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Activity for Review and Assessment
SIOP component
Adapted from Angie Medina, Long Beach Unified School District
Grade levels: K-3
Subject Areas: All
Grouping Configuration: Small groups
Approximate Time Involved:5-10 minutes for the discussionMaterials: A stuffed bear for each table group
Description:
Share Bear encourages all students in a group to engage in higher level thinking, participate, and wait their turn. There is one Share Bear at each table. After the teacher poses an open ended question(e.g., "How do you feel when_____________?"), one student at each table takes the Share Bear, and gives his or her response to the question, passing the Share Bear to the next student who then gives his or her response. This continues until each student has shared or had multiple turns.

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http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/reading-and-understanding-written-math-problems

The above article from Colorin Colorado was very informative and gave me ideas on how to support my EL students in Math.

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Formative Assessments Getting Smart website has many web pages with information and techniques that can be used in the classroom. If you surf their site you can also find some really engaging podcasts. I found this web page helpful. Many of the strategies are repeated.

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The Latin root word for "assessment" is assidere which means to sit beside. In my work as an English Language Learner (ELL) specialist, I advocate for educators to intentionally sit beside their students to more deeply understand and support their learning trajectory at the classroom level. That is to say, I strongly advocate for an intentional formative assessment approach for ELLs.

Schools can go beyond traditional summative and interim measures to ensure a more balanced assessment approach that brings to light the nuanced and complex process of academic language development. By implementing formative assessments for ELLs, educators can develop a "language lens" that uncovers and showcases the growth of this culturally and linguistically diverse population.

Where do we start?

First, we can examine what comprises our current assessment systems in place. We have large-scale, "big data" summative assessments that give us "big data" once a year on student proficiency. We also have interim assessments that measure growth against benchmarks periodically throughout the year, often with the audience largely being district and school-level stakeholders.

These summative and interim assessments provide "snapshots" of ELL performance and are not always reliable or valid on the ELL population. Therefore, we need to ask ourselves if we have systemic, systematic formative measures in place that provide feedback on teaching and learning specifically for our ELLs? Do we have a "photo album" approach of ELL development? If not, we can add specific formative practices into our assessment system that celebrate student growth and provide next steps for instruction at the classroom level.

What are some effective formative assessment practices for ELLs?

What's important to remember is that formative assessment is flexible and intended to focus on feedback for both the teacher and the student. As an initial step, I highly recommend that teachers keep portfolios of student writing samples to show individual student growth over time. Through portfolios like journals and learning logs, student work can be the centerpiece in conferences and school data meetings.

Next, I suggest that teachers work with students to co-create appropriate goals for using more sophisticated academic language. It's critical to promote student ownership of the assessment process through goal setting, self-assessment as well as peer assessment opportunities.

How can collaboration strengthen formative assessment?

A critical step in strengthening ELL formative assessments is to create and sustain collaborative time to analyze student work. Evidence-based conversations between educators about what students are producing can directly lead to ideas for effective student feedback and instruction. Professional learning communities are also opportunities for collaboration with ELL specialists to deepen content teachers' understanding of language and literacy. One final tip is to consider building data walls of multiple measures of ELL data quarterly to facilitate data-driven coaching cycles and team planning. In these ways, we can offer a "photo album" approach to show progress over time, celebrating students' journey of academic language development.

We know that ELLs are a diverse group of students with unique assets and varying factors affecting academic performance. Many educators need support in reaching ELLs and teaching academic language yet they often don't know where to start. By implementing more formative assessments for ELLs with the appropriate language supports, teachers can better understand their students and become stronger teachers of academic language. After all, all teachers are indeed language teachers!

Formative Assessment Ideas

Journals or learning logs to show growth over time in a portfolio

Academic conversations to explain new learning

Cornell notes or graphic organizers to structure note-taking

Student-teacher conference or small group discussions to recount learning

Exit slips to show "I think..", "I wonder...", "I still want to know..."

Fill-in-the-blank or "cloze" activity using sentence frames

Reciprocal teaching

Recording student language through technology

Drawing or role playing

Gallery walk of student work where students give each other feedback on stickies

Word or concept sorts based on unit themes or student-created categories

One word or one phrase response using whiteboards

Self-checklist or peer-checklist

Label or sequence visuals like pictures, photos or realia (real life objects)

Student-generated questions for peers

Please see the Language Snapshot Tool (for formative language assessment) here for free.
This blog is part of the Supporting English Language Learners Series with support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. For more, stay tuned for the culminating podcast, infographic and publication.
For more, see:
Sarah Ottow is the founder, director and lead coach at Confianza: Educating for ELL Equity. Follow Confianza on Twitter: @ELL_Confianza Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update. This post includes mentions of a Getting Smart partner. For a full list of partners, affiliate organizations and all other disclosures please see our Partner page.

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Supporting English Language Learners with Formative Assessments

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The Latin root word for "assessment" is assidere which means to sit beside. In my work as an English Language Learner (ELL) specialist, I advocate for educators to intentionally sit beside their students to more deeply understand and support their learning trajectory at the classroom level.

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While doing this module I wanted to know how to help ELL's with word problems. This article lists 10 ways to help ELL's with word problems. They suggest: 1) creating vocabulary banks 2) using manipulatives 3) modifying teacher talk 4) allowing for non verbal responses 5) using sentences frames 6) designing questions for different proficiency levels 7) using prompts to support student responses 8) putting children in groups who have the same knowledge level of academic vocabulary 9) allow partner talk and 10) choral responses. I think these should be integrated into every lesson whether there are ELL students or not.

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https://busyteacher.org/14344-6-assessment-testing-strategies-esl-classroom.html

This was an interesting link that had a variety of ideas for assessment with ELLs. My personal favorite was the matching category, because matching allows ELLs to use pictures and content-specific vocabulary in order to improve their understanding of what the teacher is asking. Additionally, giving ELLs a multiple-choice test is a great option, but you must first ensure that students will be able to comprehend the vocabulary being used in the question. As more of a formative assessment, it's great to include some completion grades in order to encourage student participation.

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I stumbled upon this tool and I'm curious why it hasn't been mentioned. I feel like we are moving toward paperless classrooms and that is going to make it difficult for formative assessment tools. It was interesting to navigate how an electronic formative assessment looks.

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The student assessments solution from IO Education is a comprehensive formative assessment solution that aligns with TEKS standards. The assessment module allows teachers and administrators to create, deliver, score and analyze a wide variety of exams, including placement, formative, interim / benchmark, summative and physical fitness tests.

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I found an interesting article that promotes types of productive questions to support higher order thinking skills and engagement in the lesson.

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Education Week - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo

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The new "question-of-the-week" is:
How can teachers use questions most effectively in the classroom?
Part One's commentators were Jeri Asaro, Dan Rothstein, Diana Laufenberg, Rebecca Mieliwocki, Jenny Edwards, Scott Reed, Cara Jackson and Ben Johnson. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Jeri and Dan on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Today's contributors are Sean Kelly, Sidney D'Mello, Shelly Lynn Counsell, Dr. Jennifer Davis Bowman, Rachael Williams, and Jeffrey D. Wilhelm.
Response From Sean Kelly & Sidney D'Mello
Sean Kelly is Associate Professor in the Department of Administrative and Policy Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He studies the social organization of schools, student engagement, and teacher effectiveness.

Sidney D'Mello is Associate Professor at the Institute of Cognitive Science and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, and a member of the Mindset Scholars Network. His research lies at the intersection of the cognitive, affective, computing, and learning sciences:
We know that asking questions is one of the most effective ways teachers can engage students to think deeply. Good teacher questions support two basic pedagogical functions: challenge and support. Questions can serve to challenge students to think deeply--to analyze, compare, and generalize rather than simply report information. In a wide range of subjects, including literature, math, science, and art, questions can be used to set the expectation that students will engage with the "big ideas" of a topic. Teacher questions can also be a critical part of a supportive classroom environment when they convey to students that their ideas are taken seriously. Yet, as many teachers have experienced first-hand, it is often difficult to ask questions that produce productive responses from students. Usually, a few highly-vocal students dominate Q&A sessions while others stay relatively silent. Research confirms that asking questions that elicit widespread engagement and critical thinking is challenging--even for experienced teachers[1]. Indeed, it is relatively rare for Q&A sessions to turn into true discussions, that is, free and open informational exchanges that aren't steered by teacher test questions How can teachers ask good questions? One effective way is to ask authentic questions, which do not have pre-scripted correct answers, but genuinely seek information from students (e.g., "what do you think of the ending of the story?"). In fact, authentic questions are associated with student achievement, especially when paired with uptake, where teachers build on students' ideas by incorporating their responses into subsequent questions (e.g., "Why do you think that?"). In addition to asking questions with authenticity and uptake, students must also be primed for discussion. This can be done with classroom activities and norms for interaction that encourage "talking to learn." For example, asking students to generate questions to be posed to the entire class is an excellent way to facilitate discussion, as is grouping students into pairs or small groups before bringing a topic for whole class discussion. Research shows that it is often these "setting the stage" activities that subsequently leads to productive classroom talk. As part of an overall program of instructional improvement, how can teachers become better questioners? Teachers, like anyone, need feedback to improve. However, one main challenge in providing feedback to teachers is that global type assessments (e.g., "how did I do today") are not very accurate or informative. Whether produced by a teacher, mentor, or trained observer, the answer is usually "pretty good I guess." Instead, teachers need formative feedback (i.e., feedback intended for improvement rather than evaluation) based on an analysis of the questions they asked, including concrete examples of questions that worked and others that fell flat. Currently, detailed formative feedback is relatively rare in teacher professional development because it requires considerable human resources. Yet, just as technological innovations have made it possible for athletes (and basically anyone) to monitor their heart rate, oxygen use, etc. while they train, it may soon be possible to automatically provide teachers with actionable feedback on the questions they asked in their classes. Indeed, computer scientists have been collaborating with teachers and teacher educators on this goal[2]. They are beginning to envision possibilities for not only large scale studies of curriculum and instruction, but also teacher experimentation and learning in their own classrooms. Stay tuned!
Response From Shelly Lynn Counsell
Shelly Lynn Counsell, EdD, is an assistant professor and Early Childhood Education Program Coordinator at the University of Memphis teaching undergraduate and graduate early childhood education courses. She co-authored the 2016 Teachers College Press book, "STEM Learning with Young Children: Inquiry Teaching with Ramps and Pathways" and she has book chapters in two NSTA publications:
Questioning plays a key and essential role within the teaching-learning process in early childhood education. Young children actively explore and investigate materials and activities with both adults and age-mates within their surrounding formal and informal learning environments according to their individual interests and curiosities. Early childhood educators carefully observe children and ask questions to help identify and assess children's knowledge, understanding, and skill development across developmental domains and academic content. It is equally important to balance closed questions (for example, naming shapes, colors, animals, etc.) with higher order open questions that challenges children to synthesize, analyze, and evaluate. High quality teachers are expert observers, masterful inquirers, and active listeners. In an ongoing, spiraling fashion, well-prepared reflective practitioners make informed decisions on a continuous basis. As young children examine and use a variety of materials during various activities across different settings, teachers can ask questions to reveal children's thinking and to check for their understanding. If a teacher observes a child struggling with a concept or skill, trying to make something happen, or figure something out, the teacher can use questioning to help scaffold children's problem solving. For this reason, the NGSS (2013) note the interconnection between asking questions and defining problems, since they are interrelated. STEM provides children with an ideal context for developing higher order cognitive processing skills. Teachers can use productive questioning to promote children's scientific thinking without telling, leading, or directing children's thinking (Martens, 1999). Specifically, Elstgeest (2001) recommends six types of productive questions to promote and support children's scientific thinking and reasoning: 1) attention-focusing questions; 2) measuring and counting questions; 3) comparison questions; 4) action questions; 5) problem posing questions; and 6) reasoning questions. It is equally important to allow young children ample time and multiple opportunities to figure things out for themselves. Careful observation together with an overall awareness of the child's prior knowledge and experiences help the teacher determine when it is most appropriate to intervene with questions or comments without hindering or interfering with the learning process. In light of this information, the teacher does not want to bombard or overwhelm the child with too many questions that disrupt the child's thought processes. Likewise, the teacher needs to use well-crafted questions that help discern the child's agenda without subverting the child's agenda with the adult's agenda that may cause the child to abandon the learning activity (Counsell, Uhlenberg, & Zan, 2013). For example, a teacher might observe a young child using two different paintbrushes at the paint easel: one brush makes thick strokes while the second brush makes thin strokes. To reveal what the child is thinking as the child paints with the thick paintbrush, the teacher could ask the child, "What do you like about this brush? When do you like to paint with this brush? What kinds of things do you like to make using this brush?" As the child paints the facial features on a stick person, she uses the thinner brush. The teacher could ask, "Did you switch brushes to paint the face? How is this brush different from the other brush? Why do you want to use this brush to paint the face? What would happen if you used the thick brush to paint the face (eyes, ears, nose, and mouth)?" Whether the teacher should continue asking questions, how many questions, and which questions to ask are largely determined by listening carefully to what children say and closely watching what children do in order to achieve their intended outcome. After all, the most effective intervening questions are the ones that succeed in supporting and advancing the child's agenda.
Response From Dr. Jennifer Davis Bowman Jennifer envisions classrooms filled with thinking caps- because uniforms are uninspiring - as well as students with plastic utensils - because every student deserves a seat at the learning table. As an educator with a terminal degree in Special Education and a License in School Counseling, she's written about her classroom and higher education experiences in Teaching Tolerance, ASCD, and Teach Thought. For education research and resources follow her on twitter: @DrJDavisBowman: 42 Ways Not to ask a Question

