The Language Assessment Conundrum: What Tests Claim to Assess and What Teachers Need to Know
By Dr. Natalie Kuhlman, ELL Outlook™ Contributing Writer
Have you ever wondered about the quiet boys and girls sitting in the backs of many mainstream classrooms in this country? They may turn in all their papers, do their homework (or not), but they don't say anything in class. Who are they? What do they know? They may be English language learners (ELLs), and their teachers may discover at the end of the grading period that they know very little about them. What do these students really know? What aspects of English language proficiency have they acquired during the past weeks or months? Most teachers have no way of systematically checking on such students or assessing them in order to have the classroom-based information needed to adapt the curriculum for them.
At the same time, schools and districts are required to formally assess the language development of their students under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and other legal mandates. The classroom teacher, however, often knows little about the language proficiency test itself or how any individual child has performed, other than being given a single numeric score. These tests typically don't provide the information teachers need to instruct their students; they are intended to show only the overall growth in English of a large number of students.
In this article I will first briefly discuss some of the legal issues that have required formal language assessments at the state and federal levels and review the most commonly used instruments over the past twenty years. I will then discuss what teachers need to know about their students at the classroom level in order to provide instruction for these students. I will also answer some questions about related current issues regarding what happens to these students.
Background
As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court Lau v. Nichols decision in January 1974, students whose first language was other than English were required to receive instruction they could understand. "There is no equality of treatment merely by providing students the same facilities, textbooks, teachers and curriculum, for students who do not understand English are effectively foreclosed from any meaningful education" (Lau v. Nichols, 1974). As states interpreted this decision, students who were identified as ELLs had to be assessed for their language proficiency, at least in English, if not in their primary language. The identification process begins with a Home Language Survey, which is given to parents or guardians to ascertain if a language other than English is used in the home. If so, then the child is given a formal language proficiency assessment for placement into and out of program services.
This requirement for identification of ELLs has been reaffirmed over the years, most recently by NCLB. "Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, state education agencies are required to provide evidence that English language learners in grades 3-12 are making demonstrated improvements in English proficiency and adequate yearly progress in academic content each school year" (Loop, 2002). States now use commercial or state-developed language proficiency tests, often aligned to state English language development (ELD) standards or frameworks, to ostensibly identify the language growth and proficiency of their students.
Most commonly used assessment instruments
Many language assessment instruments were created as a result of Lau v. Nichols, but only four commercial tests have been used extensively. Two of them focus on the use of oral grammar: the Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM) (Burt, Dulay, and Hernandez Chavez, 1976) and the Basic Inventory of Natural Language (BINL) (Herbert, 1976). The BSM uses a question/short answer format; the BINL uses story retelling based on a picture. Since NCLB mandates the assessment of reading and writing as well as oral language, these assessments are no longer widely used.
The other two tests include reading and writing as well as oral proficiency: The Idea Proficiency Test (IPT) (Ballard, Tighe, and Dalton, 1979, 1982, 1984, 1991, 2005) and the Language Assessment Scales (LAS) (De Avila and Duncan, 1978, 1991, 2005). The IPT was constructed from the assessment part of the IDEA kits used for English language development. The instrument places students into one of six levels; only at the highest level are they asked to say more than a word or phrase in response to each item. Within levels, there are 14 items, each of which concentrates on a different aspect of language. Although the test provides a helpful list of what students can supposedly do at each level, the test data are not sufficient to make these generalizations. There are separate instruments for assessing oral language, reading, and writing at the preschool, elementary, and secondary levels. The test is available in English and Spanish.
The LAS is probably the instrument in widest use today. As opposed to the IPT, which has single items per category, the LAS is divided into five parts: sound/phrase recognition; sound/phrase reproduction; vocabulary; comprehension; and story retelling. The story retelling accounts for 50% of the score and is scored on a 5-point holistic scale. The oral instrument includes versions for preschool and up; reading and writing instruments are available for grades 2 and up. The LAS has been published in English and Spanish, and independent groups have translated it into Vietnamese, Tagalalog, and Apache.
