All assessments need to be authentic to assess a student's knowledge successfully. For this analysis I chose the reading comprehension lesson on Aunt Flossie’s Hats which covers the standard: LAFS.3.RI.1.2; determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea. This is a summative assessment used to register the student’s knowledge of the lesson. For this assessment to be an accurate gauge of the ELL’s ability I modified the verbiage of the worksheet in the English Learner’s native language. Modifying the summative assessment will provide me with a thorough overview of the English Language Learner’s comprehension level without any language barriers.
Although the ELL student is picking up the English language quickly, and is currently at an intermediate level, I didn’t want any interference to hinder
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the lesson or the assessments. Therefore, I supplied the student and her family, the Friday before the lesson with definitions of the vocabulary words from the book and the content area we were going to address the following week. Then the Monday before the lesson began I would pull the student aside and review the words. I would make sure to clarify any misunderstandings the student may have. Before administering the summative assessments, the students were given a pre-assessment and formative assessment. Each assessment is used as a building block for the ELL student. These assessments help monitor the student’s comprehension level and show areas that need to be readdressed for the student. Having authentic assessments is essential when understanding your student’s strengths and weaknesses. Over the course of the year, I can monitor growth, goals accomplished and any areas of concern for the student through the assessment process. During the pre-assessment and formative assessment, I will observe to see if the student can comprehend and use the linguistics of the English language efficiently and effectively. The pre-assessment was done by having the students orally describe what is needed when identifying the main idea of a story. First, I would share a story about a vacation my family experienced while providing various details. Afterward, I would ask students to provide me with some of the details I shared about my vacation. I would compare and contrast on the board the “big” details and “small” details from my story. Next, we would discuss what they thought the main idea of my story was and why they chose this as the main idea. When administering this pre-assessment, I would have students discuss a vacation, birthday, or another event in their life and share it with a partner. Previously, the students have worked together using graphic organizers while learning vocabulary; therefore, I used graphic organizers as a tool for students to use when recalling details from their partner’s story.
Once each partner had completed their stories, they would draw a picture on their whiteboard of three important details from the other person’s story labeling them one, two, and three. In the article Best Practice for ELLs: Peer-Assisted Learning, it stated that having English Language Learners work with their peers helps develop vocabulary, syntax, and comprehension strategies. Once all students have completed this part of the activity, each student would share their partner’s story recalling details from their whiteboard. Allowing English Language Learners to demonstrate their comprehension through visualization, artwork, and retelling helps the student make connections to the content. Once each student has shared the details, the class would then have to decide what the main idea of the story is. The class would discuss the correct and incorrect answers and their reasoning behind choosing the main
idea. After this activity was completed, I would provide the students with a formative assessment. First, I would place a poem on the overhead projector and have the class read the poem chorally. Next, I would go through the poem, highlighting the first detail and ask students to explain why I chose this detail. Then, I would have the students work together to find two more supporting details. After each group found all three details, I would have them work together to find the main idea. Once the students had completed this activity, I would have them use the visualization strategy to draw a picture to demonstrate their knowledge. In the book Phonics They Use, it states that choral reading provides all learners an opportunity to practice reading to the best of their ability without fear or ridicule from their peers. Creating a safe learning environment will allow ELLs to engage in the learning process without judgment from others. During this activity, I would remind students to use the rereading and summarizing strategies. Both activities can help learners when trying to locate key details and main ideas. These two activities will prepare students for the summative assessment and show them that multiple strategies can be used when completing the assignment. To fully gauge the English Language Learners understanding I modified the summative assessment by translating the worksheet with student’s native language and the English language side by side. For this assessment, I would read the story aloud to the class first and tell them that I want them to identify three key details and the main idea. I will remind them of the strategies that we have discussed: rereading, summarizing, and visualization. I will share with them why and how these strategies are necessary when finding key details and the main idea. When I am reading the story, I will allow students to take notes or illustrate any details they find important on the back of their worksheets. This process helps all learners when trying to recall details from a passage. When completing the worksheet, I will allow the ELL to use the Haitian Creole dictionary. By allowing the ELL to use the Haitian Creole dictionary, she can find the appropriate word to display her thoughts and ideas. However, these assessments are only a beginning point to help students with reading comprehension. Understanding how to locate key details and the main idea of a passage is essential for all students. When a student can demonstrate the multiple strategies used throughout these assessments, he or she will be able to comprehend the material addressed successfully. Furthermore, this assessment prepares the student for their quarterly portfolio evaluations, as well as, the upcoming FSA testing that will be administered this year. This assessment not only provides the student with different strategies to use during future assignments and tests (rereading, summarizing, visualizing) but also, provides the student with strategies to help them throughout their learning experience.