1. Allow no check-in to determine how question will be received

2. Provide no wait time

3. Offer the same wait time (regardless of student ability or needs)

4. Present too much wait time (results in boredom or disinterest)

5. Make it too difficult to respond (lack of resources, ability, time)

6. Disregard grammar rules (eg. Double negatives)

7. Use only technical terms (unable to put the question into your own words)

8. Embed words that have loose definitions or multiple meanings

9. Make no attempt to locate the answer first

10. Discount the questions of others, but expect full attention to the questions you pose

11. Conceal your own questions to not inspire curiosity

12. Use questions that are statements in disguise

13. Present after material or reading is shared

14. Make the purpose of the question unclear

15. Ambiguously

16. With a lead (Eg. "Do you think we should extend the project deadline longer than we already have?")

17. With either/or choices (limits possibility of response)

18. With critical feedback (Eg. "That's incorrect")

19. With vague feedback (Eg. "Try again")

20. With shaming feedback (Eg. "I can't believe you don't already know how to...")

21. With one correct answer

22. With a Siri-ready answer

23. With a Google-ready answer

24. With only asking one person (crowdsourcing and group work facilitate problem solving too)

25. With an emphasis or praise on the first answer (decreases motivation for others to respond)

26. With a single mode of presentation (only oral, only written)

27. With a single mode for answering (only oral, only written)

28. With-out breaking down the steps of multi-level questions

29. With no second chance to correct mistakes

30. By answering your own question

31. By over-clarifying (decrease the opportunity for responder to think)

32. Make the actual question longer than one sentence

33. Make the ideal answer one sentence or less

34. Make the answer obvious

35. Discourage follow-up questions

36. Emphasis of only one type of question

37. With interrogation style

38. With the 'Gotcha' approach

39. Overlook the little questions

40. Impromptu (rehearsal and preparation facilitate in building quality)

41. Frame questions in the negative (Eg. "You don't have any questions do you?")

Response From Rachael Williams
Rachael Williams is a teacher and Chair of the LINKs Program at Ballarat Grammar School in Australia. She has written articles for AMLE and you can follow her on Twitter @rachaelbrooke77:
The way that teachers use questions in the classroom has a direct impact on how actively students are involved in their own learning. Three related questions emerge as particularly pivotal to the learning of students. Who is responsible for asking the questions? Classrooms often position the teacher as question-asker but for many years experts have suggested that learning should be driven by the questions of students. Questions asked by the students themselves are more relevant to their own lives and more likely to develop intrinsic motivation to learn. Alfie Kohn (2015), warns against cursory attempts to ask students to come up with their own questions, only to ignore them and charge ahead with the teacher-made plan prepared earlier. Instead he challenges teachers and schools to foster a 'lifelong disposition to question (Kohn, 2015, p 21)' and to reward students for curiosity and scepticism rather than compliance. What type of questions are being asked? When it comes to crafting questions, quality does matter and some questions are more worthy than others. Creating the kind of question that will actively engage students in deep thinking takes careful planning. If it is the element of your lesson plan that leads to the most struggle, then good. It's worth it. Students are increasingly connected to the real world, particularly via social media, and they need opportunities to respond to questions that matter in the world beyond school. We value students and their capacity as learners by offering them complex, open-ended questions that do not have one right answer. How are students expected to respond to questions? Effective teachers engage students with worthy questions and expect every student to grapple with them. If only a handful of students are expected to respond, the incentive for students to actively engage with the question is limited. Dylan Wiliam (2014) suggests strategies such as 'no hands up' and 'all-student response systems' in order to engage more students in the kind of real thinking that results in real learning. Routines that hold students accountable for their thinking such as the Microlab make it clear to students that each of them is expected to actively participate in the learning. Kohn, A, 2015. Who's Asking? Educational Leadership, 73(1), 16-22. Wiliam, D, 2014. The Right Questions, The Right Way. Educational Leadership, 71(6), 16-19.

Response From Jeffrey D. Wilhelm Dr. Jeffrey Wilhelm is currently Distinguished Professor of English Education at Boise State University and regularly teaches middle and high school students. He is the founding director of the Maine Writing Project and the Boise State Writing Project, and author of 32 texts about literacy teaching and learning. He is the recipient of the two top research awards in English Education: the NCTE Promising Research Award for "You Gotta BE the Book" (TC Press) and the Russell Award for Distinguished Research for "Reading Don't Fix No Chevys": Ever been asked a question by someone who already knew the answer to that question? I'll bet this happened in school. School is about the only place where we ask questions that don't actually promote dialogue nor do any work towards building new understandings. Compare these questions that students might be asked to address: What are the three reasons for the Bill of Rights (or Civil War or any other event)? Vs. From the perspective of an immigrant living in 21st Century, what are some of the most compelling and urgent benefits of the Bill of Rights? Which one of these questions is an expert, or a real historian, more likely to find engaging and to pursue? Questions really matter And they matter because of how they position us, orient us, what they help us notice and do and learn in our evolving expertise as readers and problem-solvers. The first question above is a "schoolish" fixed mindset question with a pre-determined and circumscribed answer. It implies that knowledge is static. The second "toolish" question positions the answerer as a knowledge maker with a growth mindset who can solve problems and ask questions of one's own, and who is in dialogic conversation with others about an important topic. That's because the second question invites many other questions that are extensions of the original question, e.g. what was the importance of the Bill of Rights to females or African-Americans (or other groups) living in the 19th century (or other eras)? Positioning Questions indeed really matter, in part because of how they position the person pursuing them and the mindset and theory of knowledge they promote as static, or as dynamic, constructed and evolving. So the first condition of a powerful question is:

The question positions students as meaning-makers and asks them to make meaning. (not just find and repeat information)
But there are two additional conditions that must be met to make questions really useful to learners:

1. Students learn how to independently ask the kinds of questions that guide meaning-making.

2. The questions are applicable to a variety of texts and data sets.

In our recent book "Diving Deep Into Nonfiction," my co-author Michael Smith and I model the kinds of questioning strategies that position students as meaning makers and that assist them to conscious competence in how to notice text elements that expert readers notice: textual topics, key details, overall text patterns (genres) and embedded text structures (e.g. comparison, definition, etc.). The questioning strategies we teach must help students to become metacognitive about noticing these text elements and then using them to see connections, make inferences and work towards generalizations and deep new understandings. Finally, we argue against text dependent questions because these questions do not cultivate transfer and the capacity to develop as an adept questioner and meaning maker over time. We need to teach our students something they'll remember and be able to apply to their subsequent reading and learning. If we are not teaching for deep understanding and future use, then what are we teaching for? When a teacher asks a question, the teacher has done the interpretive work by noticing what aspects of the text are worth asking about. Instead, we need to teach students how to do their own noticing, and formulate their own questions -- questions that prompt them to notice particular text elements that will help them think on their own about texts, their content, and how texts organize and structure this content to achieve specific meanings and effects. What expert readers do When we studied content area teachers who were expert readers of disciplinary texts, we found that they attended to four aspects of text, two regarding content: conversational topics and key details, and two regarding the form: genre or overall text structuring, and embedded text structure. These experts attended to these four aspects of text by using four sets of cues. We call these cues "rules of notice" (following the literary theorist Peter Rabinowitz) and organized them into four classes: direct statements, calls to attention (e.g. titles, bold, repetitions, figurative language, etc.), ruptures (e.g. any surprise or shift in tone, language, length, etc.) and reader's response (any time the reader felt intense agreement or disagreement, experienced an emotional charge, asked a question, etc.). We used these rules of notice that experts use to inspire us to create questioning schemes to help students practice and internalize the same kinds of noticing and interpretation of what was noticed. A Questioning scheme to help students notice topics, key details and main ideas Imagine going to a movie. As the lights go up, your companion asks you: What do you think is the main takeaway of that? Likely you'd have difficulty answering. Year after year, the National Assessments of Educational Progress show that few of our graduating seniors can identify the main idea of an extended text and justify it with evidence from across the text. But there's a solution. Research in linguistics has found that a main idea of a text or data set can be expressed as a "topic comment" and that students can quickly learn to use this strategy to identify and justify the main ideas/themes/generalizations expressed by any text or data set. In other words, to find and justify the main idea of a text, a reader must identify a general subject of a text, and the key details it expresses about that topic, and how the organization of those details works to express a comment or generalization about the topic. (Note well, even simple texts have multiple topics, and therefore multiple topic-comments. There will be multiple justifiable main ideas, though many more cannot be supported). To help our students engage in this processing and the noticing that it requires, we teach them an adaptation of the Questioning the Author scheme (Beck and McKeown) with the following queries: What are the key details/events? What "rules of notice" did the author use to help us identify these key details? What general topic/s do all the key details/events pertain to? How does the organization of these key details/events work to make a comment about the topic? Phrase your main idea as a "topic comment" . . . the topic is expressed by a noun phrase and the comment is a verb phrase that captures the meaning expressed by the trajectory of key details or events. E.g. for the YA historical novel Number the Stars (about one family's participation in the Danish resistance during WWII), a possible "topic comment" would be: Resistance (topic) can work when people are willing to take risks and work together for a common purpose (comment - an authorial generalization expressed by story events and conclusion). For a data base on per capita CO2 emissions per country: CO2 emissions (topic) are greater in island countries than any other country (comment - a finding expressed by the data). A questioning scheme to notice textual organization Imagine taking some papers with text on them from your school mailbox. When you pick each one up and skim it, the first thing you're likely to ask yourself is, "What kind of text is this?" Is it a memo, an IEP, an advertising flier, a personal note? Your answer in each case will determine whether you read it, how you read it, what you hope to gain from it, and much more. We found that the expert readers in our study read texts AS something - as a type of text organized in a particular way to do particular kinds of work. And this identification of the genre or text type guided their reading of it. Texts, indeed, are structured by thought patterns called genres and text structures. Yet, few of our students know how to use the rules of notice that would tip them off to the overall genre or embedded text structures that organize the key details of a text, and would help them to navigate and make meaning of that text. But because there are so many kinds of texts, we can't teach the characteristics of all of them. Instead, we teach students a general set of questions they can use over and over again:

K: What kind of text is this? What rules of notice help me to identify it?

E: What are the essential features of this kind of text?

E: How did the author employ these features?

P: What was the author's purpose in employing them that way?

!: What meaning and effect did the author want to achieve?

We call this questioning heuristic KEEP! and we have found that these questions are important for readers to ask themselves no matter when (or what) they read. Doing so helps students build knowledge of genre, and to use genre expectations to make meaning both as readers and as writers. Conclusion Experts use "rules of notice" to identify textual topics, key details, and how these are organized to express meanings like main ideas and create effects. If our students don't do this kind of noticing, then they cannot do the kind of interpreting and meaning making that depends on this noticing. To help them, we can teach them questioning strategies that help them to do that kind of noticing and interpreting.

Thanks to Sean, Sidney, Shelly, Jennifer, Rachael and Jeffrey for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a number of education publishers.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.
Just a reminder--you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And, if you missed any of the highlights from the first six years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. They don't include ones from this current year, but you can find them by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar. This Year's Most Popular Q&A Posts Classroom Management Advice Race & Gender Challenges Implementing The Common Core Best Ways To Begin The School Year Best Ways To End The School Year Student Motivation & Social Emotional Learning Teaching Social Studies Project-Based Learning Using Tech In The Classroom Parent Engagement In Schools Teaching English Language Learners Student Assessment Brain-Based Learning Reading Instruction Writing Instruction Education Policy Issues Differentiating Instruction Math Instruction Science Instruction Advice For New Teachers Author Interviews Entering The Teaching Profession Administrator Leadership Teacher Leadership Relationships In Schools Professional Development Instructional Strategies
I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributers to this column.
Look for Part Three in a few days..

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Response: Using Questions That 'Position Students as Meaning Makers'

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The new "question-of-the-week" is: How can teachers use questions most effectively in the classroom? Part One's commentators were Jeri Asaro, Dan Rothstein, Diana Laufenberg, Rebecca Mieliwocki, Jenny Edwards, Scott Reed, Cara Jackson and Ben Johnson. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Jeri and Dan on my BAM!

