Assessment

Brown says testing is a “method of measuring a person’s ability or knowledge in a given domain.” He also clarifies assessment as an “ongoing process that encompasses a much wider domain.” I found his explanations helpful. He was able to make clear distinctions between the two, which are commonly used interchangeably.  Teachers are constantly assessing and testing for knowledge. At times it is overwhelming how much “testing” is imposed upon students. However, I can appreciate an assessment that is used to drive and inform instruction. Brown discusses practicality of tests. I found that section interesting. It reminded me of the ACCESS test we give students once a year to measure their progress in their English language development. I find that the test, which takes an entire week, is extremely long but yields extremely important and informative data. It gives me information to help in determining proficiency levels in specific domains and it helps me in planning for instruction. According to Brown, the time it takes to complete is impractical (which I agree). I do believe it is reliable, and valid. My only problem is that there is a social studies portion where students must identify symbol of the U.S. and for that portion I believe it is a bit unreliable. Are they measuring listening comprehension or knowledge of culture? They know this test is being taken by CLD students who are probably from different cultures. I would expect questions to be of subject matter that all would already be familiar with. As far as classroom assessments I tend to make my own. I ensure reliability I tend to use rubrics. I also use digital portfolios, conference notes, self assessments, traditional tests, observations, and many informal observations. I think what is most important though is that your assessment informs your instruction. If you give assessments and tests for the sake of testing it is a waste of everyone’s time, especially if it is not a valid, reliable, or authentic assessment.

Curriculum, lessons, & materials

This weeks reading really got into the in-depth thought processes that go into what you do in a classroom. I felt that Brown did not speak enough about assessment. I think that is a very important aspect of curriculum design that helps to inform your future instruction. It deems more of a focus especially with CLD students. You have to be careful if your assessment will measure their mastery of the content or their language. I felt the lesson plan example was good for a basic universal lesson plan. Something I always have to seriously consider is the range of proficiency levels in my classroom and how to reach each one. It requires some serious thought for instruction and assessment. And being a teacher in a bilingual program, we have to create our own materials all of the time because if you don’t take a critical look at what the district provides you may miss that it is not appropriate. Many of us have found after evaluating our textbooks that there is a lack of diversity, it is not authentic; language is a direct translation and may not make sense. So, I have spent a lot of time making my own material. However, the great thing is I put my stuff out there for others and many others have created materials and are willing to share. I have gotten some great ideas by collaborating with others on blogs and websites.

Research Progress Report

My original question I wanted to answer through research was...Do skills from L1 transfer to L2? Which do? Which do not? What about interference? After consulting with Dr. Seloni I took her feedback and changed my question to... How do teachers teach literature skills in L1 and L2 in content based classrooms? I will look into teacher training, 3-4 main issues or key arguments, and debunking some myths. Being completle honest, I have not acheived much yet. However I have found some relevant articles/references. One is as article from Language Learning and Technology entitled Computer Assisted Second Language Vocabulary Acquistion by Peter J.M. Groot. I specifically refers to what transfers to a certain degree in it's beginning. Another article is the Transfer of Comprehension Skills from native to Second Language by James M Royer and Maria S Carlo. It is taken from the IRA's Journal of Reading from March 1991 volume 36 no.6. It speaks directly towards what I am interested in looking at. And lastly I found Reading-Writing Relationships in first and second language by Joan Eistherhold Carlson and Patricia Carrell in TESOL Quarterly V.24 Issue 2 p. 246-266 from the SUmmer 1990. It seems a little off topic but may be helpful. I wonder if I can find anyone who is a member of the IRA and has access to the professional articles because they have many great ones but I would need to pay to access them and the ERIC database seems to be experiencing difficulty.

Social Responsibility and Releveance

This chapter began with one of my favorite quotes by Gandhi, "You must be the change you want to see in the world." This is so trueand as a teacher you have the opportunity to be an agent for change and to pass on these crucial words of wisdom to live by. There are many reasons people go into teaching and this was mine. Everyday I strive to be the change I want to see in the world and hopefully be a good role model of this for the students I have every year. I hope they in turn apply this and can make a positive impact in the world. To do this though, you have to have the ability to think critically and question the status quo when appropriate, so you can be that change. In terms of education and educational reform, I always ask myself, "Whose interests are being served?" And when I think of the Common Core State Standards, I know it is the private sectors interest being served under the mirage of a few good reasons. Teachers as a whole have not risen and questioned who came up with these and what philosophies of education do they fall in line with. No, the majority of teachers have merely taken them and started blindly implementing them. This ties in very nicely to Chapter 11 of Kumar, "The insistence of English only in the classroom 'rests on unexamined assumptions, it originates in the political agenda of dominant groups, and serves to reinforce existing relations of power." (p.254) Our classroom mirrors society and we must prepare students to be critical thinkners and to realize the impact they can make. I will end my reflection with another excerpt I loved from Brown, "You are not merely alanguage teacher. YOu are much more than that. You're an agent for change in a world in desperate need of change." (p.520) My question is how can we as teachers be agents for change in educational reform or policies within the districts in which we work? For example, in a district wide meeting Friday, they discussed implementing standardized quarterly testing, which does not account for our CLD students and matching the differentiated instruction they recieve to the assessment. I voiced my opinion in a room full of monolingual first grade teachers. I was met with silence and confusion as to why I was opposed to this and didn't just go with the flow. What are the right avenues to take when we want to make a change in our schools?