Vermeer’s Hat offers a unique look at the rise of global trade through Brook’s eyes. Brook uses each of the paintings to describe to the audience a different picture of how the world began progressing. Most think of Vermeer as an isolated artist, with no real connection to the world outside of the walls of his mother-in-law’s house. However, as Brook shows us throughout the story, this could not be further from the truth. Brook relies on the paintings to interpret the rise of global trade to show the audience how architecture has contributed to the rise of global trade, how specific objects in the paintings related to trade, and how geography influenced trade.
During the lesson the teacher is allowing the students to discuss and think about what is occurring in the story. The teacher is implementing this by allowing and allocating time for debriefing in between the story. By doing thing the teacher gives the students the opportunity to use their KWL Charts throughout the lesson just in case something has been answered, or if a new idea were to appear. Moreover the students are also allowed to use their writing journal for note taking during this story. This allows the students to go back in their journals to recall events and important
Objective 2: As the students engage in think, pair, share activities they will refer to the text to complete the assignment. They will learn from each other, receive feedback, and will also have a chance to engage in public speaking while discussing the story. This instructional strategy will encourage the students to reflect about the questions, share their ideas with their partner, fill out a worksheet with 5 questions, and then share their ideas with the rest of the class. Some of the questions on the worksheet will include:
These discussions need to be meaningful and have purpose to create a higher chance of student engagement and participation. The article states, “cooperative learning is a natural way to provide opportunities across the curriculum” (Wright, 2016, p. 28-29). The smaller the group, the more likely the ELL student is to add to the conversation, as native English speakers typically dominant whole group discussions. It is important that every student in the small group contributes so the ELL student can hear and practice their own oral language. There are many activities that could be used to ensure this engagement, such as think-pair-share, that requires students to work together and actually get information from each other. Activities that cannot be completed alone and require the thinking of another student would be best for this
Many school districts have problems placing ELL’s. As a result these students end up in special education whether they have a learning disability or language impairment. Teachers are also indecisive when dealing with ELL’s. Most teachers recommend that ELL’s be placed in special education from day one. It is not because the child has a learning disability, it’s because most teachers are not properly trained to interact with ELL’s.
Assessments should guide instruction and material selection. Any likely manner, assessments should measure student progress, as well as help, identify deficiencies in reading (Afflerback, 2012). One important indicator of reading deficiencies is spelling. Morris (2014), advocated the importance of administering a spelling assessment in order to have a better understanding of a student’s reading abilities. My school uses the Words Their Way spelling inventory to assess students’ reading abilities at the beginning of the year and throughout the reading year.
English Language Learners range from Newcomers learning survival English and developing foundational literacy skills to Long-Term English Learners who have had 6 years or more of their education in English yet continue have significant language gaps. These students may speak English with little or no accent and still lack the vocabulary, grammar and grade level literacy to be successful in school. English language learners may remain silent in the classroom as they adjust to a new school, environment, and culture unless he is a native language comrade to interact with. The English language learners are concerned about decoding verbal and non- verbal communication as well as understanding the social culture framework of the school. Most of the time English language learners are observing during instruction, trying to repeat words used by others, memorizing simple phrases and sentences, tired by midday or be frustrated attending long lectures unaccompanied by visual and gestures, relying on first language translation used peer translation or bilingual dictionary, as the students begin to learner they become more involved in the classroom, they can respond non-verbally to commands, statements, and questions in simple form. As their oral comprehension increases, they begin to use simple word and phrases and may use English spontaneously. They can understand short conversation on a simple topic when reading students can understand a narrative text and authentic materials, although they will be below
The work sample is a word problem worksheet on coins. The objective in this lesson was for students to solve problems using coins and the students had to either add up coins or subtract coins in this worksheet. Therefore, I was able to “match learning objectives with assessment methods”. Based on the work sample, the student correctly answered the questions that involved adding up coins but when she had to subtract coins, she got the answers incorrect because she assumed that the question involved adding up coins. It taught me that she did not know when to add or subtract when reading a word problem. As a result, I adjusted my instruction and taught the student to look for clue words such as, “in all” or “have left” when solving a word problem. I taught her that key words such as, how many are left, difference, how many more and fewer indicate that she needs to subtract. While, key words such as, altogether, in all, total and sum indicate that she needs to add. This show that I was able to “analyze the assessment and understood the gaps in her learning and use it to guide my instruction”. The student knew how to add and subtract but she had a difficult time knowing what operation to use when solving word problems. I provided the student with “effective and descriptive feedback” immediately after finishing her worksheet which helped her to improve her
Advantages of someone in learning are not necessarily the same as what they deem as their strengths. If the assessment of a person is more to visual learner, or in other words information is processed best by seeing, the fact that he may feel that the information read is also beneficial to him should not be denied. One of the main purposes of this assessment is to help students who have difficulties in learning by helping them to determine the ways to select the information and translate it into learning strategies and skills to answer questions.