With its five sections, the LAS provides more specific and consistent information than does the IPT. Both tests are adequate for placement, but they still focus primarily on social and not academic content. To get more information on these and other commercially developed tests, go to Christine Loop's article at www.ncela.gwu.edu/expert/faq/25tests.htm
More recently, some states have created their own assessment instruments, usually aligned to their state ESL/ELD standards. California used the LAS as the basis for the state's ELD standards-based assessment (CELDT). New York created the NYSESLAT (New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test), based on its own ELD standards. Texas created a test called the Reading Proficiency Test in English (RPTE), which looks only at reading improvement in English learners and is tied to the Texas Achievement test (TAC) system. The World-class Instructional Design and Assessment Consortium (WIDA), led by Wisconsin and including nine other states, has developed ELD standards and an ELD proficiency test (ACCESSTM for ELLs). WIDA is also working on developing a system of alternate assessments for ELLs (Academic SUCCESSTM). Most other states, particularly those with small populations of English learners, use one of the commercially developed instruments.
What these instruments tell us (or don't tell us)
Unfortunately, the content of most commercial and state instruments does not reflect the context of what students are learning in the classroom. The statewide instruments are "quick and dirty," in the sense that they are intended to place students in classrooms quickly and efficiently and to chart their growth in general. Their intent is to provide an overall picture of how students are doing, not necessarily to provide information that teachers can use daily in the classroom to develop curriculum. Teachers need to know if their students can use English to read social studies texts, do math problems, and so forth, not just if they can answer multiple choice questions once a year. But these tests don't provide the diagnostic-oriented assessment rubrics that would give teachers that kind of information. Teachers often have to rely on their intuition and observations to make curricular decisions. In other words, teachers typically aren't given a consistent and formal way of either diagnosing exactly what students know and can do, based on their state's ELD/ESL standards, or of monitoring students' language growth and development. What teachers need to supplement these statewide language tests is a performance-based instrument that they can use on a regular basis to document their students' growth and development in English and that will inform their teaching.
Another issue with these state and commercially developed language assessments is the interpretations that are made from them. For example, California has just released the results of its state test, the CELDT. The Los Angeles Times (February 9, 2005, p.1) reported that 46% of California's 1.3 million ELLs are now considered "fluent." While that alone can be questioned (What does it mean to be "fluent"? Is it just answering multiple choice questions?), only a small percentage of these students have been reclassified as non-ELLs (5-7%, depending on how it is calculated) because they are still not performing well enough on NCLB-mandated standardized achievement tests in English and math, the paper-and-pencil, once-a-year tests that may or may not be aligned with state standards or with what children are learning in the classroom.
Given this state of affairs, there are many questions that teachers are asking about what happens to students who are considered "fluent" but aren't performing, either in the classroom or on standardized tests. Next, I will attempt to answer a few of these questions.
Does "reclassification" solve all of an ELL's problems?
In general, to be reclassified as not needing further ELD services, students need to test at a specified level on a language assessment test and meet district criteria on standardized achievement tests in reading/English language arts and math. There should also be input from teachers and parents. Typically students are reclassified no later than third or fourth grade if they have attended the same school since kindergarten or first grade. Older children are usually "mainstreamed" after one to three years. This is only at most three of the five to seven years that research tells us are necessary to acquire academic language (Hakuta, Butler, & Witt, 2000; Grissom, 2004; Thomas & Collier, 1997), which often explains why these children aren't succeeding academically after being declared "fluent." They are often exited with just social language skills, not the academic vocabulary and well-developed literacy skills in English that it takes to succeed in school.
When students are reclassified prematurely, they may do all right in third grade, but when they move to fourth grade the focus of their education changes. Students are learning to read in grades K to 3, but in grade 4 they begin reading to learn, and the texts they use become significantly more difficult. Teachers still need to scaffold their instruction for their ELD students and still need to have performance-based instruments to continue to measure their growth and development in English. Teachers need to be prepared to support these students after reclassification, and textbooks need to address these needs in all content areas. If this doesn't happen, these students will continue to fail, and many will eventually drop out of school.
