Myths and Realities: Assessment

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Assessment Myth #2: We teach everyone equally in our school, and we don't need to know who is an English language learner and who isn't. 
Reality: Educators need to know as much about students as possible so students are provided with the best educational experience possible.

I understand the myth because there is an aspect about giving different attention to students that somewhat singles them out.  Therefore, treating students equally implies some aspect of inclusion, which is important in education and treatment of our students.  It would also help with students that have come from another country with assimilating into American culture.  Students at certain ages also have a desire to fit in with their peers.  By including ESL students in regular curriculum without any specialized attention, they are "fitting in" with other native speakers. 
However, for these teachers believing in this myth, "we believe that they are in danger of doing their students a tremendous disservice by not recognizing that all students have special strenths and needs.  Being a nonnative English speaker is one of those special needs" (99).  The text also points out that ELL students' prior education and culture impact their English proficiency and their academics.  By pretending that ELL students don't have different needs than native English speakers denies them the opportunity of receiving an equal education because they are not getting the help and services required for them to perform to the best of their abilities. 

Shohamy's Assessment

Harley et al did a study on whether grammar, discourse, and sociolinguistic competence are three separate entities.  Schachter's reactions:
"She argued that discourse should be defined more clearly as pragmatic knowledge, since discourse knowledge involves both cultural conventions and appropriate grammatical choices" (202).
I really like this description of what discourse should entail; that it's learning about culture as well as aspects about the language, such as grammar.  Something that connects these two is using idioms in communicating.  This involves understanding a bit about the culture, how they communicate, as well as grammatical structure. 

"Therefore, it is difficult to determine whether the small number of items chosen to test the discourse trait truly tested what the researches had assumed" (202). 
This quote illustrates how a test simply cannot accurately assess a language learner's discourse competency.  It further touches on how testing will not assess what is intended to assess, which therefore clouds the administrator's knowledge of the language learner's skills and knowledge of the language. 

I think that we simply need to come up with more creative ways to assess language learners because we cannot test communicative knowledge without inadvertantly testing grammar and syntax.  Similarly, if we are testing on grammar, we know that grammar in isolation is not always effective.  If we are using student writing to assess grammar, this involves sentence structure.  I think that this somewhat implies that we should be testing overall proficiency or several aspects in one test, but I think that this is also problematic.  I think that assigning writing, which involves several different genres of writing, and authentic situations such as bringing language learners into the community to use their oral language (speaking and listening) skills would involve several aspects within these assessments.  However, this might show that I really advocate for communicative competence as a goal for a language learner.  There are several ways to assess students based on different goals of language learners, what we are testing, and the teacher's views.  Therefore, in this abundance of different ways to assess language learners, there are many that could be considered "effective," or "accurate" based on what we are trying to assess.

ENG 394

     Last week was my last week!  So, I want to blog about the type of environment that has been created and fostered since day 1.  Students feel so comfortable in room 238, with eachother, and with their teachers, that they discuss and even joke about citizenship status and family issues.  An instance of this last week was in ESL 3, which is a difficult class because a couple students in there have been friends since grade school and therefore talk a lot, one student is on a behavioral contract, etc.  We were discussing relationships and marriage and related this discussion to the reading.  One of the boys made a joke for Pablo to marry my cooperating teacher, Ms. Jones, and then he could "get papers." Pablo responded with, "I already got papers!"  Another boy responded to this by saying, "You do? Where'd you get 'em!?"  Everyone started laughing at this, and Ms. Jones joked that they aren't something you can get at Dairy Queen.  Vaiyron then said, "I got mine at Walmart, buy 1 get 1 free!"  The class bursted out laughing even more after this.  I thought this was very humorous but was hesitant to laugh because some of these students don't have papers, so this could be a rough subject.  But in this class, they talk about it, and feel comfortable about it because they trust one another and their teachers.
     Another example of student comfort is their involvement in International Club.  There were tee shirts made with each language spoken in the classroom included on the back that said, "Kiss me, I'm international!"  They wear these on Fridays, which is school spirit day.  This involvement has included outside activities such as a dinner at Ms. Jones home, a field trip to Starved Rock, and they are going to see Breaking Dawn Thursday evening at midnight.  I attended the dinner, and I didn't expect so many students to attend!  Ms. Jones had a full house.  This illustrates the togetherness and support within the ESL classroom.
     This third example is on facebook.  I have found that the majority of these students are friends with their teachers, and aren't worried about what they may or may not see, which is very surprising!  They also aren't simply "friends."  I am also friends with both of my cooperating teachers and their students write to them.  This comfort level baffles me.  I think the teachers express such a care and concern for their students, with providing a comfort level, that students feel invited and welcomed to the ESL classroom.  This care and concern goes further in an example I witnessed on my last day.  My CT's daughter was bit by a dog, and she was notified in class.  Ms. Claricoates was very upset and on the phone because her daughter was getting stitches.  She received a picture.  (Her daughter is fine, no worries).  Every student was asking if she was ok after this phone call, and Ms. Claricoates shared this picture with them.  They were worried about their teacher's family members, which shows care. 
     I have had a wonderful experience in my practicum and hope to build this type of community in my classroom because then, it's much more than a classroom.  It's a safe haven.

