ASSESSING ESL STUDENTS´ KNOWLEDGE OF CONTENT IN K-12 CLASSES

CHAPTER 10

HOW TO TEACH MATH

It is necessary to evaluate class content and student background. For class content, check word problems and for student background, how ELLs may have been taught math differently depending on their country of origin and how this different training may impact assessment in K-12 in the United States.

HOW TO TEACH SCIENCE
Bibliography about science contains two kinds of languages: general and technical vocabulary. For this, teachers should make attempts to clarify presentations with simplified language and appropriate visuals although they should not avoid scientific terminology.

USING ASSESSMENT

CHAPTER 9

Assessment can provide useful information about:

•     The proficiency of individual students.
•     Abilities of all students in a class.
•     Achievement of course goals by all students at a particular level.
•     Quality of teaching.
•     How well course materials and teaching activities have helped students learn.
•     If an assessment reflected course aims and outcomes.
•     How well students at one school performed in comparison to another.
•     How reliable a test is and whether we can depend on the results.
•     Whether an assessment distinguished between more and less able students.

ADMINISTERING ASSESSMENT

CHAPTER 8

CONSIDERATIONS PRIOR TO TEST ADMINISTRATION

 

 The first consideration has to do with scheduling tests which allows students to do a good job. That is, they have to be scheduled not coinciding with special events planned by the educational institution. Second, providing information to students about what they may and may not bring and do in the exam becomes a necessary consideration. Also, at the beginning of the exam, students must be prevented and warned about academic dishonesty in a way of discussing school policies and penalties to treat acts like cheating and plagiarism.

Another aspect is the physical setting to administer the exam. It should provide a conducive atmosphere to student learning; namely, a place with no interruptions or background noise. Moreover, the test must be appropriately assembled what means that it needs to be well typed, well formatted and free of typos. The test  has to provide clear instructions. 

 TEST ADMINISTRATION

Take into account the following aspects:

• Time: tell students announcements for them to budget their time.
• Administrator`s role: maintain a friendly but stern demeanor.
• Test security: maintain the security during the whole test administration since giving them to students until preventing cheating.

ISSUES IN TEST ADMINISTRATION

SURPRISE TESTS AND POP QUIZZES: they can not be applied because students have no chance to prepare for them.

LATECOMERS: students arriving late should not be allowed to take it because they can excuse their poor results because of their tardiness.
INCIDENT REPORTS: mechanisms to deal with unusual behavior should designed.
ACCOMODATIONS POLICY: there should be accomodations for people with medical problems and physically challenged.

Student Test Taking Strategies

CHAPTER 7

Effective Test-taking Strategies

The present section provides suggestions for long term successful learning. Among them, we can find the following:

• Make a semester study plan: It encompasses aspects like being realistic, finding a good place to study, including a daily study time and allowing plenty of preparation for important assessements.
• Attend class regularly.
• Use good review techniques: For example planning review sessions, taking practice exams and reviewing with friends.
• Organize Pre-Exam Hours wisely.
• Become familiar with instructions and formats.
• Use strategies appropriate to the skill area.
• Strategize your exam plan about mechanics, procedures and time management.
• Learn from each exam experience.
• Build learner autonomy through self assessment to allow him or her to evaluate his or her own performance at various points in a course.
 

Self Assessement Techiques and Procedures

1. Student progress cards
2. Rating Scales, checklists and questionnaires
3. Learner diaries and dialogue journals
4. Videotapes
5. Student-designes tests
6. Learner-centered assessment

 

THE ADVANTAGES OF RUBRICS

Rubrics

Definition: It is a scoring guide to evaluate students’ performance.

Types of rubrics:

1.       Analytical:  Identifies and assess components of a finished product.

2.       Holistic: Assesses student work as a whole.

3.       Weighted: Judges certain concepts heavier than others.

Characteristics:

1.       It is an authentic assessment tool.

2.       It is a working guide for students and teachers.

3.       It enhances the quality of direct instruction.

4.       They can be created for any content area including math, science and others.

Uses:

1.       Guide to build on current knowledge.

2.       Reviewing, reconceptualizing and revisiting concepts from different angles.

Advantages:

1.       Increase the quality of direct instruction by providing focus.

2.       Have explicit guidelines regarding teacher expectations.

3.       Students can use rubrics as a tool to develop their abilities.

4.       Teacher can reuse rubrics for various activities.

How to create an Original Rubric

1.       Determine the concepts to be taught

2.       Choose the criteria to be evaluated

3.       Develop a grid, plug the concepts and criteria

4.       Share the rubric with students before they begin writing

5.       Evaluate the end product

ASSESSING SPEAKING

CHAPTER 6

Theory of Speaking Assessment:

          There are four competencies supporting the speaking ability:

1.      Grammatical competence (sounds of letters, pronunciation, intonation and stress.

2.      Discourse competence (relationships beyond sentence level, cohesion, coherence and communication in a meaningful way).

3.      Sociolinguistic competences (applying knowledge of what is expected socially and culturally by users of the target language).

4.      Strategic competence (the way the learners use language to carry out communicative purposes).

Designing Speaking Assessments:

Formal speaking assessment techniques:

Parts:

a.     Warm up

b.     Level check

c.     Probe

d.     Wind down

Types of assessments:

1.      Picture cue

2.      Prepared monologue

3.      Role play

4.      Information gap activity

5.      Oral presentations

6.      Debate on a controversial topic

7.      Reading aloud

8.      Retelling stories

9.      Verbal essays

10.  Extemporaneous speaking

Rubrics for assessing speaking:

         They basically should include grammar, vocabulary, fluency and pronunciation and levels from excellent to unacceptable or poor.

ASSESSING LISTENING

CHAPTER 5

Definition: It is an active process whereby students receive, conctruct meaning from and respond to spoken messages.

Models of listening:

1.    Bottom up: Decoding of messages from the smallest meaningful units to complete texts.

2.    Top down: Use of background knowledge of the context and situation to make sense of whet is heard.

Approaches to Listening Assessment:

1.    Discrete-point: It broke listening into component elements and assessed them separately. For example, phoneme discrimination.

2.    Integrative: It attempts to assess a learner’s capacity to use many bits of language at the same time.

3.    Communicative: In this, the listener must be able to comprehend the message and then use it in context.

Considerations in designing Listening Tasks:

1. background knowledge

2. test content

3. texts

4.Vocabulary

5. test structure

6. formats

7. item writing

8. timing

9. skill contamination

Techniques for Assessing Listening Comprehension

•Paraphrase recognition

•short answer

•cloze

•dictation

•information transfer and notetaking 

•listening test delivery: recording voiceovers

•scoring: use questions that are right or wrong