Language assessment in multilingual settings: Innovative practices across formal and informal environments


Book Description

This volume explores and addresses questions related to equitable access for assessment. It seeks to initiate a conversation among scholars about inclusive practices in language assessments. Whether the student is a second language learner, a heritage language learner, a multilingual language speaker, a community member, the authors in the present volume provide examples of assessment that do not follow a single universal or standardized design but an applicable one based on the needs and context of a given community. The contributors in this volume are scholars from different disciplines and contexts in Higher Education. They have created and proposed multiple lower-stakes assignments and accommodated learning by being flexible and open without assuming that learners know how to do specific tasks. Each chapter provides different examples on Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) assessment practices based on observation, examination, and integrative notions of diverse language scenarios. It may be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the fields of curriculum and instruction, language learning, and applied linguistics as well as those in the field of language teaching in general. Thus this volume broadens the scope of research in the area of multilingual assessment.




Language assessment in multilingual settings


Book Description

This volume explores and addresses questions related to equitable access for assessment. It seeks to initiate a conversation among scholars about inclusive practices in language assessments. Whether the student is a second language learner, a heritage language learner, a multilingual language speaker, a community member, the authors in the present volume provide examples of assessment that do not follow a single universal or standardized design but an applicable one based on the needs and context of a given community. The contributors in this volume are scholars from different disciplines and contexts in Higher Education. They have created and proposed multiple lower-stakes assignments and accommodated learning by being flexible and open without assuming that learners know how to do specific tasks. Each chapter provides different examples on Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) assessment practices based on observation, examination, and integrative notions of diverse language scenarios. It may be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the fields of curriculum and instruction, language learning, and applied linguistics as well as those in the field of language teaching in general. Thus this volume broadens the scope of research in the area of multilingual assessment.




Current Issues in Bilingualism


Book Description

As populations become more mobile, so interest grows in bi- and multilingualism, particularly in the context of education. This volume focuses on the singular situation in Israel, whose complex multiculturalism has Hebrew and Arabic as official languages, English as an academic and political language, and tongues such as Russian and Amharic spoken by immigrants. Presenting research on bi- and trilingualism in Israel from a multitude of perspectives, the book focuses on four aspects of multilingualism and literacy in Israel: Arabic-Hebrew bilingual education and Arabic literacy development; second-language Hebrew literacy among immigrant children; literacy in English as a second/third language; and adult bilingualism. Chapters dissect findings on immigrant youth education, language impairment in bilinguals, and neurocognitive features of bilingual language processing. Reflecting current trends, this volume integrates linguistics, sociology, education, cognitive science, and neuroscience.




Formal approaches to complexity in heritage language grammars


Book Description

This collective volume breaks new ground in studies of linguistic complexity by addressing this phenomenon in heritage languages. It dismisses with the conception that heritage languages are less complex than their baseline or homeland counterparts and shows complexity trade-offs at various levels of linguistic representation. The authors consider defining properties of complexity as a phenomenon, diagnostics of complexity, and the ways complexity is modeled, measured, or operationalized in language sciences. The chapters showcase several bilingual dyads and offer new empirical data on heritage language production and use.




Formal approaches to complexity in heritage language grammars


Book Description

This collective volume breaks new ground in studies of linguistic complexity by addressing this phenomenon in heritage languages. It dismisses with the conception that heritage languages are less complex than their baseline or homeland counterparts and shows complexity trade-offs at various levels of linguistic representation. The authors consider defining properties of complexity as a phenomenon, diagnostics of complexity, and the ways complexity is modeled, measured, or operationalized in language sciences. The chapters showcase several bilingual dyads and offer new empirical data on heritage language production and use.




Language Assessment


Book Description

Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices is designed to offer a comprehensive survey of essential principles and tools for second language assessment. Its first and second editions have been successfully used in teacher-training courses, teacher certification curricula, and TESOL master of arts programs. As the third in a trilogy of teacher education textbooks, it is designed to follow H. Douglas Brown's other two books, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (sixth edition, Pearson Education, 2014) and Teaching by Principles(fourth edition, Pearson Education, 2015). References to those two books are made throughout the current book. Language Assessment features uncomplicated prose and a systematic, spiraling organization. Concepts are introduced with practical examples, understandable explanations, and succinct references to supportive research. The research literature on language assessment can be quite complex and assume that readers have technical knowledge and experience in testing. By the end of Language Assessment, however, readers will have gained access to this not-so-frightening field. They will have a working knowledge of a number of useful, fundamental principles of assessment and will have applied those principles to practical classroom contexts. They will also have acquired a storehouse of useful tools for evaluating and designing practical, effective assessment techniques for their classrooms.







Relationality and Learning in Oceania


Book Description

"This multi-authored volume draws on the collective experiences of a team of researcher-practitioners, from three Oceanic universities, in an aid-funded intervention program for enhancing literacy learning in Pacific Islands primary education schools. The interventions explored here-in Solomon Islands and Tonga-were implemented via a four-year collaboration which adopted a design-based research approach to bringing about sustainable improvements in teacher and student learning, and in the delivery and evaluation of educational aid. This approach demanded that learning from the context of practice should be determining of both content and process; that all involved in the interventions should see themselves as learners. Essential to the trusting and respectful relationships required for this approach was the program's acknowledgement of relationality as central to indigenous Oceanic societies, and of education as a relational activity. Relationality and Learning in Oceania: Contextualizing Education for Development addresses debates current in both comparative education and international aid. Argued strongly is that relational research-practice approaches (south-south, south-north) which center the importance of context and culture, and the significance of indigenous epistemologies, are required to strengthen education within the post-colonial relational space of Oceania, and to inform the various agencies and actors involved in 'education for development' in Oceania and globally. Maintained is that the development of education structures and processes within the contexts explored through the chapters comprising this volume, continues to be a negotiation between the complexity of historically developed local 'traditions' and understandings and the 'global' imperatives shaped by dominant development discourses"--




Language Sampling with Adolescents


Book Description

Language Sampling with Adolescents: Implications for Intervention, now in its second edition, provides guidelines for analyzing spoken and written language production in adolescents. It is geared toward graduate students and speech-language pathologists who work in the public schools with middle school and high school students (Grades 5-12). The book includes many tables, figures, and practical exercises (with answer keys) to help readers understand how to analyze the content and structure of what adolescents express in different genres: conversational, narrative, expository, and persuasive. Based on formal analyses, the book indicates how the information can be applied to establish functional language goals for adolescents with language disorders. It also explains how to implement intervention activities that are designed to enhance spoken and written language production in adolescents.. For the second edition, the author has revised and updated the content and added a new chapter on "Adolescent Language Disorders" that includes information on specific language impairment, nonspecific language impairment, and autism spectrum disorder. The author has also added more information on: . Different types of discourse problems that can occur in different types of language disorders, with examples. Intervention for each different genre (including conversation, narration, exposition, and persuasion). In addition, the exercises have been restructured to provide more examples of each type of syntactic element to be analyzed. More examples of language samples from adolescents have been added, including adolescents with autism. Finally, the author has added more exercises for grammar coding.. With its new and updated content and features, Language Sampling with Adolescents: Implications for Intervention, second edition is a must-have resource for clinicians working with middle and high school students with language disorders..