English as a Foreign Language Assessment

There are many purposes for which assessment is used for in regards to English language learners, “ Classification, program placement, monitoring of academic progress, and reclassification” are among just a few. (Syrja, 2011,1105) One of the biggest of the four is “Program Placement”. In order to place a child you must see if they need a program.

Once a parent informs a school that a the child speaks another language other than English, a “Home Language Survey” is administered. If the survey results come back that the child is anything, but proficient in the English language a “State Language Proficiency assessment” will test the level of acquisition. In other words is the the child in the Preproduction, Early production, Speech Emergence, intermediate fluency and advanced fluency. Later an administrator will establish what level there writing, reading, listening, and speaking. (Syrja,2011).

. Besides an assessment evaluating for initial placement it also is used place a child in the right ELL classroom.(also known a ESL) This assessment is as important as the first one. This is because the needs of a child are always changing. In this case the assessment is used as a monitoring tool(Syrja,2011).. Not to say that monitoring should not be conducted by a teacher because it is strongly advised that the teacher does.

After the child is placed in a class based on his or her assessment results, a teacher’s challenges begins. Lots of times a teacher does not know what the child acquisition levels are . This results in many teachers making the misconception that if a child is leveling at a high level in one domain then all there domains should be as well. Unfortunately, this misconception brings with it the ability to not under...

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... goes unseen. Many parents of ELL can bring about their own experiences and feeling about literacy and schooling.. This helps schools dramatically who do not have a ELL program or even those who do. This is because teachers can have a better understanding of what and does not work through the mouth of adult who are ELL, or LTEL use to be ELL. The parents are also a good tool because all strategies are based on research and opinion, instead parent insight takes you to the source. (Panferov, 2010).

Not only does the parent help the school, but the school can help the parents. By parents taking part in different aspects of the children learning; wither through events, meeting, or on the phone, The parent is able to learn strategies to help their child. They also can learn more about areculture and share their culture at the same time. (Panferov, S.2010)