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This is an excellent study that highlighted a huge potential flaw in ESL assessment. The problem has to do with nonnative accents and how students score on assessments when they are giving an oral exam by someone who speaks their native language but does not share in their native accent. This study shows that students who do not share in that native accent of their examiner, including English speakers, score significantly lower than with an examiner that does share in their native accent.

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The Effects of Nonnative Accents on Listening Comprehension- Implications for ESL Assessment.pdf

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Math word problem flashcards are a great way for kids to practice word problems and reading. Not only can they practice them during free time in class but they can also practice with other classmates.

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This website has a variety of digital tools to help you do formative assessments.

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/5-fast-formative-assessment-tools-vicki-davis

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I really like the idea of having the kids turn in exit tickets at the end of a lesson. This is a quick assessment that gives teachers insight on what the students have learned and what they are struggling with. Students can either answer 1-2 questions the teacher may ask, write one point they learned, or pose a question.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/11892386496169737/

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ESL Word Problem Strategies, offers solutions to help students benefit when answering math word problems.

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Word problems in mathematics often pose a challenge because they require that students read and comprehend the text of the problem, identify the question that needs to be answered, and finally create and solve a numerical equation. Many ELLs may have difficulty reading and understanding the written content in a word problem. If a student is learning English as a second language, he might not yet know key terminology needed to solve the equation. In other words, ELLs who have had formal education in their home countries generally do not have mathematical difficulties; hence, their struggles begin when they encounter word problems in a second language that they have not yet mastered (Bernardo, 2005). For this reason it is recommended that students learn key terminology prior to attempting to solve mathematical word problems.

Key Benefits

Once English language learners know the key terminology used in mathematical word problems, it will be easier to learn how to write numerical equations. It is important for teachers to provide ELLs with opportunities to learn and practice key vocabulary words.

While key words are very important, they are only part of the process. Understanding the language in word problems is critical for all students. They need to know the meaning of words. But because words are often used differently and problems are set up differently, there are some cautionary messages. Here is an example of problem that uses "fewer than" to set up a subtraction equation.

Maria has 24 marbles which is 8 fewer than Paolo has. How many marbles does Paolo have? If we were to only focus on using key words, "fewer than" is a signal to pick out the numbers and subtract. The student may immediately make the conclusion that the answer is 16, but that is not what the problem is asking, and the child would be wrong. (The correct answer, by the way, is 32).

What research has found is that if we ask students to only rely on knowing that certain key words signal specific operations, we can actually lead them away from trying to understand the problems. They will tend to look only for those words and whatever numbers are in the problem, even if they are not relevant to the answer. This will not help them be mathematically proficient later, even when they are proficient with English.

Although the finding on key words was done with regular students, the consequences for ELL students of relying on them is the same. They would not be able to solve the problem above. However, if teachers follow the suggested process of reading a problem several times (at lower as well as upper grades) and discussing what it means, students will understand. Another good tool is to teach them to draw or model the problems. To illustrate the problem above, you could state: "Here's Maria's 24." Then, draw 24 units, figures, shapes, etc. to represent 24. "Here's Paolo's; he has more because Maria has fewer than he does". Draw 24 units, figures, shapes, etc. to represent 24 and add 8 more. "So Paolo's has to come to more than 24. How many more? 8. So what is Paolo's total?"

The difference is between knowing the meaning of the words "fewer than" and using "fewer than" as a key to an operation. We want students to know the meaning of the words, but also to see them in the context of the whole problem.

Suggested Activities

Lower Grades

Practice problem solving daily by simply asking more questions. For example:

How many students brought their homework today?

How many more children brought their homework yesterday?

We had 8 markers on the board, but now we only have 3. How many did we take away?

How many animals are there in this magazine? How many are mammals? How many are birds? (introduction to fractions and percentages)

Continue to use key terminology daily and put it in context (e.g., less than, more than, difference, times, each, etc.). Show students how easy it might be to misunderstand the problem.

Upper Grades

Read word problems slowly and carefully several times so that all students comprehend.

If possible, break up the problem into smaller segments.

Allow students to act out the word problems to better comprehend what they are being asked to solve.

Provide manipulatives to help students visualize the problem.

Take field or walking trips to figure out distances, speed, area covered, etc.

Ask students to do surveys, interviews, hands-on research in real-world situations to figure out percentages, differences, and higher-order math skills.

Allow students to make drawings or diagrams to help them understand problems.

For more ideas that can be used to support math instruction in the ELL classroom, take a look at Math Instruction for English Language Learners and this related resource section.
Everything ESL: Challenges for ELLs in Content Area Learning
This article provides an overview of the challenges ELLs face in their content-area classes, such as math, science, and social studies. Understanding these challenges will help both ELL and content-area teachers adapt instruction for ELL students.
National Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners
The National Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) is a research program designed to improve educational outcomes for ELLs by using a combination of strategies focused on readers in Grades 4-8 and teacher professional development. The CREATE Web site includes webcast seminars hosted by CREATE researchers, and listings of CREATE conferences and presentations around the country.
TeacherVision: Word Problem Resources for Teachers
TeacherVision offers lessons, printables, and quizzes to support math word problem instruction for grades K-12.
Translating Word Problems
This is a great site for teachers in the elementary levels, as it provides a list of keywords you can teach your ELLs to look for as they read word problems. Also included are useful ideas and tricks to better prepare students to understand written math problems.

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Reading and Understanding Written Math Problems

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Word problems in mathematics often pose a challenge because they require that students read and comprehend the text of the problem, identify the question that needs to be answered, and finally create and solve a numerical equation. Many ELLs may have difficulty reading and understanding the written content in a word problem.

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This website provides examples of different assessment for different content areas. All assessments listed are links to documents that have specific instructions that you can print or save.

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This article has some great ways to support ELLS in the classroom and some easy ways to incorporate formative assessment. Formative assessment is very important to know if students are understanding the material or if you need to go back and reteach things or give the students more practice.

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The Latin root word for "assessment" is assidere which means to sit beside. In my work as an English Language Learner (ELL) specialist, I advocate for educators to intentionally sit beside their students to more deeply understand and support their learning trajectory at the classroom level. That is to say, I strongly advocate for an intentional formative assessment approach for ELLs.

Schools can go beyond traditional summative and interim measures to ensure a more balanced assessment approach that brings to light the nuanced and complex process of academic language development. By implementing formative assessments for ELLs, educators can develop a "language lens" that uncovers and showcases the growth of this culturally and linguistically diverse population.

Where do we start?

First, we can examine what comprises our current assessment systems in place. We have large-scale, "big data" summative assessments that give us "big data" once a year on student proficiency. We also have interim assessments that measure growth against benchmarks periodically throughout the year, often with the audience largely being district and school-level stakeholders.

These summative and interim assessments provide "snapshots" of ELL performance and are not always reliable or valid on the ELL population. Therefore, we need to ask ourselves if we have systemic, systematic formative measures in place that provide feedback on teaching and learning specifically for our ELLs? Do we have a "photo album" approach of ELL development? If not, we can add specific formative practices into our assessment system that celebrate student growth and provide next steps for instruction at the classroom level.

What are some effective formative assessment practices for ELLs?

What's important to remember is that formative assessment is flexible and intended to focus on feedback for both the teacher and the student. As an initial step, I highly recommend that teachers keep portfolios of student writing samples to show individual student growth over time. Through portfolios like journals and learning logs, student work can be the centerpiece in conferences and school data meetings.

Next, I suggest that teachers work with students to co-create appropriate goals for using more sophisticated academic language. It's critical to promote student ownership of the assessment process through goal setting, self-assessment as well as peer assessment opportunities.

How can collaboration strengthen formative assessment?

A critical step in strengthening ELL formative assessments is to create and sustain collaborative time to analyze student work. Evidence-based conversations between educators about what students are producing can directly lead to ideas for effective student feedback and instruction. Professional learning communities are also opportunities for collaboration with ELL specialists to deepen content teachers' understanding of language and literacy. One final tip is to consider building data walls of multiple measures of ELL data quarterly to facilitate data-driven coaching cycles and team planning. In these ways, we can offer a "photo album" approach to show progress over time, celebrating students' journey of academic language development.

We know that ELLs are a diverse group of students with unique assets and varying factors affecting academic performance. Many educators need support in reaching ELLs and teaching academic language yet they often don't know where to start. By implementing more formative assessments for ELLs with the appropriate language supports, teachers can better understand their students and become stronger teachers of academic language. After all, all teachers are indeed language teachers!

Formative Assessment Ideas

Journals or learning logs to show growth over time in a portfolio

Academic conversations to explain new learning

Cornell notes or graphic organizers to structure note-taking

Student-teacher conference or small group discussions to recount learning

Exit slips to show "I think..", "I wonder...", "I still want to know..."

Fill-in-the-blank or "cloze" activity using sentence frames

Reciprocal teaching

Recording student language through technology

Drawing or role playing

Gallery walk of student work where students give each other feedback on stickies

Word or concept sorts based on unit themes or student-created categories

One word or one phrase response using whiteboards

Self-checklist or peer-checklist

Label or sequence visuals like pictures, photos or realia (real life objects)

Student-generated questions for peers

Please see the Language Snapshot Tool (for formative language assessment) here for free.
This blog is part of the Supporting English Language Learners Series with support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. For more, stay tuned for the culminating podcast, infographic and publication.
For more, see:
Sarah Ottow is the founder, director and lead coach at Confianza: Educating for ELL Equity. Follow Confianza on Twitter: @ELL_Confianza Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update. This post includes mentions of a Getting Smart partner. For a full list of partners, affiliate organizations and all other disclosures please see our Partner page.

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Supporting English Language Learners with Formative Assessments

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The Latin root word for "assessment" is assidere which means to sit beside. In my work as an English Language Learner (ELL) specialist, I advocate for educators to intentionally sit beside their students to more deeply understand and support their learning trajectory at the classroom level.

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This PDF talks about how formative assessment should look like for English Language Learners. It also provides some more examples of what you can do for assessments.

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After completing this module, I figured implementing technology driven teaching would be a good resource for ESL students. This article includes 5 creative ways to teach ESL students. Not only are these ideas good for ESL students, but mainstream students too.

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As a volunteer ESL instructor and tutor, my methods have frequently been grounded in traditional worksheet and conversation exercises. Often, my older students are working towards dual fluency in English and technology, while my younger students are "native users" of computers and smartphones. English mastery-and more importantly, confidence-is still built on a solid foundation of speaking, speaking, speaking, but I relish the opportunity to introduce technology into my lessons.

Why? Well, it shakes things up and adds to the fun! Most significantly, using technology can help bridge demographic gaps between students and target the classroom work and skill acquisition I value: personally customized instruction, engaging group work, and lessons that keep the class on-track.

Here we've collected some ideas that add energy, current events, and technological fluency into the mix for ESL students.

1. Learning Through TED Talks

Many conversational scenarios in the ESL classroom rely on common sense conversational set-ups: asking for directions or introducing oneself and giving pertinent biographical details.

TED, through its new partnership with National Geographic and Cengage Learning, provides learning scenarios that do something more: encourage students to discuss ideas. The three organizations have teamed up to design three different curricula that address basic language skills, reading (including charts and graphics), and business English. Combining online materials and complementary workbooks, the programs foster the same skills as traditional instruction, including grammar, listening, speaking, and writing.

However, these programs look beyond the classroom setting to engage students with the world itself. For instance, in these cool examples, a talk about an interspecies internet gets turned into a lesson on naming the senses, and students can brainstorm their own ideas about community engagement after being inspired by stories of TED talkers doing the same. All in all, the TED approach reminds us that English language learning is a 24/7 practice, and is not restricted to nuts and bolts.

2. Pocketing Learning With Targeted Language Apps Like Duolingo

The benefits of using apps to teach ESL are manifold. For one thing, many of them are free, and for another, a number of your students already own a smartphone: they're carrying around a portable learning tool and they don't even know it!

Of course, there are many apps vying for the "Best Language Learning App" crown-of these, Duolingo is currently the one with the most buzz. Racking up an astounding 20 million active users since its launch, the app relies on a set of game-like lessons that "unlock" new skills in a series of escalating difficulty. The app also gathers data about users as they go, assessing their patterns of error and acquisition. In an interesting twist, it crowd sources translations-that's how the service remains free. With some promising studies that reveal users completing a college semester's worth of coursework in a speedy 34 hours, Duolingo appears to be more than just a fad-it dangles real incentives to keep logging on.

Recently, Duolingo launched Duolingo Schools, which offers the potential for ESL instructors to track the data on their students in real time via a dashboard. While not a substitute for a full curriculum, the free program can be assigned as homework or extra credit to particularly invested students.

3. Using Social Media...For Good

According to the IACP Center for Social Media, a mind-boggling 1.3 billion active users check Facebook on a daily basis. And Twitter? 2012 stats record an average of 175 million tweets per day. There's no doubt that social media is a global phenomena that touches on all countries and languages. Make this work for your students.