The IELTS test is designed to assess students’ competence in English language in an integrated skills; reading, speaking, writing and listening. It is an obligatory exam for registration in many universities as well as it is a certificate to raise their luck in gaining a job. The listening test is particularly aimed at measuring the ability of students understanding of English. In most cases Universities offer preparation course for the students to develop their skills further, in order to prepare them, the exam centres are well equipped with computers, microphones and other recording devices. This paper will accentuate on evaluating an IELTS listening test in relation to its reliability, validity, authenticity, instructiveness, fairness, impact and wash back. The particular test to be evaluated was taken from IELTS official practice material updated in March 2009.
Observing students in a busy setting is something that a teacher should not do because ELL or ESL students may not understand what the teacher maybe asking them and the teacher may think that the student may not understand reading and writing but they really do. The teacher needs to ask the student questions that are observing in a quiet setting so that the student is able to understand and answer the
West, R. (2004a) Testing and Assessment in Language Learning: Vol. 1. Principles and Approaches to Language Testing. Patras: Hellenic Open University.
They are a kind of support for both teachers and learners. Textbooks provide students a kind of consistency"(p. 95). They have an important influence in the instructional process. ELT textbooks have major function in the current discussion. Sheldon (1988, p. 237) states that “textbooks represent the visible heart of any ELT program”. Textbooks are an almost universal component of English language teaching. ELT textbooks play the role of a teacher, a map, a resource, a restrictor, and as an ideology (Cortazzi & Jin, 1999). Textbooks hold a paramount status as an indispensible ingredient of language teaching profession; therefore, appraising and evaluating them seems to be imperative to assure their efficiency and consistency with the objectives defined and expected of the course. Constant evaluation of textbooks to see if they are appropriate is of great importance. This process enables us to make informed decisions through which student achievement will increase and educational programs will be more successful (Zohrabi, Sabouri & Behroozian, 2012). According to Ahour and Ahmadi (2012), textbooks give suitable knowledge to the learners. Subsequently, in order to collect an applicable textbook that provides the needs of the learners according to their cultures, the textbook evaluation is required. Though there are different standard textbook evaluation
Storytelling served as resource to go beyond classroom boundaries. It addressed issues related to diversity and inclusion. Story-sharing activity allowed children to experience diverse cultures and as sources of understanding differences. It led to discussions on various issues such as individual differences, diversity, etc. Stories served as platforms for ethnic cementing. It provided a means to deal with many sensitive issues. For instance, one child from Southern Indian child narrated a story with a slightly different accent, so all started laughing. When asked, a girl explained the reason. Then she shared the story of a different looking parrot and concluded that each individual has a distinct way of doing the same thing, so we should accept
According to Nunan (1988) materials represent the essential parts of the curriculum. The textbook is the most popular source of conveying knowledge by all language teachers in their classrooms. A good EFL curriculum should meet students’ needs, expose the students to language in authentic use and provide the students with opportunities to use the target lan¬guage to achieve communicative purposes. The only way to ensure the existence of these features is through careful evaluations of textbooks and other curriculum materials. According to Sheldon (1988), there are several reasons to evaluate textbooks . First, the evaluation helps teachers in making decisions on selecting the appropriate textbook. Additionally, evaluation of the merits and demerits of a textbook will familiarize teachers with its probable weaknesses and strengths. This enables teachers to make suitable adjustments to the material in their future instruction. Moreover, a textbook evaluation can be very useful in teacher development and professional growth.