Rationale For Performance Based Assessment - Essay Example

Rationale for Performance Based Assessment ELL (English Language learner) population has witnessed a steep rise off late. The ELL population has been found to grow faster than the overall student population. As per the National Centre for Educational Statistics, the general student section has seen a growth of 9% from the year 200 to 2010. The ELL section, on the other hand has seen a rise of a whopping 65%. Also, Noam Chomsky’s nativist perspective suggests that the humans are biologically programmed to gain knowledge. Noam talks about a language acquisition device in every individual which contains grammatical rules common to all languages. These statistics and views enforce my belief in the fact that it is possible to impart English language knowledge efficiently. I see a great value in learning of English. English is one of the most used languages across the world. A person who knows English has greater communication possibilities as compared to the ones who do not know this language. Knowing English also increases your probability of getting a job in a multinational company. If somebody plans to open up his business, knowing English will help him diversify his business across different countries. Internet has a plethora of information available for people to benefit from. Most of this information is in English. If a person is well versed with this language, he has this huge mass of information at his disposal. The ELL students face greater challenges than the ones who are already well verse with the language. Such students have to learn English language along with learning the regular subjects. A report by NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress suggests that the ELL student population has been found to have lower math scores as compared to the other population. The other challenges include segregation of such students by others. The non-ELL student population considers these students to be not good in studies and hence don’t make friends with them easily. At a lot of places, even the teachers perceive these students to be less able than the rest of the class and give them lesser scores. I believe that the role a teacher plays can shape the students’ lives. Hence, a teacher’s role is of foremost importance. To advance teaching skills, teachers must continually keep track of the recent researches and pedagogies and should use them in helping the English language learners improve on their English skills. It is also very important that the assessments taken by ELLS are fair by all means. A fair assessment is a necessary step in the progress of ELLs. I am responsible for teaching basic level English listening / speaking skills to my students who mainly speak Arab. A proper performance based assessment should be preceded by a proper imparting of learning to the ELLs. Hence, firstly, I would be highlighting the appropriate strategies that are used across the world for teaching the English language learner population. The advancement in technology has proved to be a great help in imparting learning to the ELL population since it has led to an increase in the modes of teaching. Some effective strategies to impart effective learning to the ELL students are described below (Richard J. Stiggins, 2004): Use of non-lingual representation The students should be helped in recognizing the varied patterns Different activities should be organized wherein the English language learners are given a chance to express compound ideas. Another approach is to relate the learning to the students’ culture in some way. Arab music and pictures can be used as digital media for imparting learning to students. Learning of the first language should not be discouraged in any way for the ELL population. This means that in order to make them learn English language, they should not be prevented from effectively learning the Arab language. Research suggests that when the students are supported in learning their first language, their literacy development in the second language increases (Catherine Snow, 2007). ELL population should be given ample opportunities to practice English reading and writing. Digital technology should be used to impart teaching. It is important to understand that the students should first be encouraged to learn their native language well, and should then be encouraged to transfer those skills towards learning of English (Patricia A. Richard-Amato, 2005). Students should also be encouraged to get involved in writing more and more in English in order to communicate their ideas. A lot of teachers start by working on the students’ weak spots. This approach, at times, leads to a decrease in learners’ confidence at times since he gets more and more conscious of the areas he is weak at (Victor M. Hernández-Gantes, 2008). Any learning should first work towards strengthening confidence, and should then work on improving effectiveness. This means that the teachers should first start from the learners; strengths. The teacher should build up on what the student is already aware of. The teacher should derive a connection between the course module and the students’ past experiences or his background. This will help the learner relate more to what he is being taught. Effective learning is not possible unless the learner realizes the value he would derive out of it. The ELL population should be made acquainted with the vast arena of opportunities that will open up to them post English learning. Students should be made to see the benefits they will get if they are adept at speaking in multiple languages (Gibbons, 2009). Connecting with the Arabic culture and the students’ families is another approach. Piaget e Vygotsky (L. S. Vygotsky, 2008) talks about need for increased focus on the learner and his social interactions. Cooperative learning process is a great way to effective learning. The students should be formed into groups and should be given a task to do together. The students should be instructed to come to the instructor only if none of the group members can help them out. This increases the bonding among the students and increases their level of involvement as well. Different activities