Running Head: ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS 1

Assessment Strategies for English Language Leaners:

The Best and Worst Ways to Determine Student Achievement

Megan Spencer

University of Idaho
ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS 2

Rationale

In 2002, almost ten percent of the students in the public-school systems were English

Language Learners (Lenski, et al., 2006). This number continues to grow as the years go on, and

understanding how to teach these students becomes an even more important task. Any

multiculturally proficient educator should strive to include the best teaching practices for every

student, but sometimes they are unaware of how to do this. First, the educator has to know her

students, how they learn, what they know, and who they are. To establish most of this

information, the teacher has to create an honest and strong relationship with each individual

student. In addition to relationships, teachers will also need to understand how to identify

students needs and content knowledge in order to know how to best teach them.

For students who are English Language Leaners (hereby referred to as ELLs), many

standardized tests have shown that there is a performance gap between them and their English

proficient peers. To some educators, this may indicate that ELL students have inferior grasps of

the content and knowledge being taught. This may lead to setting lower goals or seeing students

through a deficiency outlook. Overall, this could be detrimental to the education and well-being

of ELL students. However, studies have found that this gap may not be primarily due to lack of

knowledge; it may be due to poor methods of assessment (Abedi, 2004).

Using authentic methods of assessment with every student will provide a plethora of

benefits to teachers and students. These can include a providing a better understanding of what

the children know, identifying needs, creating a safe and accepting environment for learning, and

increasing student confidence. Because teaching and assessing students in the greatest way

possible should be the focus of every teacher, it is important to understand what the bestand

worstways to assess English Language Learners include. This paper will detail what those are
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and how they can be incorporated into classrooms.

Literature Review

To begin, it is important to comprehend how the progress and knowledge of ELL students

have been and are being measured and presented. Most students yearly progress is determined

by state-defined academic achievement tests, but studies have shown that academic

achievement tests that are constructed and normed for native English speakers have lower

reliability and validity for [ELL] populations (Abedi, 2004). When considering the wide-scale

assessment of ELL students, there are also other issues to take into account. The classification of

who is an English Language Learner is inconsistent not only between states, but also within

states. In addition, the varying ELL population size and population instability make it difficult to

accurately track student accomplishments and correctly compare data (Abedi, 2004). Even the

standardized tests that compare ELL scores to a norming group usually do not have data for a

norming group that is truly representative of the full population. To improve this, the group

should include ELLs with diverse backgrounds and experiences (Abedi et al., 2004). While many

teachers do not feel as though they can impact the standardized testing, they are fully capable of

changing assessment on a classroom level.

The first question an educator must ask him- or herself before assessing students is why

am I going to assess my students? The purpose of assessment should always shape what

methods are used and what content is covered. Purposes may include deciding student

placement, influencing instructional decisions, determining program evaluations, or conveying

student comprehension. It is also important to make sure the purpose of assessment is consistent

with the goals and objectives the class is presenting the students. Furthermore, students will gain

more from assessment if they also understand why they are being assessed. For ELL students, it
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is incredibly important to investigate students prior schooling and determine if the assessment is

at an appropriate literacy level. If the assessment is trying to determine whether a student

understands addition but the assessment only presents intensive word problems, the assessment

may only be measuring the students reading level (Lenski, et al., 2006).

After deciding why to assess, educators must then decide how to assess. By taking into

account that all students learn differently, an obvious conclusion can be reached that teachers

should use a variety of assessment tools. By allowing students access to multiple alternate

assessments, teachers can gain a more complete picture of what students actually know. Ideas for

such assessment includes observations (i.e., anecdotal records, rating scales, checklists),

journals (i.e., buddy journals, dialogue journals, reader response), conferring, questionnaires,

portfolios, and self-assessments (Lenski, et al., 2006). Additional alternate assessments that may

promote participation in nonthreatening ways also include non-language dependent methods like

drawings, Venn diagrams, mind maps, charts, or PowerPoints (Lenski, et al., 2006). The decision

of how to assess may also be made easier by understanding what reading levels your ELL

students have achieved. In a study done in ten Pennsylvania Elementary schools, two-thirds of

teachers surveyed reported uncertainty of the language proficiency levels of the ELLs in their

classes (Clark-Gareca, 2016). Knowing where their students are could not only help them

decide what alternate assessments to include, but it would also inform their decisions about what

accommodations to provide in testing scenarios. When specifically referring to ELL students, the

term accommodation refers to any modification of the test itself or testing procedures that aids

students to better demonstrate what they know. Further, true accommodations should improve

ELLs scores while not affecting non-ELL students (Abedi et al., 2004).

Educators should always consider the consequences of the accommodations that they
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make even with good intentions; some accommodations may be creating a worse situation

rather than better. For example, some research has shown that test exemption occurs most

frequently with low-level ELLs. This often can cause students to feel more excluded and further

stigmatized. It can also send messages that ELL students are not expected to learn as much as

other students. Further, some forms of tests such as written assessments can be so impractical

that having abundant accommodations may not even the gap between the two groups (Clark-

Gareca, 2016).

With this in mind, teachers should know what the best accommodations for ELL students

are. While no single accommodation will be the perfect fit for all students, many of the following

modifications should be considered when assessing individuals who are still in a process of

acquiring English proficiency. First, students may benefit by having the option of responding

verbally rather than in writing. Second, students may benefit from having a professional who is

qualified in their native language as well as English to support with the assessment. Third, it may

help to offer the option of measuring reading growth and progress by using group assessments.

Fourth, teachers should permit students to give answers in various formats. Fifth, if translation

allows for it, accept answers in a students native language. Finally, it is also recommended to

permit students to use bilingual dictionaries when at the beginning stages of their learning

experience with English (Lenski, 2006). Additional modification to consider can include giving

extra time, writing a version of assessments that is not language intensive, and providing

frequent breaks during testing.

In sum, educators can create a better and more educational experience for ELLs as well

as all students by individualizing how students learn and are assessed. Every student is

completely unique, so it is logical that his or her education should also be unique. Beyond using
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accommodations in teaching and assessment, teachers should strive to make learning meaningful

to students. This can happen by relating subjects to students lives and giving students control

over what they study and how the class is managed. People will always be able to theoretically

say which methods should work best for certain groups of students, but the best forms of

assessment and accommodation will always stem from genuinely knowing your students and

wanting to help them succeed.

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References

Abedi, Jamal. (2004). The No Child Left Behind Act and English Language Learners:

Assessment and Accountability Issues. Educational Researcher, 33(1), 4-14.

Abedi, J., Hofstetter, C., & Lord, C. (2004). Assessment Accommodations for English Language

Learners: Implications for Policy-Based Empirical Research. Review of Educational

Research, 74(1), 1-28.

Clark-Gareca, B. (2016). Classroom assessment and English Language Learners: Teachers'

accommodations implementation on routine math and science tests. Teaching and

Teacher Education, 54, 139-148.

Lenski, S., Ehlers-Zavala, F., Daniel, M., Sun-Irminger, X. (2006, Sept.) Assessing English-

language learners in mainstream classrooms. The Reading Teacher, 60(1), 25-34.