Why don't these "fluent" students do well on standards-based performance measures of literacy and other subject areas?
ELLs who attend dual-language/two-way immersion schools beginning in kindergarten or first grade typically don't show grade-level achievement in English language arts and math until they reach the fifth or sixth grade. Unfortunately, the public and many state and federal government agencies expect these gains to show up within a year or two, regardless of what kind of program the ELLs participate in. If ELLs haven't become proficient in academic English, their scores on other standards-based measures will suffer as the problem becomes compounded in other content areas. If teachers aren't prepared to scaffold the content in math, science, and social studies, students will fall further and further behind. Their achievement test scores in content areas, and usually their grades as well, will reflect this.
What can teachers do?
Teachers need to be advocates for their students and to prepare themselves to meet the needs of those students. It doesn't matter if teachers are in an ESL/ELD classroom, a mainstream classroom, or somewhere else. They need to know what the language proficiency tests given to their students show and don't show. They also need to know what they can do to identify the language needs of their students and how to address those needs. A good place to start is by learning how to observe students in a consistent and regular fashion, using a model such as the Language Observation Tasks System (LOTS) (available from the San Diego County Office of Education: http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/lret/eld/assess.asp) or something similar. The first step in the process is for teachers to know their students on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. They can then plan their curriculum accordingly, as publishers can develop the materials that teachers need.
Conclusion
This article has touched briefly on some of aspects of language assessment and why teachers need to be knowledgeable about it. I have also tried to answer a few key questions that are often asked about what the results of such assessments mean and how they correlate to student learning in the classroom. Publishers need to take these results, and the standards that were used to guide the content of the assessment instruments, and create curricula that will prepare students for mainstream classrooms. Of course, there is always a danger: Is the content of the assessments all that students need to know? Are we just teaching to the tests? We all know that statewide assessments are just a snippet, a photo at one point in time, of what students are able to produce. And at best a test by its nature is susceptible to many validity issues. What we need to think about, and accomplish, is the creation of a curriculum that is good for students and an assessment that tells us the curriculum is doing its job. We need to educate our English Language Learners both to learn English and to be successful beyond the assessments and standardized tests. We need to educate these and all children to be successful learners and contributors to our society.
References
Ballard, W. S., Tighe, P .L., & Dalton, E. F. (1979, 1982, 1984, 1991, 2005). Idea proficiency test (IPT).
Brea, CA: Ballard & Tighe.
Burt, M., K., Dulay, H. C., & Hernandez Chavez, E. (1976). Bilingual syntax measure I (BSM). New York:
The Psychological Corporation.
De Avila, E. & Duncan, S. (1978, 1991). Language assessment scales. San Rafael, CA: Linguametrics.
De Avila, E. & Duncan, S. (2005). Language assessment scales. New York: McGraw-Hill
Grissom, J. B. (2004). Reclassification of English learners. Education Policy Archives, 12(36).
Hakuta, K., Butler, Y., & Witt, D. (2000). How long does it take English learners to attain proficiency?
University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute (UCLMRI) Policy Report 2000-1.
Santa Barbara: UCLMRI. Retrieved May 14, 2003, from http://lmri.ucsb.edu/index.htm
Herbert, C. (1986). Basic inventory of natural language. San Bernardino, CA: Checkpoint Systems, Inc.
Lau v. Nichols, 94 S.Ct.786.788 (1974).
Ask NCELA, 25. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition.
Retrieved March 21, 2005, from www.ncela.gwu.edu/expert/faq/25tests.htm
Hefland, D. (2005, February 9). More students show fluency in English. Los Angeles Times, p. 1.
Thomas, W. P., & Collier, V. (1997). School effectiveness for language minority students. NCBE Resource
Collection Series, 9. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education.
Valdez Pierce, L. (1998, January). Keynote address. Presented at Applying TESOL's ESL Standards for Pre-K-12
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If you have any comments about this article or questions for for the author, please send them to: alex@coursecrafters.com.