We've already noted that social media can be a great tool for creating classroom community and avenues of communication. In my own ESL classrooms, one of my favorite daily icebreaker lessons is a simple "Idiom of the Day" lesson. Adding in popular social media and texting acronyms like "GTG" and "BTW" is an amusing way to create a relaxed atmosphere and solicit input from students on what they've been noticing (or puzzled by) in interactions with English-speaking friends and family.

If you like to address technology fluency with language fluency in your lesson plans, setting up a simple blogging interface can help with typing and web skills, all while crafting basic phrases or longer paragraphs related to writing prompts. In addition, drafting emails and instant messages blends verbal with written language, providing real-world writing application.

4. Smartboards Are a Smart Choice.

In a setting where ESL students may feel inhibited about speaking up or being called on-sometimes lacking the "right" words-interactive blackboards allow for pointing, drawing, and much more. They are a great solution to inject vitality and teamwork into games and exercises that involve matching, such as grouping verb tenses or parts of speech. I like Smartboards both for groupwork-using teams, for example-and because they prove more stimulating than rote memorization and repetition.

Unlike a traditional whiteboard, smartboards allow you, the teacher, to track responses and learning. Not to mention, syncing your lessons with images, sound clips, and video clips is a great way to model pronunciation, inflection, and real life language scenarios. The boards are also multisensory, incorporating touch, sound, and visual elements-a magic combination that has been shown to increase retention by up to 38%.

5. Utilize online library and reading tools

The internet can be one giant text, if you let it, and lots of savvy sites exist to provide quality interactive content for ELL. This is a perfect opportunity to target autonomous classroom work as well. Young learners can read free, animated stories at Story Time For Me. Intermediate and advanced readers can listen and read along for free to a range of stories and short reports, while another site, Voxy, prides itself on delivering relevant reading choices (i.e. not "The banana is on the table") tailored to each learner.

Using the internet as a vocabulary building tool is also an effective strategy. An online picture dictionary delivers the perfect place to explore, while sparing use of Google Translate can be a good spot for your students to check their own work or satisfy their curiosity. Of course, as with any translation tool, you'll want to emphasize that Translate cannot possibly express the many nuances of human speech.

In Short

It can be almost dizzying to keep up with the new resources that continuously flood the technology marketplace, but we've uncovered some good resources that compile useful and peer-approved ESL teaching tools. Edudemic also reviews great apps so you don't have to-check back here for the latest and greatest!

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5 Creative New Ways to Teach English as a Second Language

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As a volunteer ESL instructor and tutor, my methods have frequently been grounded in traditional worksheet and conversation exercises. Often, my older students are working towards dual fluency in English and technology, while my younger students are "native users" of computers and smartphones.

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This Fist to Five Check is a great formative assessment for elementary school students. The teacher can ask students to identify where they think they are in the understanding of an objective. This helps the students think about how much they know and it also helps the teacher quickly identify the students who need more instruction.

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This is great to keep track of students' understanding and progress. After re-teaching a difficult concept, you can easily compare if the students understood the additional practice and explanations.

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Do you remember being in college and taking a test wishing, if I just had extra time I could really learn this in detail and get a good grade?

That is how children feel.

I am the first to say and admit that I move in math class at the rate of a racehorse.

Do I like it? Not at all.

Do I have to? YES.

With all of the math standards that we have to teach, our year at a glance is packed with math standards. Maybe our kids don't understand the material right after we teach the standard. However, should we forget about their data just because we have to move on to the next?

After I give the kids an assessment, I grab one of my re-teach half sheets and write down any scores less than an A. I paperclip the assignments to the back of the half sheet so I know that I need to re-assess those people.

After I record their scores, I reprint a paper (for each kid) that I can use for a small group, and the assessment again.

When I have extra time (I know who has extra time), I pull a few kids to my small group table to work with me on the desired skill. When we have completed the paper, or I feel that they are ready, I will give the assessment again.

The highest grade is entered in the grade book. The original graded paper is stapled to the small group paper (so the parents know that I worked with them), and the 2nd assessment.

I can't begin to fully explain how thankful my parents are that I take this extra step for their kids.

By doing this, I am ensuring that they are re-learning the standard and assessing them after they have had a chance to fully understand what they are learning.

Not all kids learn at the same rate and this is an opportunity to address those needs. 🙂

If you would like to download this template for FREE

I love love love checklists!

Check out my guided reading checklist that I posted for FREE on { Instagram}

Click { HERE} to snag it for free!

Don't forget to pin these images so you can reference them throughout the year,

and never lose this freebie!

Amber is a passionate 3rd grade 1:1 iPad teacher who loves creating resources to fit her students needs and finding ways to keep her classroom digitally savvy.

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Reteaching & Reassessing: Giving Kids a Second Chance to Learn

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Do you remember being in college and taking a test wishing, if I just had extra time I could really learn this in detail and get a good grade? That is how children feel. I am the first to say and admit that I move in math class at the rate of a racehorse.

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Our module this week talks about formative vs. summative assessments.  This article summarizes well these two types of assessments in the classroom.  It even offers some practical strategies.

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As a teacher sometimes you feel overwhelm with the many type of assessments you may be required to administer to your student. Within the current best teaching practices that teachers are encourage to apply to their classroom today, assessment seem to have become a critical part of the responsibility of teachers.
http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/using-informal-assessments-english-language-learners

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https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/assessing-english-language-learners/

5 Ways to Assess English Language Learners

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Test anxiety can be a huge contributing factor when it comes to the assessing and testing of ELL students, both in assessing their proficiency and in assessing their academic achievement in the day-to-day classroom. This article discusses test anxiety specifically from the point of view of ELL students and what can be done to help mitigate that anxiety. Although this article was written from the point of view of helping ELL college students, its insights are apropos for all levels of ELL students.

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This is a good resource to have in the classroom when assessing English language learners. It would be a way for teachers to have a reminder and a checklist for assessing ELLs.

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I love reading blogs just to get different perspectives. This blog post is from site that is a supportive tool. Its always nice to read how others in similar circumstances are dealing with the same issues.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Latin root word for "assessment" is assidere which means to sit beside. In my work as an English Language Learner (ELL) specialist, I advocate for educators to intentionally sit beside their students to more deeply understand and support their learning trajectory at the classroom level. That is to say, I strongly advocate for an intentional formative assessment approach for ELLs.

Schools can go beyond traditional summative and interim measures to ensure a more balanced assessment approach that brings to light the nuanced and complex process of academic language development. By implementing formative assessments for ELLs, educators can develop a "language lens" that uncovers and showcases the growth of this culturally and linguistically diverse population.

Where do we start?

First, we can examine what comprises our current assessment systems in place. We have large-scale, "big data" summative assessments that give us "big data" once a year on student proficiency. We also have interim assessments that measure growth against benchmarks periodically throughout the year, often with the audience largely being district and school-level stakeholders.

These summative and interim assessments provide "snapshots" of ELL performance and are not always reliable or valid on the ELL population. Therefore, we need to ask ourselves if we have systemic, systematic formative measures in place that provide feedback on teaching and learning specifically for our ELLs? Do we have a "photo album" approach of ELL development? If not, we can add specific formative practices into our assessment system that celebrate student growth and provide next steps for instruction at the classroom level.

What are some effective formative assessment practices for ELLs?

What's important to remember is that formative assessment is flexible and intended to focus on feedback for both the teacher and the student. As an initial step, I highly recommend that teachers keep portfolios of student writing samples to show individual student growth over time. Through portfolios like journals and learning logs, student work can be the centerpiece in conferences and school data meetings.

Next, I suggest that teachers work with students to co-create appropriate goals for using more sophisticated academic language. It's critical to promote student ownership of the assessment process through goal setting, self-assessment as well as peer assessment opportunities.

How can collaboration strengthen formative assessment?

A critical step in strengthening ELL formative assessments is to create and sustain collaborative time to analyze student work. Evidence-based conversations between educators about what students are producing can directly lead to ideas for effective student feedback and instruction. Professional learning communities are also opportunities for collaboration with ELL specialists to deepen content teachers' understanding of language and literacy. One final tip is to consider building data walls of multiple measures of ELL data quarterly to facilitate data-driven coaching cycles and team planning. In these ways, we can offer a "photo album" approach to show progress over time, celebrating students' journey of academic language development.

We know that ELLs are a diverse group of students with unique assets and varying factors affecting academic performance. Many educators need support in reaching ELLs and teaching academic language yet they often don't know where to start. By implementing more formative assessments for ELLs with the appropriate language supports, teachers can better understand their students and become stronger teachers of academic language. After all, all teachers are indeed language teachers!

Formative Assessment Ideas

Journals or learning logs to show growth over time in a portfolio

Academic conversations to explain new learning

Cornell notes or graphic organizers to structure note-taking

Student-teacher conference or small group discussions to recount learning

Exit slips to show "I think..", "I wonder...", "I still want to know..."

Fill-in-the-blank or "cloze" activity using sentence frames

Reciprocal teaching

Recording student language through technology

Drawing or role playing

Gallery walk of student work where students give each other feedback on stickies

Word or concept sorts based on unit themes or student-created categories

One word or one phrase response using whiteboards

Self-checklist or peer-checklist

Label or sequence visuals like pictures, photos or realia (real life objects)

Student-generated questions for peers

Please see the Language Snapshot Tool (for formative language assessment) here for free.
This blog is part of the Supporting English Language Learners Series with support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. For more, stay tuned for the culminating podcast, infographic and publication.
For more, see:
Sarah Ottow is the founder, director and lead coach at Confianza: Educating for ELL Equity. Follow Confianza on Twitter: @ELL_Confianza Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update. This post includes mentions of a Getting Smart partner. For a full list of partners, affiliate organizations and all other disclosures please see our Partner page.

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Supporting English Language Learners with Formative Assessments

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Latin root word for "assessment" is assidere which means to sit beside. In my work as an English Language Learner (ELL) specialist, I advocate for educators to intentionally sit beside their students to more deeply understand and support their learning trajectory at the classroom level.

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This is a cute idea I found on Pinterest. The kids would love making this and they could reference this all the time when they want to look something up!

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This PowerPoint presentation contains 56 strategies of formative assessment. It is divided into several strategy types: student work, self-reporting, technology, peer assessment, teacher observation, teacher feedback, and self assessment. Hope you'll find something useful!

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I think formative assessments are crucial in providing descriptive and immediate feedback as well as helping us, as teachers, understand how we can better teach and clarify information. This website gives some good ideas for how to formatively assess ELL students. There are lots of pictures included of student examples that are informative and helpful as well.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Latin root word for "assessment" is assidere which means to sit beside. In my work as an English Language Learner (ELL) specialist, I advocate for educators to intentionally sit beside their students to more deeply understand and support their learning trajectory at the classroom level. That is to say, I strongly advocate for an intentional formative assessment approach for ELLs.

Schools can go beyond traditional summative and interim measures to ensure a more balanced assessment approach that brings to light the nuanced and complex process of academic language development. By implementing formative assessments for ELLs, educators can develop a "language lens" that uncovers and showcases the growth of this culturally and linguistically diverse population.

Where do we start?

First, we can examine what comprises our current assessment systems in place. We have large-scale, "big data" summative assessments that give us "big data" once a year on student proficiency. We also have interim assessments that measure growth against benchmarks periodically throughout the year, often with the audience largely being district and school-level stakeholders.

These summative and interim assessments provide "snapshots" of ELL performance and are not always reliable or valid on the ELL population. Therefore, we need to ask ourselves if we have systemic, systematic formative measures in place that provide feedback on teaching and learning specifically for our ELLs? Do we have a "photo album" approach of ELL development? If not, we can add specific formative practices into our assessment system that celebrate student growth and provide next steps for instruction at the classroom level.

What are some effective formative assessment practices for ELLs?

What's important to remember is that formative assessment is flexible and intended to focus on feedback for both the teacher and the student. As an initial step, I highly recommend that teachers keep portfolios of student writing samples to show individual student growth over time. Through portfolios like journals and learning logs, student work can be the centerpiece in conferences and school data meetings.

Next, I suggest that teachers work with students to co-create appropriate goals for using more sophisticated academic language. It's critical to promote student ownership of the assessment process through goal setting, self-assessment as well as peer assessment opportunities.

How can collaboration strengthen formative assessment?

A critical step in strengthening ELL formative assessments is to create and sustain collaborative time to analyze student work. Evidence-based conversations between educators about what students are producing can directly lead to ideas for effective student feedback and instruction. Professional learning communities are also opportunities for collaboration with ELL specialists to deepen content teachers' understanding of language and literacy. One final tip is to consider building data walls of multiple measures of ELL data quarterly to facilitate data-driven coaching cycles and team planning. In these ways, we can offer a "photo album" approach to show progress over time, celebrating students' journey of academic language development.

We know that ELLs are a diverse group of students with unique assets and varying factors affecting academic performance. Many educators need support in reaching ELLs and teaching academic language yet they often don't know where to start. By implementing more formative assessments for ELLs with the appropriate language supports, teachers can better understand their students and become stronger teachers of academic language. After all, all teachers are indeed language teachers!

