals bring to the classroom. Effective practices are reviewed for screening, assessment, and progress monitoring in the areas of oral language, beginning reading skills, vocabulary and comprehension in the content areas, and writing. The book also addresses how to establish schoolwide systems of support that incorporate family and community engagement. Packed with practical ideas and vignettes, the book focuses on grades K–6, but also will be useful to middle and high school teachers. Appendices include reproducible forms that can be downloaded and printed in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size.




Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners


Book Description

This practical resource book will familiarize teachers, staff developers, and administrators with the latest thinking on alternatives to traditional assessment. It will prepare them to implement authentic assessment in the ESL/bilingual classroom and to incorporate it into instructional planning.




The Cambridge Guide to Second Language Assessment


Book Description

"The Cambridge Guide to Second Language Assessment aims to present in one volume an up-to-date guide to the central areas of assessing the second language performance of English by speakers of other languages. This volume provides snapshots of significant issues and trends that have shaped language assessment in the past and highlights the current state of our understanding of these issues"--




School-Based Observation


Book Description

Widely used to assess social–emotional and behavioral referral concerns in grades PreK–12, systematic direct observation is an essential skill for school psychologists and other educators. This accessible book helps practitioners conduct reliable, accurate observations using the best available tools. Chapters present effective coding systems for assessing student classroom behavior, the classroom environment, behavior in non-classroom settings, and behavior in a functional assessment context; also provided are guidelines for developing new codes when an appropriate one does not already exist. Procedures for summarizing, graphing, and interpreting data for different assessment purposes are detailed. In a large-size format for easy photocopying, the book includes 13 reproducible coding forms. Purchasers get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials. This book is in The Guilford Practical Intervention in the Schools Series, edited by Sandra M. Chafouleas.




The Assessment of Emergent Bilinguals


Book Description

This textbook is a comprehensive introduction to the assessment of students in K-12 schools who use two or more languages in their daily life: English Language Learners (ELLs), or Emergent Bilinguals. The book includes a thorough examination of the policy, history and assessment/measurement issues that educators should understand in order to best advocate for their students. The author presents a decision-making framework called PUMI (Purpose, Use, Method, Instrument) that practitioners can use to better inform assessment decisions for bilingual children. The book will be an invaluable resource in teacher preparation programs, but will also help policy-makers and educators make better decisions to support their students.




Co-Teaching for English Learners


Book Description

"Dove and Honigsfeld′s new book arrives at the perfect time as an increasing number of schools move to a collaborative instructional model and are searching for guidance. The authors not only tell us how to effectively collaborate and co-teach to benefit English learners, they actually show us what each component of the collaborative instructional cycle looks and feels like, complemented by innovative video and web content." —DIANE STAEHR FENNER, Coauthor of Unlocking ELs’ Potential and President of SupportEd Because teacher collaboration isn’t an option, it’s a MUST! The proof is borne out by any assessment: our non-native speakers learn faster and achieve more when general ed teachers and EL specialists co-plan and co-deliver instruction in the very same classroom. That’s why you’ll want to put Co-Teaching for English Learners at the top of your reading list. Step by step, EL authorities Maria Dove and Andrea Honigsfeld walk you through the entire collaborative instruction cycle, along with seven potential classroom configurations from which to choose. Whether you’re new to co-teaching or just see room for improvement in your practice, this practical handbook delivers every technique and tool you need to make the most of your collaboration, including video footage of co-teaching in action. Inside you’ll find: • In-depth profiles of the seven models, with detailed descriptions and analyses • A review of advantages and challenges of each model’s implementation • Clear explanations of each teacher’s role along with self-assessment tools • Tried-and-true strategies for the entire instructional cycle: co-planning, co-instruction, co-assessment, and reflection • Real-life accounts from co-teaching veterans Long gone are the days when our ELs are taught in isolation—and rightfully so. Read Co-Teaching for English Learners, implement its strategies, and soon enough you, too, can set up a learning environment in which all students thrive.