394: Inclusion

     These past few weeks, another student has been joining the level 1 ESL class for about 15 minutes a day.  His name is Israel and he is from Mexico.  His English is extremely limited.  He is in Special Ed. classes and has an aid, who doesn't speak Spanish, who has been with him since jr. high school at Kingsley.  Israel gets grand mal seizures, which affect his brain and development, therefore he cannot take in information for long periods of time.  This explains why he is in special ed. classes.  However, only recently he has been put in an ESL class as part of his daily schedule, but for only 15 minutes and then he returns to his other class. 
     I'm sort of confused as to why he is only in ESL for a short amount of time everyday, when the class has only 2 other students and he would receive individualized attention, learning more ways of communication.  Many times, ESL students are placed in special ed. classes because of their limited English.  However, that is not the case for Israel.  It's the opposite.  He needs to be in ESL and isn't.  What perplexes me even more is how he does his homework, actively listens in class, asks questions when he doesn't understand, etc.  I doubt that any of these are happening due to his very limited English, which means that he sort of just goes through the motions of a school day.  Students at my placement in ESL also have a study hall, called "Resource" where they go to their ESL classroom with their teacher who helps them with their homework, can reword tests and assignments, etc.  Israel desperately needs this! 
     It got me thinking about how he in included into the regular curriculum in terms of language, but not up to his needs.  He goes to classes where the focus isn't for ESL needs.  They do accommodate for his needs that are to do with his seizures that affect his development.  However, I wonder how far he could come with proper language teaching to help the rest of his education.  Why is our system so difficult!?
     Over the next few weeks, we will see his development (how much might be very slight, because he's only with us for 15 min!), so I'll update again.

Topic Management-Kuma

The idea of giving students the freedom to choose possible topics as the basis for interaction was originally brought about by Hatch in 1978.  The importance of this was later emphasized by van Lier and coined "topicalization" meaning a process that students take something from the teacher or another student and try to come up with the next topic from that.  Benefits are illustrated in that it results in personalizing the complexity of the input to the learner's own level, better opportunities for negotiating meaning, and fostering motivation for more complex production of the student.  "Assia Slimani (1989) found that learners benefites more from self- and peer-nominated topics than from teacher-nominated topics" (Kuma 120).  This idea takes brings ideas in that need to be considered such as investment, relevant content, and motivation.  Besides the benefits topicalization brings about in language learners, students will be more motivated to learn about something that they chose to learn more about; they showed a desire and have the interest.  This leads into investment.  When a student has more of a connection to the content, the result is that they will have more committment in their learning and the process of learning, specifically a second language, as a whole.  Also, topicalization allows students to come up with possible topics as the basis of interaction.  In this case, I think that the teacher should have to facilitate and monitor these so that lessons don't get too off track and can still scaffold.  Therefore, it is the teacher's job to pick meaningful and relevant topics from students' options.  From here, students would be learning something that they wanted to learn by showing interest, would have more investment in the material and the learning process as a whole, and would be learning content that is relevant and meaningful to their language learning.  I think topicalization is great for native speakers and non native speakers in other content areas as well because the idea of having students show interest in what they want to learn (according to relevance in the subject) isn't necessarily language specific.  It can provide benefits to Math (learning how many miles to the gallon a students' car takes), history (maybe one student really likes the Civil War period), English (some students might prefer poetry over essay writing, giving options), etc.  Overall, I'd say I'm a fan of topicalization.