Formative Assessment Ideas

Journals or learning logs to show growth over time in a portfolio

Academic conversations to explain new learning

Cornell notes or graphic organizers to structure note-taking

Student-teacher conference or small group discussions to recount learning

Exit slips to show "I think..", "I wonder...", "I still want to know..."

Fill-in-the-blank or "cloze" activity using sentence frames

Reciprocal teaching

Recording student language through technology

Drawing or role playing

Gallery walk of student work where students give each other feedback on stickies

Word or concept sorts based on unit themes or student-created categories

One word or one phrase response using whiteboards

Self-checklist or peer-checklist

Label or sequence visuals like pictures, photos or realia (real life objects)

Student-generated questions for peers

Please see the Language Snapshot Tool (for formative language assessment) here for free.
This blog is part of the Supporting English Language Learners Series with support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. For more, stay tuned for the culminating podcast, infographic and publication.
For more, see:
Sarah Ottow is the founder, director and lead coach at Confianza: Educating for ELL Equity. Follow Confianza on Twitter: @ELL_Confianza Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update. This post includes mentions of a Getting Smart partner. For a full list of partners, affiliate organizations and all other disclosures please see our Partner page.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Supporting English Language Learners with Formative Assessments

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Latin root word for "assessment" is assidere which means to sit beside. In my work as an English Language Learner (ELL) specialist, I advocate for educators to intentionally sit beside their students to more deeply understand and support their learning trajectory at the classroom level.

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This article is a great reminder of how teachers should set their classroom environment specifically working with ELL students. It discusses what you would see if you walk by an ELL classroom. You should see helpful visuals around the room, including word walls and anchor charts. You should hear multiple student conversations as well as teacher guiding the terminology. Lots of repetition should take place as well as letting the students do most of the talking. I think this is a useful article to review to remind teachers how an ELL classroom should run.

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A new school year is almost here, and a new group of students will soon arrive-including many English language learners (ELLs) at varying ages and levels of language acquisition. As educators well know, kids and teens who are learning English as a second or additional language and new content at the same time need extra support.

During my 20-plus years in teaching, I refined four powerful instructional strategies that help give ELL students the tools they need to succeed in school-and as lifelong learners. They are designed to be woven into daily instruction across content areas from pre-K to 12th grade.

Make input comprehensible

Let's say you went to China and sat in a classroom listening to a teacher speak Mandarin all day. You don't know Mandarin. Would you be able to follow along?

The way we deliver information is key to how students receive it. We could stand in front of students all day long and lecture, or use PowerPoint, and be completely ineffective. In order to make content comprehensible, we use techniques that allow listeners to access the language. There are many ways to do this with students.

Using gestures while lecturing or reading a book, repetition, and paraphrasing are a few examples. At the beginning level of proficiency, ELLs benefit from measured speech, which helps them make distinctions between words. Using clear, explicit language when speaking is also important, while adding extra fluff or figurative language can hinder comprehension.

Total physical response (TPR), developed by James Asher, professor emeritus of psychology at San José State University, teaches language by incorporating physical movement. This simple yet powerful instructional strategy effectively boosts vocabulary development. Adding movement to critical vocabulary also helps students internalize meaning.

For instance, if the word producer is important for students to grasp, the teacher might write the word, have students repeat it multiple times, provide a short definition, and ask them to work in groups to come up with a physical movement to represent the term. The use of multiple modalities (kinesthetic, visual, and verbal) lifts the level of comprehension and recall. The word tree might be accompanied by a gesture using arms and fingers to demonstrate what a tree looks like.

Model for your students

If we truly want our students to hit the target, we have to show them what the target is. Model what we expect. Often, when educators feel the pressure of too much curriculum to cover, modeling drops off the lesson plan. But it's essential to a successful outcome.

One way to model is to think aloud, a strategy that works across content areas and supports all learners. This is practiced most frequently in the English language arts setting when teachers model during a read-aloud. In math, we can demonstrate how to problem-solve or read a word problem. In science, we can model how to write a hypothesis or begin an experiment. We model how to select an appropriate book in the library or how to help a friend who has a problem.

Modeling is especially important for ELLs: learning language and content simultaneously, these students are bombarded with information all day. Helping them concentrate on what's important gives them a learning focus and helps them feel successful.

For instance, the teacher might say while holding a book, "I notice that this book has pictures, and each picture has writing beneath it. I also see that there is a time line in this book as well as a few graphs and charts. I'm beginning to think that this book is going to teach me something. The text structure tells me that it may be a nonfiction book."

When modeling, be clear and explicit with instructions. Breaking down activities or assignments into steps is essential. Here's an example for elementary students who are in the process of writing about a picture: "Step one: Look at the picture. Step two: Think. What else can I say that I haven't written about? Step three: Try to add more words."

Provide students with attainable steps. Using a gradual release model of teaching- show them, help them, let them do it themselves -allows all students to feel independent and successful.

During the "show them" phase, the teacher models while thinking aloud about the process taking place and records it on an anchor chart-a poster that highlights strategies students can refer to later if they need support. The "help them" phase, which should be repeated multiple times, is carried out with partners or in groups: students work together and lean on one another while learning. During the final phase, students work on their own but refer to the anchor charts and to the teacher if they need assistance. Throughout, the educator is there to facilitate, formatively assess, and offer feedback.

Use visuals

Mountains of research have shown that visuals aid comprehension and promote recall. When we show vibrant pictures, sketches, and real items (realia) to students learning new vocabulary, they are more apt to comprehend, store, and recall it when they need it.

Have you ever walked into a classroom on the first day of school and the walls are filled with posters and charts? You might think, "Wow, this environment is perfect for learning to begin."

On the contrary, a classroom with empty walls on the first day may support some learners better, especially ELLs. Why? When we create anchor charts with students, involving them in the process, they are more likely to internalize the information.

When I was a first-year teacher, I prepared my entire room before school started. I soon learned that my pre-filled walls were often ineffective unless kids interacted with them meaningfully. Now, my walls grow with the children. That doesn't mean that everything has to be created in the presence of or by students. It means that if we have something on our walls, we need to tell our students why it's there and how it's relevant. Otherwise, why put it up? The way we use and display word walls can transform our students' vocabulary comprehension.

The first classroom word wall I created was also organized alphabetically. Now, I organize them thematically or according to a teaching unit, and they are structured like graphic organizers or concept maps. Students interact with them and help create the words.

For instance, if I were teaching a unit about energy, my word wall might be titled "Forms of Energy." Beneath that, I would create columns. As we learn, students are encouraged to draw and/or label types of energy-heat, sound, light, etc.-and place them in the correct column.

Hallmarks of ELL Education

If you walk into a classroom that is highly supportive of ELLs, you might see desks in groups or flexible arrangements, allowing students to work together, rather than studying in isolation at desks arranged in rows. Looking around, you will notice anchor charts that have been made by teachers and students, rather than bought in a store. This room is immersed in language that is supported by visual scaffolds.

Close your eyes...and listen. A place that nurtures ELL students encourages risk-taking and allows students to feel safe to ask, answer, and discuss questions with classmates. You won't hear the teacher praising a quiet class-rather, teachers praise discussion and collaboration. There's an understanding that the goal is teaching students to think creatively, rather than to recall and regurgitate answers.

Make output comprehensible

English language learners need to practice the new language in a low-stress environment. Speaking and writing in English in a safe space is critical for their progress.

Output can be categorized in two groups: speaking and writing. One way to maximize speaking is to create opportunities for students to work in cooperative groups. These offer smaller settings where students can problem-solve and think critically while interacting with a heterogeneous mix of peers.

Various cooperative grouping structures include "think-pair-share" and "inside/outside circle." In the think-pair-share method of student interaction, the teacher asks a question and allows students time to think about it, then students pair up and share their answers. In the inside/outside circle method, a discussion technique introduced by educational researcher and author Spencer Kagan, students position themselves in two concentric circles. The teacher poses a question, allowing for think time. In pairs, students from each circle share answers. Upon a signal, one circle rotates, and students share with new partners. Both of these cooperative grouping structures provide students with a low-stress opportunity to express themselves.

Some students also benefit from sentence stems, which are prompts to start a sentence that the student must complete, and word banks, lists of words, during cooperative groups. Word banks are especially helpful to students who are learning and writing with new, content-specific vocabulary. Paragraph frames, which are skeleton outlines supplying sentence stems and transition words, also support those at beginning and intermediate language levels.

It's vital that ELLs have opportunities to practice oral and written language in all content areas. Writing and speaking in math, science, and social studies differs from writing and speaking in language arts. The domain-specific vocabulary needed to write about a science experiment, for example, and the structure of that type of writing are unique.

These have proven to be my tried-and-true teaching strategies. What are yours? Let me know in the comments section online: slj.com/Teaching_ELLs.

Valentina Gonzalez (@ValentinaESL) is a professional development specialist for elementary ESL in Katy, TX. Visit her blog.

The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide: Ready-to-Use Strategies, Tool, and Activities for Teaching English Language Learners of all Levels by Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull-Sypenieski (Jossey-Bass, 2012)

Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: the SIOP Model by Janna Echevaria, MaryEllen Vogt and Deborah Short (Christopher-Gordon, 2000)

Reading to Learn for ELs: Motivation Practices and Comprehension Strategies for Informational Texts by Ana M. Taboada Barber, ed. Nell K. Duke (Heinemann, 2016)

Research-based Strategies for English Language Learners: How to Reach Goals and Meet Standards, K-8 by Denise M. Rea, Sandra P. Mercuri (Heinemann, 2006)

Supporting English Learners in the Reading Workshop by Lindsey Moses (Heinemann, 2015)

7 Steps to a Language-Rich Interactive Classroom by John Seidlitz and Bill. Perryman (canter, 2010)

Colorin Colorado his website provides a wealth of resources including articles, activities, and advice for educators of ELLs.

The Teaching Channel is a great place to find videos of real teachers and students working in classrooms using various instructional techniques.

Common Lit offers free instructional materials. Teachers can create classes and assign adapted texts to their students.

CultofPedagogy.com Librarian and educator Jennifer Gonzalez offers research-based, easy-to-read information for teachers.

Newsela provides highly engaging, adapted reading materials in all content areas as well as a means to track student progress.

larryferlazzo.edublogs.org Author and high school teacher Larry Ferlazzo's blog is a wealth of ELL resources.

EmpoweringElls.com Tan Huynh, a high school ESL teacher working abroad, shared strategies.

Twitter ELL Eduheros to follow

@emilyfranESL ESL teacher Emily Francis

@Larryferlazzo Blogger, author, and educator Larry Ferlazzo

@MsSalvac ESL consultant and author Carol Salva

ELL educator Tan Huynh

@Toppel_ELD Elementary English language development specialist Katie Toppel

This article was featured in our free Extra Helping enewsletter.
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Four Surefire Techniques for Engaging English Language Learners

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A new school year is almost here, and a new group of students will soon arrive-including many English language learners (ELLs) at varying ages and levels of language acquisition. As educators well know, kids and teens who are learning English as a second or additional language and new content at the same time need extra support.

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https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/assessing-english-language-learners/

I thought this article had an interesting take on a few different strategies to assess English Language Learners without resorting to tests. The use of rubrics can be extremely useful for students in an ELL environment, because they are given concrete goals that, if achieved, will result in reward. Additionally, the use of drawings for non-verbal assessments can be a great ice-breaker between a shy ELL and a teacher, in addition to the use of hand signals while the student becomes more familiar with the setting.

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Formative assessments
I received this email from our AVID coordinator. The reading is a good illustration of why formative assessment is necessary, but most importantly, how it needs to be used purposefully to help plan our lessons. With our English Language learners it is crucial that we use these informal or formal assessments to help guide their learning.

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This Edutopia article discusses equity for English-Language Learners and how we can ensure fair assessments for these students. According to the article, as teachers we need to separate ELL language skills from content skills during assessment. For instance, a student might understand the difference between living and non living objects, but not be able to write it out in English yet.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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I like this site because it gives specifics ways to assess particular domains.  The assessments are divided into 4 domains:
1. Linguistic Competence
2. Strategic Competence
3. Socio-linguistic Competence
4. Discourse Competence

https://classroom-assessment-theory-into-practice.wikispaces.com/Assessing+ESL+Students

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I think informal assessment is a great tool for a teacher to use , helps guide the lesson, because if the students are not understanding you can stop and try another approach. As stated assessments data drives the lesson.
This is a question I use in class daily . I'm able to know if i need to reteach or move on with my ELL's students.

1. Respond to "what" (what Happen) and "where" / why questions.

http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/using-informal-assessments-english-language-learners

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I think informal assessments are very important since it lets you keep constant progress on your students without the pressure that can come with formal assessments. I liked the website that I attached because it has a variety to different informal assessments that you can do! I thought it would be useful.

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Informal Assessments A to Z: A list of Ideas - The Owl Teacher

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Are you looking for some new ideas or ways to use informal assessments in your classroom? This is a complete A to Z list of assessment ideas for you!

