Key Terms & Concepts
On the WIDA scale, a student at Level 1 is considered to be at this stage.
What is Entering?
This allows students to be tested in their home language and simplifies the language used in their tests.
What are Accommodations?
A collection of work that demonstrates the student’s progress and achievement in meeting grade-level standards
What is portfolio assessment?
The first document a parent fills out that "triggers" the English language proficiency testing process.
What is the Home Language Survey (HLS)?
Tests that unfairly favors/ disadvantages certain groups (gender, religion, ethnicity, economic status)
What is Bias?
Examples of alternative authentic assessments for EL.
What are observations, self-assessment, peer assessment, and portfolio assessment?
This “assessment for learning” happens during a lesson to help a teacher know if they should slow down or re-teach.
What is Formative Assessment?
An approach to test design ensuring assessments are accessible to all students. Defines who is being tested, why, and what is being measured.
What is Universal Design?
A tool that is used to evaluate authentic assessments.
What is a rubric?
The concept that a school should never make a major decision about an ELL based on only one single test score.
What are Multiple Measures?
A type of validity that considers social consequences of test usage on students.
What is Consequential Validity?
Types of instructional support for language learners.
What are linguistic support, graphic support, sensory support, and interactive support?
If a science test is so wordy that an ELL student fails because of the English rather than actual content, the test is lacking this specific quality.
What is Validity?
A test that measures whether a student is meeting specific standards by calculating the percentage of correct answers.
What is a Criterion-Referenced Test?
Instruction leverages ELL’s home language. Standards-aligned instruction for ELLs is rigorous, grade-level appropriate, and provides deliberate and appropriate scaffolds. Instruction moves ELLs forward by taking into account their English proficiency level(s) and prior schooling experiences, and structure fosters ELLs’ autonomy by equipping them with the strategies necessary to comprehend and use language in a variety of academic settings. Diagnostic tools and formative assessment practices are employed to measure students’ content knowledge, academic language competence, and participation in disciplinary practices, or Instruction focuses on providing ELLs with opportunities to engage in discipline-specific!c practices which are designed to build conceptual understanding and language competence in tandem
What are the Six Key Principles for ELL instruction?