MS ELL and Accommodations

MS ELL

Imagine walking into school on a random Monday in November to a new school...new classmates, new teachers - yes multiple because it’s middle school, and a new language…
Imagine walking into class on a Monday in November where you have an ebb and flow with your students in each of your 6 classes a day, they know the strategies to solve equations or the steps to solving your science experiments, and now you have a new student that doesn’t speak any English in a class full of native English users...what do you do?!
The meme above is a reference to the idea of how something can be so confusing to any one of us, but especially to a student speaking no English to each and everything happening in the classroom.
What can we do as educators to help these students at varying levels of English acquisition to ensure they are first learning the content, but being evaluated on the content and not their language skills.  
The reading brings about suggestions for helping to ensure we, as educators, are accommodating their learning and testing.  “Accommodations are not meant to give an edge over native speaking students, but rather to help eliminate the linguistic burden placed on non-native speakers of English” (Pappamihiel & Mihai, 2006).  
The questions presented are:
 1. Do I know my students’ English language
proficiencies?
2. Have I designed a test that mirrors classroom
objectives, strategies, and activities?
3. Have I made use of all relevant and available
visuals and graphics?
4. Have I Incorporated true accommodations to level
the playing field for my ELLs?
5. Have I created a clear scoring rubric that will
allow me to provide culturally sensitive and useful
feedback?
Accommodations are daily ways to help create equity in learning and evaluating students.  Accommodations can be provided to any student and many of the questions posed by our authors can be helpful for all students.
This reminds me of the many discussions I’ve had with people in regards to language accessibility in a classroom...if a student can’t access it are they are really in a position to learn it and are they being evaluated on what they did have access to based on competency of their non-native language or what we think they should have known if we were speaking their language.  How many teachers, and think reflectively, are willing to provide all of the accommodations needed for all students with a deficit due to lack of exposure (not just language or language or disability)?
How do you incorporate all languages and all abilities into your daily classroom? 

Do you have the ability to provide evaluations with alterations or is this frowned upon in your district/school because all children are expected to meet the same expectations?


Comments

  1. sandycNovember 18, 2019 at 9:47 AM

    When I taught high school social studies regularly my school and district did not hassle me much about evaluations and assessments. It was different for the English and math teachers. After about 13 years or so in my teaching, however, the district started requiring benchmarks for all subjects. Most students throughout the school did average on these except for the one or two classes out of five that I had that would do better than the whole school. The classes that did better had high functioning bilingual students as well as regular students. To keep interest going in the subject, including my own, I always had a wide variety of activities to evaluate the students, hoping that they could use something from the activities that would transfer to a test. Students of all backgrounds would offer suggestions, sometimes they could be implemented, sometimes not. My final grades for them were not based on a test. If someone's grade was hanging in the balance, they could do well on a test, or some other major assignment to improve their situation. Ultimately, they could use multiple mediums to show that they had met a required standard of proficiency and if someone challenged me, which they never did, I could show the student's product, whether test or not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousNovember 18, 2019 at 2:46 PM

      I love that you used both tests and projects in your class and provided opportunities for learning and alternatives to typical assessments. I feel like the impacts of NCLB will forever be felt no matter the situation - standardized testing or state standards.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousNovember 19, 2019 at 9:34 AM

      Sandra,

      I really like how you have brought a major issue to light. Subject areas that aren't tested aren't focused on in many realms of education. I have especially noticed this in professional developments. Many professional developments are geared towards math, reading, and writing, in an effort to improve "test scores." It has sucked the fun out of every other subject area as well. I always wonder how our special area teachers feel at such professional developments. Students still need to learn about social studies, science, history, etc. and not just have it integrated into a subject matter that is tested.

      Delete
    3. AnonymousDecember 18, 2019 at 1:26 PM

      One of my most like things in the American schools is grading policy. As you said your final grades for them were not based on a test, I suddenly remember that in schools in China, all schools use scores to determine students' academic achievements.
      We do encourage teacher to use different aspect to evaluate students. But the most important thing to a student in the secondary school is score. This situation was formed by the high-stakes testing culture. As you can imagine that subjects do not require to take test in the final admission are "valueless". On the contrary, subjects that have a huge percentage(Chinese, English, Math) usually took a lot of school times.
      I can say this culture is not wrong. But I think every educational culture and system was built on their social needs and situations.

      Delete
  2. sandycNovember 18, 2019 at 5:07 PM

    Yes, it's difficult to teach alternative assessments when standardized test and state standards become more demanding and teaching on two parallel tracks, one with alternative assessments, and the other geared toward testing can be risky, especially if someone is looking over your shoulder. It would be great if the alternative assessments easily transferred into better test results. I guess in the end that's the 'fly in the ointment.'
    Yet, someday maybe those who figure themselves in charge of things will realize that tests are a very limited method of measuring important knowledge and skills. On the other hand, probably, they'll keep using them for expediency because they don't want to really put much effort or even money in educating students in general.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousNovember 19, 2019 at 9:27 AM

    Kristyn,

    Love you post! To answer the last question, in my district, I would say that all students are held accountable to meet the expectations put forth. However, as teachers we are encouraged to accommodate content and assessments (school-wide) to meet the needs of all our students. We are expected to provide accommodations and modifications for our expectational learners (ELLS, SPED students, etc.), but we are also encouraged to provide accommodations for students who do not have an educational "label" as well. We are entrusted as professionals to make decisions that are best for all of our students. I have always felt very supported in that aspect within my district. I am sure that there are schools and districts that aren't allowed such flexibility.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousNovember 19, 2019 at 9:27 AM

      Love your* post!

      Delete
    2. AnonymousDecember 5, 2019 at 8:05 AM

      In most of my classrooms, there doesn't seem to be much support for all languages. However, if there are students who have language barriers, then we will provide the necessary accommodations or support for them.

      Delete
  4. AnonymousDecember 18, 2019 at 1:13 PM

    From my experience, I think I basically know my students' language proficiency by testing. Most of those testing are in-class quiz and writing homework. From my understanding the proficiency of a language can be showed on quantity of vocabulary, grammar, and reading ability. I think language testing in the USA and China can not be very different. I taught 3rd grade kids. For testing their ability of Chinese, we usually made three parts of test. First is writing different Chinese characters and make them in a sentence. Second is reading and answering questions about this reading. Then last part is writing, based on a topic or a graph or just what did they feel about the reading they just read.
    I feel that it is not hard to identify kids' language proficiency with a same standard. But the core question is how should this standard be and how can we decide levels according to this standard.

    ReplyDelete

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