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This article from Colorin Colorado gives multiple examples of types of assessments that can be used on ELLs. It breaks it down into categories based on performance, portfolio assessment, and content knowledge. I liked how in the performance assessment it gives multiple examples of how to informally assess a student such as using brainstorming, sequencing, and role playing. Check out this article for many more creative ideas on how to assess ELLs.

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Informal assessments (also called authentic or alternative) allow teachers to track the ongoing progress of their students regularly and often. While standardized tests measure students at a particular point in the year, ongoing assessments provide continual snapshots of where students are throughout the school year. By using informal assessments, teachers can target students' specific problem areas, adapt instruction, and intervene earlier rather than later.

Ongoing assessments are particularly important for English language learners (ELLs). Standardized tests in English do not usually reflect ELLs' true content knowledge or abilities. Yet informal assessments can provide a more well-rounded picture of their skills, abilities, and ongoing progress. Today's No Child Left Behind legislation requires that meticulous records be kept on the progress of ELLs. Having these records will make it easier when questions of program placement, special services, and grading arise.

There are two commonly used informal methods: performance-based assessment and portfolio assessment. Both methods utilize typical classroom activities to measure progress toward curricular goals and objectives. These activities can be monitored and recorded by teacher observation and student self-assessment.

Performance-based assessments

Performance-based assessments are based on classroom instruction and everyday tasks. You can use performance-based assessments to assess ELLs' language proficiency and academic achievement through oral reports, presentations, demonstrations, written assignments, and portfolios.

These assessments can include both processes (e.g., several drafts of a writing sample) and products (e.g., team projects). You can use scoring rubrics and observation checklists to evaluate and grade your students. These assessment tools can help document your ELLs' growth over a period of time.

Here is a sample language and academic assessment form that you can complete on a monthly basis to learn about the overall academic and English proficiency progress of your ELLs. If there is an ESL or resource teacher at school assisting your ELLs, you can share this assessment of the ELL's progress during the past month.

When using performance-based assessments, it is important to establish clear and fair criteria from the beginning. It might be helpful to develop these criteria in conjunction with other teachers or specialists at your school. Performance-based assessments promote a wide range of responses and do not typically produce one single, correct answer. Therefore, evaluation of student performances and products must be based on teacher judgment, using the criteria specified for each task. Here is a sample oral scoring rubric.

You can also develop assessment (and instructional) activities that are geared to your ELLs' current level of English proficiency. Performance-based assessment activities can concentrate on oral communication and/or reading. Here are examples of commonly-used activity types designed for assessing speaking or reading:

Reading with partners

Retelling stories

Role playing

Giving descriptions or instructions using visual or written prompts

Oral reporting to the whole class

Telling a story by using a sequence of three or more pictures

Completing dialogue or conversation through written prompts

Debating, either one-on-one or taking turns in small groups

Brainstorming

Completing incomplete stories

Playing games

When using performance-based assessments with beginner and intermediate English proficiency level ELLs, it is best to assess no more than three items at a time. For example, in one role play activity, you might assess ELLs' abilities to:

1. Respond to "what" and "where" questions

2. Ask for or respond to clarification

3. Read addresses or telephone numbers

Portfolio assessments

Portfolios are practical ways of assessing student work throughout the entire year. With this method, you can systematically collect descriptive records of a variety of student work over time that reflects growth toward the achievement of specific curricular objectives. Portfolios include information, sample work, and evaluations that serve as indicators for student performance. By documenting student performance over time, portfolios are a better way to crosscheck student progress than just one measure alone. Portfolios can include:

Samples of written student work, such as stories, completed forms, exercise sheets, and descriptions

Drawings representing student content knowledge and proficiencies

Tapes of oral work, such as role-playing, presentations, or an oral account of a trip

Teacher descriptions of student accomplishments, such as performance on oral tasks

Formal test data, checklists, and rating sheets

Checklists or summary sheets of tasks and performances in the student's portfolio can help you make instructional decisions and report consistently and reliably. Checklists can also help you collect the same kind of data for each student. In this way you can assess both the progress of one student and of the class as a whole. This sample math development checklist is an example of how you can organize your data collection for each ELL.

In addition, here are a few ways that your ELLs can have an active role in the portfolio process:

Students can select samples of their work and reflect on their own growth over time.

You can meet with ELLs to develop their goals and standards, such as with this sample writing criteria chart.

Together with students, you can set tangible, realistic improvement goals for future projects.

Students - as a class, in groups, or individually - can create their own rubrics.

Assessing content knowledge

ELLs need to learn grade level academic content even though they are still in the process of learning English. Even if ELLs are at the beginning or intermediate stages of English language development, you can still use their thinking ability and challenge them with content knowledge activities. ELLs need your help to exercise their critical thinking skills - such as knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation - in order to succeed in school during all stages of English language development.

It is possible to assess ELLs' understanding of math, science, social studies, and other content areas somewhat independently of their level of English proficiency. The following assessment techniques can help you adapt assessments to reduce English language difficulties while you assess ELLs' actual content knowledge. These techniques can be used separately or simultaneously as needed.

Scaffolding assessments allow ELLs to demonstrate their content knowledge through exhibits or projects, drawings, and graphic organizers. Consider giving ELLs extra time to complete these tasks, or to give short responses.

Differentiated scoring scores content knowledge separately from language proficiency. To score content knowledge, look at how well ELLs understand key concepts, how accurate their responses are, and how well they demonstrate the processes they use to come up with responses.

You can use a content area progress form with the above techniques to rate your ELLs' overall content achievement in class. You will need separate forms for math, science, and social studies performance.

It is important to note that if students are being instructed in content in one language (e.g., English), they should not be assessed on that content in another language, even if it is their native language.

For more information on assessing ELLs in general, visit the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory (LAB) website.

Read about assessing fluency.

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Using Informal Assessments for English Language Learners

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Informal assessments (also called authentic or alternative) allow teachers to track the ongoing progress of their students regularly and often. While standardized tests measure students at a particular point in the year, ongoing assessments provide continual snapshots of where students are throughout the school year.

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This article talks about 12 ways to support English learners in the mainstream classroom. It also provides the opportunity to listen  to this post as a postcast. As teachers, it is important to support students and to put ourselves in their situation, in order to be more understanding and patient in their learning process. It also encourages further reading in the ESL/ELL teacher's survival guide

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
A note on terminology: The acronym ESL is used less often now in schools than it used to be, because we recognize that many students who are learning English already speak several other languages, so English would not be a "second" language. I use it several times in the post because schools sometimes refer to the teachers as ESL teachers, and the term is still widely used as a search term for this topic. My intent in using the acronym is to make this post easier to find online.

You have a new student, and he speaks no English. His family has just moved to your town from Japan, and though he receives English as a Second Language (ESL) support, he will also be sitting in your room every day to give him more exposure to his new language. How can you be a good teacher to someone who barely understands you?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, an average of 9 percent of students in U.S. public schools are English Language Learners (ELLs); that number is closer to 14 percent in cities. Although many of these students start off in high-intensity, whole-day English programs, most are integrated into mainstream classrooms within a year, well before their English language skills would be considered proficient.

How prepared are you to teach these students? If you're like most classroom teachers, you have little to no training in the most effective methods for working with English language learners (Walker, Shafer, & Iiams, 2004). So that means we have a problem here: Lots of ELL kids in regular classrooms, and no teacher training to ensure the success of that placement.

Below, three ESL teachers tell us what they know about the things regular classroom teachers can do to improve instruction for ELL students. These 12 strategies are simple, they are not very time consuming, and best of all, they will help everyone in your class learn better:

1. Make it Visual

"Avoid giving instructions in the air," says Melissa Eddington, an Ohio-based ESL teacher. "ELL kids have a harder time processing spoken language." So instructions - even basic directions for classroom procedures - should be written on the board whenever possible. Challenging concepts should be diagrammed or supported with pictures. And modeling the steps of a process or showing students what a finished product should look like can go a long way toward helping students understand. "Sometimes showing our students what to do is all they need in order to do it," Eddington says. Not only will this kind of nonlinguistic representation improve comprehension for ELL students, it will help all of your students grasp concepts better.

2. Build in more group work.

"Kids aren't just empty glasses that we pour stuff into and then at the end of the day they dump it back onto a test," says Kim, an ESL teacher who was the subject of my very first podcast interview. "If you really want the kids to learn, they've got to be engaged." That means less teacher-led, whole-class instruction, and more small groups, where students can practice language with their peers in a more personal, lower-risk setting. And if ELL students attend your class with a resource teacher, make use of that person: In most cases the resource teacher doesn't have to work exclusively with the ESL students; they can work with smaller groups that happen to contain these students, helping to improve the teacher-student ratio and give kids more time to practice.

3. Communicate with the ESL teacher.

Mary Yurkosky, a former ESL teacher in Massachusetts, credits much of her students' success to the strong relationship she had with the regular classroom teachers. "The classroom teachers were always talking to me about what they were doing in their classes," she says. "They made it so easy for me to support them: If a teacher was going to be doing a unit on plants, I could make sure we used some of that same vocabulary in the ESL class."

Ideally, this could be systematized, where ESL teachers could regularly get copies of lesson plans or collaborate with regular classroom teachers to build solid back-and-forth support, but "it doesn't have to be that much work," Yurkosky insists. "Just talk to each other. Talk about what's going on in your classrooms, invite each other to special presentations, share what your students are learning, and the words will naturally find their way into the ESL class."

4. Honor the "silent period."

Many new language learners go through a silent period, during which they will speak very little, if at all. "Don't force them to talk if they don't want to," says Eddington, "A lot of students who come from cultures outside of America want to be perfect when they speak, so they will not share until they feel they are at a point where they're perfect." Just knowing that this is a normal stage in second language acquisition should help relieve any pressure you feel to move them toward talking too quickly.

5. Allow some scaffolding with the native language.

Although it has been a hotly debated topic in the language-learning community, allowing students some use of their first language (L1) in second-language (L2) classrooms is gaining acceptance. When a student is still very new to a language, it's okay to pair him with other students who speak his native language. "Some students are afraid to open their mouths at all for fear of sounding stupid or just not knowing the words to use," Yurkosky says. "Letting them explain things or ask questions in their first language gets them to relax and feel like a part of the class."

And this doesn't only apply to spoken language. If you give students a written assignment, but the ELL student doesn't yet have the proficiency to handle writing his response in English, "Don't make them just sit there and do nothing," Eddington says. "Allow them to write in their first language if they're able. This allows them to still participate in journal writing or a math extended response, even if you can't read what they write." There has even been some evidence that allowing second-language learners to pre-write and brainstorm in L1 results in higher-quality writing in L2 in later stages of the writing process (Yigzaw, 2012).

6. Look out for culturally unique vocabulary.

"For most of these kids, their background knowledge is lacking, especially with things that are unique to American or westernized culture," says Eddington. It's important to directly teach certain vocabulary words: "Show them videos of what it looks like to toss pizza dough, show pictures of a juke box or a clothing rack - things that are not common in their own language."

One way to differentiate for ELL students is to consider the whole list of terms you're going to teach for a unit, and if you think an ELL student may be overwhelmed by such a long list, omit those that are not essential to understanding the larger topic at hand.

7. Use sentence frames to give students practice with academic language.

All students, not just English language learners, need practice with academic conversations. Sentence frames - partially completed sentences like "I disagree with what _________ said because..." - show students how to structure language in a formal way. Keep these posted in a highly visible spot in your classroom and require students to refer to them during discussions and while they write.

For this kind of language to really sink in, though, Kim says it has to become a regular part of class. "They won't do it if it's not the norm in the class, because they'll be embarrassed to use it among their peers," she says. "But if they can put it off on the teacher and say, Oh, well, you know, Miss Kim makes me talk like this, then they don't look as hoity-toity as they would otherwise."

8. Pre-teach whenever possible.

If you're going to be reading a certain article next week, give ESL students a copy of it now. If you plan to show a YouTube video tomorrow, send a link to your ESL students today. Any chance you can give these students to preview material will increase the odds that they'll understand it on the day you present it to everyone else. "That kind of thing is wonderful," Yurkosky says. "The kids feel so empowered if they've had a chance to look at the material ahead of time."

9. Learn about the cultural background of your students...

Our second-language populations grow more diverse every year. Taking the time to learn the basics of where a child comes from - exactly, not 'somewhere in the Middle East/South America/Asia/Africa' - tells the student that you respect her enough to bother. Kim remembers one time when she had to set the record straight about the diverse South American population at her school: "I was listening to the teachers talking about the 'Mexican' kids in our building," she says, "and I was like, 'We don't have any Mexicans.'" Not taking the time to at least correctly identify a child's country of origin, much like not bothering to pronounce their name correctly, is a kind of microaggression, a small, subtle insult that communicates hostility toward people of color. Make a commitment to be someone who bothers to get it right.