could be organized, wherein the students can talk about their shared learning experiences. The other activity could be story-telling (Patricia Smiley, California). One student can start a story, and the other group members can keep adding to it and reach a conclusion. Such activitities aim at increasing the English speaking skills and make the students more comfortable with the language. Students are given a set of words. There are a set of nonverbal clues also available for them to use. The students should be helped to associate the words with the actual meanings by using these clues. The clues could use digital multimedia as a support. I would now be describing how the performance based assessments for ELLs should function. O'Malley and Valdez Pierce (Lorraine Valdez Pierce, 2007) suggest that performance-based assessment "consists of any form of assessment in which the student constructs a response orally or in writing."  There are certain factors which influence the assessment of ELLs. They are listed as follows (Solano-flores, 2010): Different sets of ELLs have defect levels of proficiency in English reading and writing skills. Different proficiency levels in the native language. Difference in the levels of format schooling in English Difference in the levels of exposure to standardized testing To start with, the performance based assessment should have a clear purpose, so that the assessment scores represent useful information (Gunderson, 2008). It is also important to define what specific skill would be assesses by the assessment. An assessment should be such that the ELLs have a lot of ways to demonstrate their skills. Oral responses, performance activities, or visual aids can be used to implement his. Varied forms of media can be involved in the assessments. However, different media types should be populated by taking care of the visually impaired or color blind. Item tryouts is another possible approach. The performance assessing questions for assessing students’ performance should be modified in a way such that there are no difficult words or jargons in them. It has been found that doing this leads to an increase in the ELL performance by up to 20% (Jamal Abedi, 2005). The performance of ELLs should be assessed by means of criterion – referenced assessments, in which the students performance is termed as satisfactory if they meet the criterion specified by the assessor. Specific rubrics or rating scales should be used for the ELL performance assessment. For instance, a specific rating scale could focus on the text sentence structure. Since rubrics are descriptive rating scale, each point in this scale is associated with a description (Guofang Li, 2010). This means that a ‘meets expectations’ could be equivalent to one or two errors in the sentence formation. A ‘poor’ could associate with many errors, and so on. There can be a separate rubric on the content organization. This could assess whether the content written has a logical flow to it, and that whether that content has been organized in an acceptable way. There should be a rubric for every ELL. This should have the base level as the one when the student joins the class. Such a rubric is helpful in tracking and displaying the students’ progress. This kind of a rubric brings consistency in the overall consistency in the students’ performance assessment. A performance assessment should be such that the test results do not discourage the students if they score less (Sousa, 2010). The assessments developed should be taking the varied cultural perspective into account. This can be done by involving the students’ families and the communities they come from in forming the goals and standards of teaching and assessing. Performance based assessments should use a constructive response format in order to increase the learning. Authentic assessments make the students feel more involved by assessing the knowledge of students in real world scenarios (Gottlieb, 2008). An assessment should be designed in such a way that it is able to give useful feedback to the students. Skits, role plays, elocutions, declamations, recitations and debates are another useful ways of assessing since the student is performing under the direct observation of the teacher. During assessment, a teacher should state his expectations from the ELLs very clearly (Kopriva, 2008). The teacher should also display a sample of what excellent work means to him/her. It has been found that this helps the ELLs perform better. Most of the teachers still use the traditional methods of testing like question answers, multiple choice, sentence completion exercises, etc. These methods have been used for several decades now and have not proved to be very useful. It is therefore important for the teacher to research on the performance based assessments techniques. Works Cited Catherine Snow, P. G. (2007). Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading: Preparing Teachers for a Changing World. California: John Wiley and Sons. Gibbons, P. (2009). English Learners, Academic Literacy, and Thinking: Learning in the Challenge Zone. Heinemann. Gottlieb, M. H. (2008). Assessing English language learners: bridges from language proficiency to academic achievement. New Delhi: Corwin Press. Gunderson, L. (2008). ESL (ELL) literacy instruction: a guidebook to theory and practice. NewYork: Taylor & Francis. Guofang Li, P. A. (2010). Best Practices in ELL Instruction : Solving Problems in the Teaching of Literacy. Washington DC: Guilford Press. Jamal Abedi, R. D. (2005). Challenges in the No Child Left Behind Act for English-Language Learners.: An article from: Phi Delta Kappan. Mumbai: Phi Delta Kappa, Inc. Kopriva, R. J. (2008). Improving testing for English language learners. New York: Routledge. L. S. Vygotsky, E. H. (2008). Thought and Language. Masacheuchetts: M.I.T Press. Lorraine Valdez Pierce, J. M. (2007). Performance and portfolio assessment for language minority students. 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How the ELL Brain Learns. New Delhi: Corwin Press. Victor M. Hernández-Gantes, W. B. (2008). Teaching English language learners in career and technical education programs. Mumbai: Taylor & Francis. Read More