Standard 4.

b Language Proficiency Assessment

Artifact 1

Students first language literacy directly influences their literacy in their second language.

In order to build literacy in English, I, first, have to assess my students literacy in their native

language.

This is made evident by the attached artifact. After completing an Individual Language

and Literacy Assessment with one of my students, I learned that she had never attended school

in her home country. Consequently, she had limited literacy in her first language, and had no

idea what we were asking her to do, even when bilingual supports were used. This caused me

to drastically change my plan with this student and build time in the curriculum to work on the

first language that she needed to build English literacy.

Before my ENL coursework I would not have thought to assess or support students first

language literacy. As my school's LM Coordinator, my plan is to conduct Individual Literacy and

Language Assessments with all ELLs. This will allow me to better collaborate with content

teachers to help understand gaps in understanding and language production.