Once you have the country straight, take things up a notch by learning about students' religious and cultural practices. If he is a practicing Muslim, he should be told if one of the pizzas you ordered for the class party has sausage on it. If she comes from a culture where eye contact with adults is viewed as disrespectful, you'll know not to force her to look you in the eye when she's talking.

10. ...but don't make a child speak for his entire culture.

In her podcast interview, Kim shared a story about watching a teacher ask a new Iraqi student how he felt about the war in his country, right in the middle of class. "That's not cultural inclusiveness," she explains. "I've seen teachers do this and then pat themselves on the back. The students' English is limited so they can't express themselves very well, and they don't want to 'represent'; they just want to be there." If you anticipate a theme coming up in your class that's going to be relevant to one of your students, have a conversation with them in advance, or check with your ESL teacher to see if they think it's appropriate for in-class discussion.

11. Show them how to take themselves less seriously...

By modeling the risk-taking that's required to learn a new language, you help students develop the courage to take their own risks, and to have a sense of humor about it. "I tried to say the word 'paint' ( pinta) in Portuguese and instead I said the word for 'penis' ( pinto). They all roared with laughter while I stood there with a What?? look on my face," Yurkosky says. "When they explained what I'd said, I laughed so hard! I told them that laughing was fine because sometimes mistakes are really funny, but ridicule is never okay."

12. ...but always take them seriously.

One of Kim's pet peeves about how teachers interact with English language learners is the way they often see students' efforts as 'cute,' missing the whole point of what the student is trying to say. "A student will be desperate to communicate, and the teacher will get distracted by the delivery and miss the message," she says. "That's painful for me to watch." It bothers her when teachers mistake a lack of language for a lack of intelligence or maturity. When a child can't express themselves as well as they would in their native language, it's far too easy to assume the concepts just aren't in their heads.

"It breaks my heart when I hear teachers say (ELL kids) don't know anything," says Eddington. "These are brilliant kids and they know a lot. They just can't tell us in English yet." Make a conscious effort to see past the accent and the mispronunciations and treat every interaction - every student - with the respect they deserve.

"They're doing twice the job of everybody else in the class," Kim adds, "even though the result looks like half as much." ♦

Further Reading

The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide is one of the highest-rated books on teaching English-language learners available. In addition to offering an overview of the research on second-language learners and best practices in teaching ESL, it also includes a whole section on teaching ESL in the content areas and another specifically geared toward teaching ELL students in mainstream classrooms.
References:
Walker, A., Shafer, J., & Iiams, M. (2004). "Not in my classroom": Teacher attitudes towards English language learners in the mainstream classroom. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 2(1), 130-160.

Yigzaw, A. (2012). Impact of L1 use in L2 English writing classes. Ethiopian Journal of Education and Sciences, 8(1), 11-27.

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12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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Advice from three ESL teachers on the things regular classroom teachers can do to help English language learners thrive in mainstream classrooms.

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This cute video talks about the differences between evaluations and assessments and the strategies needed. What i like most about this video is that is reinforced what we learned in module 7 about about learning goals and how we need to talk to our students specifically about what they should be doing or how they could be improving. It breaks it down well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wePut0cfzA

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This article is from Colorin Colorado. I think its important to always be assessing our students so that we can better adjust our lessons to their needs. Now, I don't believe we should be formally testing them all the time. Our ELLs would also benefit from informal assessments. This article talks about the portfolio and performance based assessments that provide as good alternative! http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/using-informal-assessments-english-language-learners

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When assessing an ELL student, let alone a native English speaker, tests aren’t always the best answer. Children can have test anxiety or ELL students might have a hard deciphering words. This doesn’t measure the abilities of the students, but just on what they can memorize and retain for a short amount of time. Therefore, this article discusses 5 alternative ways to assess ELL’s without tests. The five ways are: Rubrics and Performance criteria, Oral Presentations or Performances, non-verbal assessments, writing assessments, and portfolios. These are all much more substantial as they measure the student’s abilities and not just how “good they are” at memorizing facts. These assessments allow for the child’s strengths to shine through.

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Seeing growth and improvement can be a huge motivator for ELL students.

But you can't see growth if you don't measure it.

That's why no great class is complete without some way of assessing students.

Not only is it a fantastic way for both you and your students to see what they've learned, but you can also use the results to help you plan future lessons.

However, don't rely solely on tests to assess your students!

They're not always an accurate way to measure their skill levels. Instead, I have five alternative ways you can assess your ELL students, and examples of what each might look like. But first, let's take a closer look at the issue with tests.

Contents

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere.Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Why Tests Aren't an Accurate Way to Measure Performance

One of the most common reasons why teachers shouldn't only use tests is because students may have test anxiety. What tends to happen is that students are so nervous when presented with a test that they don't do as well. You then aren't able to see what the student is really capable of. For ELL students, they can be extra nervous because not only do they have to recall information they've learned, but they may have to decipher what the test question is asking in the first place.

Also, tests really only measure what students can memorize or recall, not necessarily what work they can produce. For example, if you give a multiple choice test about vocabulary they learned, it really only tests if they understand one meaning of the word, and not necessarily whether they understand how to apply the same word in different contexts.

Another example would be oral skills. If students understand certain phrases you've taught them, they may not understand if another person outside the classroom says it, especially if that person has an accent.

If an ELL student is a little slower to read or decipher material (especially if they've had lots of support in their class), a time constraint on a test won't give them sufficient time to complete the test. Just because a student didn't finish a test, doesn't mean they don't understand the material. You then are left guessing as to whether or not your student actually understood what you were testing them on.

So how can you start assessing English language learners without tests?

5 Alternative Ways to Assess English Language Learners

1. Rubrics and Performance Criteria

Using rubrics and performance criteria is a great way to assess a variety of student work. It's usually based on language proficiency and academic progression through work such as presentations, written assignments and reading activities. You can not only use these to grade your students, but to chart their growth over a set period of time.

Both tools feature a list of criteria or standards that students know you're assessing. Rubrics show what is considered below level, at level and above level. A performance criteria can simply be a checklist of what to assess for each student. With either of these assessment tools, it's important to develop your own, as assessments are based on the teacher's judgment.

A tool like RubiStar is helpful, as it can show you sample rubrics other teachers have developed, and anyone can modify them for their own use.

When creating rubrics or performance criteria, make sure that what you're assessing is clear and fair from the beginning. As well, don't assess too much at once, as it'll not only overwhelm you but your students as well. If it helps, ask other teachers how they created their rubrics, or simply have someone look over yours to see if it looks okay.

You can even take it a step further by bringing FluentU into the classroom.

Using authentic content in the target language is a great way to let your students see the language used in context-and FluentU has a wide array of videos to choose from. From music videos and movie trailers to interesting talks, you can use these videos in your English lessons to help immerse your students in the language. You can even assign homework for your students to complete outside of the classroom and monitor their progress.

2. Oral Presentations or Performances

Many students who have test anxiety might get nervous because their reading or writing skills aren't very good. That doesn't mean, however, that they aren't proficient in oral skills.

Assessing oral presentations or performances typically include role-plays, interviews, oral reports and summarizing/paraphrasing pieces of text. When used on an ongoing basis, it's a great way to monitor a student's comprehension through a longer period of time.

Here are some ideas to incorporate oral presentations or performances as part of your assessments:

Role-plays: Role-plays can be used to assess students individually or as a group. Some ideas include having students write a play and performing it or even having the students teach the teacher as part of a review class.

Interviews: This type of assessment is very helpful if you have students that are early English learners. To help test students on content knowledge, try to use a lot of visual cues. For example, have students pick from a pile of pictures, and ask questions to elicit responses from them. You can assess the student based on vocabulary used or comparing concepts.

Describing/explaining/retelling/paraphrasing/summarizing texts: Instead of a written book report or summary of a piece of text, you can have your students retell the plot in front of the class or just to you. Other ideas can include asking the students to pick a character in the book and tell a story from their point of view, or even to describe their favorite part of the text.

When assessing oral work, it's helpful to use a checklist of things to look for, such as pronunciation, volume, pace and content. Use the same checklist for the same types of oral presentations to see the progression over time.

3. Non-verbal Assessments

For students who are shy or aren't as proficient in English, using non-verbal assessments is a great way to see a student's academic progress. What you're looking for in this type of assessment is their understanding of vocabulary.

Examples include:

Charades: Give a student vocabulary words you've taught, and have them act it out to see if they understand what the word or concept is. You could even have them summarize a text by miming it.

Pictures: You can ask students to draw or collect pictures to show their knowledge on a topic. For example, if you're assessing a student on their knowledge of nouns, ask students to pick out pictures of nouns in a magazine. Pictures can also be used to assess reading comprehension. Students can read a paragraph and then draw a picture to show their understanding of the text. If the picture is mostly accurate except for a few details, it could be a vocabulary issue.

4. Written Assessments

Written assessments are a nice way to see how students can apply their knowledge of English over a wide variety of concepts. For example, you can use assignments to see just how well they understand a text, or even different forms of writing.

Some different ways to incorporate written assessments in your class include:

Creative and structured writing assignments: Ask students to write a creative story, or even give them a writing prompt-where students read the beginning of a story and are asked to write the ending.

Editing writing: Give students a piece of text with grammatical mistakes and ask them to correct it, to test their knowledge of grammar.

Reading response logs: Give students a list of questions, such as how do they know a character is evil, or how would they change the ending of a story. When students are finished reading a book or article, have them write down the answers to these questions. Make sure to only assess for content, and not spelling or grammar, unless you specify to your students that you're doing so.

Content logs: Have students write down facts they learned about a text. You can also have them write what parts they didn't understand. This is helpful for you to see if there are concepts you may need to reteach or review, particularly if a lot of students are confused about similar parts of the same text.

With writing, don't assess too much at once. For a writing piece, you could assess just spelling, complete sentences or unity in paragraphs. Build it up to assess more than a few criteria once you see that your students have mastered what you have taught them.

5. Portfolios

Portfolios are powerful assessments and are used to gather various samples of student work to track their development over a period of time. In order to maximize the potential of using a portfolio as an assessment tool, you should regularly curate student work to include in them, and have scheduled conferences with students about their work.

You should also have a checklist of qualities that are important to showcase student achievement. Not only do you critique and assess the work, but so should the students. That way, they're responsible for their learning and take more ownership of making sure they improve.

Material you can include in a portfolio can include the following:

performance criteria or rubrics

recording of oral presentations

tests

writing samples, drafts and final copies

book reports

interview checklists

In order to best assess a student, you should include more than one kind of student work in the portfolio. The work does not have to be the best work they've done, rather a wide variety is best. Based on your judgment, you can even ask students for their opinion as to what types of work they should include.

In a portfolio, you are looking for any type of improvement in their work. For example, if you keep a couple of a student's writing pieces, look to see if their sentence or paragraph structure gets better. When looking at tests, see if their spelling tests, for example, have gotten higher scores over time. If you notice that they continually lack in certain skills, this would be the time to address it. You can either give the student extra support in class or find ways for them to practice with extra work at home.

Tests aren't bad, but they're not the only way to assess student achievement.

If you use a wide variety of assessments, you'll be able to portray an accurate picture of your student's English abilities.

In turn, you, your students and their parents will be able to see their progress, which can greatly motivate students!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere.Click here to get a copy. (Download)

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Measuring Growth: 5 Ways to Start Assessing English Language Learners Without Tests | FluentU English Educator Blog

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Assessing English language learners with a range of assessments will help demonstrate your students' abilities. From written assessments and portfolios to speaking assessments and activities, there are so many options available! Click here to see 5 simple alternatives to tests for assessing English language learners!

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In the article, Supporting English Language Learners with Formative Assessments, the author, who is an ELL specialist, does a great job of explaining the important role formative assessments play in the classroom and how these assessments provide feedback that is beneficial for both the teacher and the student. Teachers can take what they have learned from these assessments to determine “next steps for instruction at the classroom level” and students can use the information to take ownership and set goals for themselves.
http://www.gettingsmart.com/2016/04/supporting-ells-with-formative-assessments/

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This website contains several articles about what parents can do to help their children with the tests. Information includes what the tests are, how can parents help their children prepare for standardized tests, what the parents can do at home to provide their children a comfortable studying environment, etc.

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Taking tests has always been a part of going to school, but in recent years the kinds of tests and numbers of tests that kids take have increased. Learn more about those changes and how you can help your child do his or her best, whether for a short spelling quiz or a longer standardized assessment.

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Taking tests has always been a part of going to school, but in recent years the kinds of tests and numbers of tests that kids take have increased. Learn more about those changes and how you can help your child do his or her best, whether for a short spelling quiz or a longer standardized assessment.

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It is important that when we assess our students they will know how they are going to be graded. For this reason, in this link where you can find different types of rubrics you can assess with.

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Free resources and tips to help educators and administrators use Exemplars' assessments and lesson plans in the classroom effectively.