Integrating Language Skills

“It’s like dividing water; it flows back together again.” p.225 Language skills, such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing all go together hand in hand. We know from Krashen’s stages of second language acquisition that the first skill to develop usually is listening, followed then by speaking, reading, and writing. However, they are all interwoven and interconnected. I had parent conferences last week and this was a fact I was relaying to parents. As their children progress in their reading we will probably see their writing improve as well. I explained it worked both ways. We also discussed their child’s abilities at the moment for speaking and listening in English and how these are also connected. As their listening improves, so will their speaking. I know there are still many institutes and schools that offer classes whose focus is on an isolated language skill, such as reading or listening. I understand their purpose but I don’t think it’s possible to isolate a language skill. They must be integrated. If you are working on listening skills, how would you assess comprehension without speaking or writing? Is it possible to isolate language skills? And if you do, is that going to be best for the student or is it all context dependant?

Teaching Writing

“It is simply not possible to get a whole class of student writers from Point A (wherever they start out) to Point B (perfect, error-free papers) by the end of one writing course. It may not even be possible to get one student writer all the way to that elusive Pont B. This insight has led me to teach and think and write extensively on realistic and effective ways to “treat” error in student writing.” (Ferris p.91) When I read this statement, I felt relieved. To be honest, I often become very frustrated with teaching writing, native language or not. I use to expect, like Dana Ferris, for students to reach Point B and if they didn’t then I felt I did not do my job well enough. I took it as a reflection of my teaching. Over the past few years I have stepped back and had to change my thinking when it comes to writing. I realized I was product centered. After realizing that and seeing it in myself, I know that is not the teacher I want to be. I have tried to be more process centered and help the students focus on limited aspects of their writing at a time (really master them) and to learn from their mistakes within the focus at that time. “So what are teachers to do to help their student’s bridge that gap between what is possible, and what is expected of them?” (Ferris p.95) I really liked suggested principles and practices. I feel I have been more in line with those recently. From Brown, I also liked their principles for teaching writing skills. I thought it was great that they mentioned connecting reading and writing. I have noticed that when I help them make the connection, they learn to think about how to approach writing in a better way. However, I feel they missed stressing the importance of a teacher’s frame of mind when teaching writing. How you feel about it, what you say, your expressions, your expectations, your critiques/questions/criticisms all affect how your students will perform and feel about writing.

Week 8 Reflection

The program in which I teach is a developmental bilingual program. We have a framework for language development which we follow very strictly to ensure that students are receiving the foundation of their L1 and progressing into their L2 at an appropriate pace. This framework breaks down the percentages by grade level of how much instructional time is spent in English and how much is spent in Spanish. Being that I teach first grade, it is 80% in Spanish and 20% in English. I teach their literacy all in Spanish. However, most of their Science and Social Studies (and some Math) is in English. So, naturally those lessons are focused around the content but with integrated language skills, which happen to be speaking and listening because according to our framework I do not develop their literacy in L2 at this level. I found Brown’s text related to teaching listening and speaking interesting for this reason. It is the focus of English language development in my classroom. His explanation of what makes listening and speaking difficult was especially helpful for me. It gives me a deeper understanding of why they may be struggling at times and what I can possibly do to alleviate this. For example, the redundancy issue. The situation he laid out where the two were speaking very clearly illustrated how many of us speak and it can make listening even more difficult is English is not your native language and you are trying to focus on getting the indented meaning of that conversation. One aspect of the reading I felt strongly about was promoting negotiated meaning by handing over a bit of control over the management of learning to the students. I try to do this with my students in terms of asking them what they want to learn about or if they were extremely engaged in a particular lesson I’ll ask them how can we extend this. I know this allows them to take ownership over their learning and they are more likely to be self-motivated in learning in these situations. If the interest is there they will try their hardest to understand, or at least that’s what I see in my classroom.