Teaching Culture, Too

     This past week, both of my booperating teachers at Normal Community incorporated an aspect of Halloween into their lessons.  In ESL 2, Beginning ESL, Ms. Jones brought into the classroom the idea of using pumpkin in foods.  She showed pictures of pumpkin pie, seeds, muffins, flavored coffee, etc. and explained that the pumpkin is North American, which is why it might be rather new to some of the students.  I brought in pumpkin seeds for students to try and all except 2 or 3 students had not tried them before.  Each was able to try them.  I noticed that Abel, who is from Mexico, was not eating the shell.  Pumpkin seeds are actually meant to have the whole thing eaten.  Satoryu, from Japan, did not enjoy the pumpkin seeds.  We talked about the history of Halloween and related it to The Day of the Dead in Mexican culture.  Satoryu shared that in Japanese and Chinese culture, they celebrate Setsubun, which is where the father of the house puts on a mask and throws beans out the door to cleanse the house of evil spirits from the previouse year.  They also talked about and showed pictures of scare crows and halloween decorations.
     In ESL 1, basic ESL, Ms. Claricoates taught students about the carving of a pumpkin for Halloween and how it's a tradition.  She showed pictures of carved pumkins and talked about jack-o-lanterns.  This was difficult for the students to understand that they were pumpkins when they were plain, but were called "jack-o-lanterns" once they were carved.  Later in the week, Ms. Claricoates brought in a pumpkin for each student to carve in class and take home (there are only 3 students in this class).  Norma was overly excited that she was able to bring her "punkin" home but Edwardo did not care to.  Ms. Claricoates also picked a book about a skeleton having hiccups and all the ways he tried to get rid of them.  Students listened to the story once, and then a second time.  They had pieces of paper with sentences on them stating what happened on each page.  They had to put these in order when listening to the story the second time. 
     Through these lessons that incorporated or focused on Halloween, students were not only learning about new vocabulary, they were learning about American culture.  Through these lessons, both of my CT's made sure to ask students if they had anything that they celebrated in their culture that was like Halloween, or if they believed in ghosts, if they were dressing up, etc.  These questions placed value on the students' beliefs and their home culture.  They also showed that the teacher personally cared to learn about the students' culture.  This is vital in teaching a language because of the incorporation of teaching about culture.  Learning a second language will not be effective unless students are comfortable with their teacher and in the classroom.  This environment can only occur by asking questions like these, having students present about their culture, simply doing things that validate students' value of their own culture. 

Teaching Vocab is not the Writing Teacher's Job

What really grabbed my attention in Keith Folse's article was the plagerism point in the very beginning.  He discussed a student who was "genuinely surprised" by the teacher's question of plagerism in his paper.  Folse found that the student had written a good paper, but he had used his research and not cited quotes, therefore plagerising.  Folse brings up a very important point about the student; "He couldn't express these ideas better than the original author had."  Folse furthers his explanation of what the problem was in this students' writing, how, "In a research writing assignment, the goal is not to copy the original author's information but to use the strategies of paraphrasing, summarizing, and synthesizing.  Each of these strategies is complex and, at least in part, culturally based."  I found two things that came about from this situation, one not already brought up in the text.  This point is how we need to educate students about what it means to plagerise, not only to ESL students, but particularly them because of the cultural differences.  When we bring in ideas of other individuals' work and use them in our own work, that needs to be cited correctly so that the first author receives credit for their work.  This is often a misunderstanding in students' writing, simply not citing correctly.  The problem becomes more complex when ESL students are writing a paper, specifically a research paper that requires use of other peoples' ideas, quotes, etc. 
The second point from this situation, the author already brings about.  "...paraphrasing requires extensive vocabulary."  For someone learning a second language, a broad range of vocabulary requires practice and comes about over time.  Therefore, the problem of plagerism is bound to occur several times when assigning a writing assignment that requires outside research.  This also is a reason for educating students on what plagerism exactly entails and how to prevent it.  For ESL students particularly, instruction on what is expected must be very explicit due to the cultural differences.  Because "Vocabulary most definitely plays a critical role in successful writing," extensive help in portraying a message in writing with word usage must also play a part. 
I think that, depending on the level of English proficiency, something as large of an assignment as a research paper should not be graded so harshly nor be such a large part of a students' grade.  I think that practicing writing is much more pertinent to a student learning another language and not only their speaking fluency but also their skills and comfort level in writing.