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This article talks about the importance of using research-based assessment to help struggling learners. Mathematics Dynamic Assessment (MDA) was an informal mathematics assessment process that integrates four research-supported practices: (1) Assessment of students' interests and experiences; (2) Concrete-representational-abstract assessment within authentic contexts; (3) Error pattern analyses; and (4) Flexible interviews.  The data collected through the MDA process provide teachers with an in-depth evaluation of their students' mathematical understandings and thinking that allows teachers to plan their instruction to address students' specific mathematical learning needs

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I think not enough emphasis is put on informal assessments. They can tell us so much about the ongoing progress of our students, and can hold students accountable for applying learned information in a low stakes setting. Learning is ongoing, can be aided, and can be assessed with informal assessments. This link provides some ideas, and information on informal assessment.

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Informal assessments (also called authentic or alternative) allow teachers to track the ongoing progress of their students regularly and often. While standardized tests measure students at a particular point in the year, ongoing assessments provide continual snapshots of where students are throughout the school year. By using informal assessments, teachers can target students' specific problem areas, adapt instruction, and intervene earlier rather than later.

Ongoing assessments are particularly important for English language learners (ELLs). Standardized tests in English do not usually reflect ELLs' true content knowledge or abilities. Yet informal assessments can provide a more well-rounded picture of their skills, abilities, and ongoing progress. Today's No Child Left Behind legislation requires that meticulous records be kept on the progress of ELLs. Having these records will make it easier when questions of program placement, special services, and grading arise.

There are two commonly used informal methods: performance-based assessment and portfolio assessment. Both methods utilize typical classroom activities to measure progress toward curricular goals and objectives. These activities can be monitored and recorded by teacher observation and student self-assessment.

Performance-based assessments

Performance-based assessments are based on classroom instruction and everyday tasks. You can use performance-based assessments to assess ELLs' language proficiency and academic achievement through oral reports, presentations, demonstrations, written assignments, and portfolios.

These assessments can include both processes (e.g., several drafts of a writing sample) and products (e.g., team projects). You can use scoring rubrics and observation checklists to evaluate and grade your students. These assessment tools can help document your ELLs' growth over a period of time.

Here is a sample language and academic assessment form that you can complete on a monthly basis to learn about the overall academic and English proficiency progress of your ELLs. If there is an ESL or resource teacher at school assisting your ELLs, you can share this assessment of the ELL's progress during the past month.

When using performance-based assessments, it is important to establish clear and fair criteria from the beginning. It might be helpful to develop these criteria in conjunction with other teachers or specialists at your school. Performance-based assessments promote a wide range of responses and do not typically produce one single, correct answer. Therefore, evaluation of student performances and products must be based on teacher judgment, using the criteria specified for each task. Here is a sample oral scoring rubric.

You can also develop assessment (and instructional) activities that are geared to your ELLs' current level of English proficiency. Performance-based assessment activities can concentrate on oral communication and/or reading. Here are examples of commonly-used activity types designed for assessing speaking or reading:

Reading with partners

Retelling stories

Role playing

Giving descriptions or instructions using visual or written prompts

Oral reporting to the whole class

Telling a story by using a sequence of three or more pictures

Completing dialogue or conversation through written prompts

Debating, either one-on-one or taking turns in small groups

Brainstorming

Completing incomplete stories

Playing games

When using performance-based assessments with beginner and intermediate English proficiency level ELLs, it is best to assess no more than three items at a time. For example, in one role play activity, you might assess ELLs' abilities to:

1. Respond to "what" and "where" questions

2. Ask for or respond to clarification

3. Read addresses or telephone numbers

Portfolio assessments

Portfolios are practical ways of assessing student work throughout the entire year. With this method, you can systematically collect descriptive records of a variety of student work over time that reflects growth toward the achievement of specific curricular objectives. Portfolios include information, sample work, and evaluations that serve as indicators for student performance. By documenting student performance over time, portfolios are a better way to crosscheck student progress than just one measure alone. Portfolios can include:

Samples of written student work, such as stories, completed forms, exercise sheets, and descriptions

Drawings representing student content knowledge and proficiencies

Tapes of oral work, such as role-playing, presentations, or an oral account of a trip

Teacher descriptions of student accomplishments, such as performance on oral tasks

Formal test data, checklists, and rating sheets

Checklists or summary sheets of tasks and performances in the student's portfolio can help you make instructional decisions and report consistently and reliably. Checklists can also help you collect the same kind of data for each student. In this way you can assess both the progress of one student and of the class as a whole. This sample math development checklist is an example of how you can organize your data collection for each ELL.

In addition, here are a few ways that your ELLs can have an active role in the portfolio process:

Students can select samples of their work and reflect on their own growth over time.

You can meet with ELLs to develop their goals and standards, such as with this sample writing criteria chart.

Together with students, you can set tangible, realistic improvement goals for future projects.

Students - as a class, in groups, or individually - can create their own rubrics.

Assessing content knowledge

ELLs need to learn grade level academic content even though they are still in the process of learning English. Even if ELLs are at the beginning or intermediate stages of English language development, you can still use their thinking ability and challenge them with content knowledge activities. ELLs need your help to exercise their critical thinking skills - such as knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation - in order to succeed in school during all stages of English language development.

It is possible to assess ELLs' understanding of math, science, social studies, and other content areas somewhat independently of their level of English proficiency. The following assessment techniques can help you adapt assessments to reduce English language difficulties while you assess ELLs' actual content knowledge. These techniques can be used separately or simultaneously as needed.

Scaffolding assessments allow ELLs to demonstrate their content knowledge through exhibits or projects, drawings, and graphic organizers. Consider giving ELLs extra time to complete these tasks, or to give short responses.

Differentiated scoring scores content knowledge separately from language proficiency. To score content knowledge, look at how well ELLs understand key concepts, how accurate their responses are, and how well they demonstrate the processes they use to come up with responses.

You can use a content area progress form with the above techniques to rate your ELLs' overall content achievement in class. You will need separate forms for math, science, and social studies performance.

It is important to note that if students are being instructed in content in one language (e.g., English), they should not be assessed on that content in another language, even if it is their native language.

For more information on assessing ELLs in general, visit the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory (LAB) website.

Read about assessing fluency.

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Using Informal Assessments for English Language Learners

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Informal assessments (also called authentic or alternative) allow teachers to track the ongoing progress of their students regularly and often. While standardized tests measure students at a particular point in the year, ongoing assessments provide continual snapshots of where students are throughout the school year.

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Attached is a website that gives ideas for ELL assessment types. These include:
Performance Based Assessments-

Reading with partners

Retelling stories

Role playing

Giving descriptions or instructions using visual or written prompts

Oral reporting to the whole class

Telling a story by using a sequence of three or more pictures

Completing dialogue or conversation through written prompts

Debating, either one-on-one or taking turns in small groups

Brainstorming

Completing incomplete stories

Playing games

Portfolio Assessments-

Samples of written student work, such as stories, completed forms, exercise sheets, and descriptions

Drawings representing student content knowledge and proficiencies

Tapes of oral work, such as role-playing, presentations, or an oral account of a trip

Teacher descriptions of student accomplishments, such as performance on oral tasks

Formal test data, checklists, and rating sheets

and Assessing Content Knowledge-

Scaffolding assessments allow ELLs to demonstrate their content knowledge through exhibits or projects, drawings, and graphic organizers. Consider giving ELLs extra time to complete these tasks, or to give short responses.

Differentiated scoring scores content knowledge separately from language proficiency. To score content knowledge, look at how well ELLs understand key concepts, how accurate their responses are, and how well they demonstrate the processes they use to come up with responses.

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Informal assessments (also called authentic or alternative) allow teachers to track the ongoing progress of their students regularly and often. While standardized tests measure students at a particular point in the year, ongoing assessments provide continual snapshots of where students are throughout the school year. By using informal assessments, teachers can target students' specific problem areas, adapt instruction, and intervene earlier rather than later.

Ongoing assessments are particularly important for English language learners (ELLs). Standardized tests in English do not usually reflect ELLs' true content knowledge or abilities. Yet informal assessments can provide a more well-rounded picture of their skills, abilities, and ongoing progress. Today's No Child Left Behind legislation requires that meticulous records be kept on the progress of ELLs. Having these records will make it easier when questions of program placement, special services, and grading arise.

There are two commonly used informal methods: performance-based assessment and portfolio assessment. Both methods utilize typical classroom activities to measure progress toward curricular goals and objectives. These activities can be monitored and recorded by teacher observation and student self-assessment.

Performance-based assessments

Performance-based assessments are based on classroom instruction and everyday tasks. You can use performance-based assessments to assess ELLs' language proficiency and academic achievement through oral reports, presentations, demonstrations, written assignments, and portfolios.

These assessments can include both processes (e.g., several drafts of a writing sample) and products (e.g., team projects). You can use scoring rubrics and observation checklists to evaluate and grade your students. These assessment tools can help document your ELLs' growth over a period of time.

Here is a sample language and academic assessment form that you can complete on a monthly basis to learn about the overall academic and English proficiency progress of your ELLs. If there is an ESL or resource teacher at school assisting your ELLs, you can share this assessment of the ELL's progress during the past month.

When using performance-based assessments, it is important to establish clear and fair criteria from the beginning. It might be helpful to develop these criteria in conjunction with other teachers or specialists at your school. Performance-based assessments promote a wide range of responses and do not typically produce one single, correct answer. Therefore, evaluation of student performances and products must be based on teacher judgment, using the criteria specified for each task. Here is a sample oral scoring rubric.

You can also develop assessment (and instructional) activities that are geared to your ELLs' current level of English proficiency. Performance-based assessment activities can concentrate on oral communication and/or reading. Here are examples of commonly-used activity types designed for assessing speaking or reading:

Reading with partners

Retelling stories

Role playing

Giving descriptions or instructions using visual or written prompts

Oral reporting to the whole class

Telling a story by using a sequence of three or more pictures

Completing dialogue or conversation through written prompts

Debating, either one-on-one or taking turns in small groups

Brainstorming

Completing incomplete stories

Playing games

When using performance-based assessments with beginner and intermediate English proficiency level ELLs, it is best to assess no more than three items at a time. For example, in one role play activity, you might assess ELLs' abilities to:

1. Respond to "what" and "where" questions

2. Ask for or respond to clarification

3. Read addresses or telephone numbers

Portfolio assessments

Portfolios are practical ways of assessing student work throughout the entire year. With this method, you can systematically collect descriptive records of a variety of student work over time that reflects growth toward the achievement of specific curricular objectives. Portfolios include information, sample work, and evaluations that serve as indicators for student performance. By documenting student performance over time, portfolios are a better way to crosscheck student progress than just one measure alone. Portfolios can include:

Samples of written student work, such as stories, completed forms, exercise sheets, and descriptions

Drawings representing student content knowledge and proficiencies

Tapes of oral work, such as role-playing, presentations, or an oral account of a trip

Teacher descriptions of student accomplishments, such as performance on oral tasks

Formal test data, checklists, and rating sheets

Checklists or summary sheets of tasks and performances in the student's portfolio can help you make instructional decisions and report consistently and reliably. Checklists can also help you collect the same kind of data for each student. In this way you can assess both the progress of one student and of the class as a whole. This sample math development checklist is an example of how you can organize your data collection for each ELL.

In addition, here are a few ways that your ELLs can have an active role in the portfolio process:

Students can select samples of their work and reflect on their own growth over time.

You can meet with ELLs to develop their goals and standards, such as with this sample writing criteria chart.

Together with students, you can set tangible, realistic improvement goals for future projects.

Students - as a class, in groups, or individually - can create their own rubrics.

Assessing content knowledge

ELLs need to learn grade level academic content even though they are still in the process of learning English. Even if ELLs are at the beginning or intermediate stages of English language development, you can still use their thinking ability and challenge them with content knowledge activities. ELLs need your help to exercise their critical thinking skills - such as knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation - in order to succeed in school during all stages of English language development.

It is possible to assess ELLs' understanding of math, science, social studies, and other content areas somewhat independently of their level of English proficiency. The following assessment techniques can help you adapt assessments to reduce English language difficulties while you assess ELLs' actual content knowledge. These techniques can be used separately or simultaneously as needed.

Scaffolding assessments allow ELLs to demonstrate their content knowledge through exhibits or projects, drawings, and graphic organizers. Consider giving ELLs extra time to complete these tasks, or to give short responses.

Differentiated scoring scores content knowledge separately from language proficiency. To score content knowledge, look at how well ELLs understand key concepts, how accurate their responses are, and how well they demonstrate the processes they use to come up with responses.

You can use a content area progress form with the above techniques to rate your ELLs' overall content achievement in class. You will need separate forms for math, science, and social studies performance.

It is important to note that if students are being instructed in content in one language (e.g., English), they should not be assessed on that content in another language, even if it is their native language.

For more information on assessing ELLs in general, visit the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory (LAB) website.

Read about assessing fluency.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Using Informal Assessments for English Language Learners

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Informal assessments (also called authentic or alternative) allow teachers to track the ongoing progress of their students regularly and often. While standardized tests measure students at a particular point in the year, ongoing assessments provide continual snapshots of where students are throughout the school year.