Assessing Language Proficiency and Language Dominance
I wanted to share part of a chapter that I've written for a book in the area of bilingual special education. Have a great October! HK
Communicative competence is multifaceted and a phenomenon that involvesintuitions and knowledge about the structure of the language, but also theability to select appropriately, from among an enormously large set ofoptions, the linguistic form that will most effectively enable the speakerto realize his/her momentarily changing goals. Knowing a language and howto use a language involves a mastery and control of a large number ofinterdependent components and elements that interact with one another andthat are affected by the situation in which the communication takes place(Valdes & Figueroa, 1994). The child over time develops a beginningknowledge of the system that s/he has been exposed to for several years andthen must reconcile the demands on his/her system as a new language systemis added. The schools attempt to understand how far a child has developedinto these two systems by testing him/her with instruments developed tomeasure language dominance or language proficiency. These two terms will bediscussed briefly before discussing several instruments commonly used toassess the use of the child's two languages.
Foreign and second language testing has passed through three stages ofdevelopment (Valdes & Figueroa, 1994). The prescientific stage viewed testsas primarily translation, composition, and sentence completion tasks. Oralskills were not taught and were not tested. The psychometric-structuralismstage meant individuals could recite the language with good pronunciationand could respond to grammar drills. The learners were not expected to speakthe language. The psycholinguistic-sociolinguistic stage focused onfunctional competence and the ability to communicate with real speakers inthe foreign language. Theories about language testing have mirroredtheories about language teaching and learning.
The purpose of language testing has been to determine either languagedominance or language proficiency in the two languages. Dominance in theliterature has not been precisely defined other than stronger and dominanceare synonymous (Valdes & Figueroa, 1994). Determining dominance is necessaryin many states so children may receive instruction in the language that willmost benefit instruction and the child. Dominance is obtained by measuringthe individual's performance across a narrow variety of tasks in each of thetwo languages and then comparing the two languages. A second approach is tocompare the individual's performance on a set of tasks in each language withthe performance of monolingual speakers of each language. It is assumedthat dominance is stable and does not shift according to language area(e.g., phonology, syntax, semantics, etc.) contexts (e.g., home versusschool) and domains of activity (e.g., language arts versus music). Thesetests are measures for administrative purposes, they allow schools toclassify children and place them into bilingual classrooms or specialprograms such as English as a Second Language.
Language proficiency measurement is not as concerned as to which languageis stronger or dominant, but rather its goal is to provide a description ofthe language development of the child in listening, speaking, reading, andwriting. The purpose is to document students' progress over time anddetermine whether learning standards are being attained through supportservices or language programs (Gottieb, 1999). Obtaining these measures willinvolve assessments in different areas with different measures, formal andinformal. Hopefully, the measures will assist in modification ofinstructional programs and meeting the changing needs of students.There are a number of tests available through publishers and there are alsoinstruments that have been developed by school districts for their ownspecific populations. Three measures that have been used widely by schooldistricts will be discussed. Their purpose and a brief description will beprovided. A discussion of proposed informal measures for languageproficiency will follow.
Language Assessment Scales (LAS-O)
Purpose. The purpose of the LAS-O (Oral) is to measure English and Spanishoral language skills necessary for functioning in a mainstream academicenvironment. It provides an assessment of listening, speaking, reading, andwriting and can be a screening device to assist placement andreclassification information for language-minority students.
Authors and Publisher. Edward. A. DeAvila and Sharon E. Duncan. Publishedin 1987-1991 by CTB Macmillan/McGraw-Hill.Description. There are two levels of the test, one for grades 1 to 6 andthe second for grades 7 to 12. There are two test forms (pre-post) for theEnglish test but only one form for the Spanish version. The Short Formmeasures vocabulary and discourse comprehension and production with measureof aural discrimination and pronunciation added in the Long Form. Thevocabulary section is administered by live voice while the rest of the testis administered by audiotape. The five subtests for both Levels I & IIinclude vocabulary, listening comprehension, story retelling, minimal soundpairs, and phonemes. It provides a range of proficiency from most limitedto proficient. There is an additional observation form to be completed bysomeone other than the examiner for use with students whose LAS-O Totalscores fall between proficient and nonproficient English speaker. This isadded to reduce student placement errors. Administration is approximately20 to 30 minutes for the English form.
Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM)
Purpose. The authors developed an instrument for two purposes, 1) toassess the English and Spanish oral proficiency of school age children, and2) determine English-Spanish language dominance in a brief and efficientmanner. It was designed to measure second-language oral proficiency withrespect to syntactic structures in English and Spanish. The authors chosesyntax as the measure of proficiency because it is more stable acrossdialects than vocabulary, pronunciation, or pragmatics.
Authors and Publisher. Marina K. Burt, Heidi C. Dulay, and EduardoHernandez Ch. Published in 1975-1980 by Psychological Corporation.Description. The test is a sequence of tests, BSM I for primary grade(K-2) children and II (3-12) for older children, that is administeredindividually. It is made up of a series of 7 colorful cartoon like picturesused to elicit a conversation with the child. The administrator asksquestions concerning the pictures to elicit responses. The child's responsecontent is not graded only the grammaticality of the responses. Thechildren are allowed to respond naturally to the questions withoutnecessitating complete sentences as the response. Scoring items doesrequire good language abilities and knowledge of grammar for both Englishand Spanish by the test administrator. Scoring for each test consists ofassigning the child to one of six proficiency levels ranging from nospeaking or comprehension of the language to proficient. Administration timefor both tests should be about 20 to 30 minutes.
Woodcock-Munoz Language Proficiency Scales
Purpose. The series of tests, English and Spanish, were designed to measurecognitive-academic language proficiency (CALP). The results of the testingcan be used for the following: 1) classify a subject's English or Spanishlanguage proficiency; 2) determine eligibility for bilingual services; 3)help teachers understand a subject's language abilities; 4) assess asubject's progress or readiness for English-only instruction; 5) provideinformation about program effectiveness; and 6) describe the languagecharacteristics of subjects in research studies.
Authors and Publisher: Richard W. Woodcock and Ana F. Munoz-Sandoval.Riverside Publishing Co.Description. The test has two manuals for two tests, one in English andone in Spanish. The Survey consists of four subtests: Picture Vocabulary,Verbal analogies, Letter-Word Identification, and dictation. In the PictureVocabulary subtest, the examinee must name the objects that the examinerrequests. Verbal analogies requires the examinee to say a word that wouldcomplete a logical relationship of a concept such as "a bird flies, afish ?". In the Letter-Word Identification test, the examinee is required toread words that are presented. In the dictation test, the examinee respondsto measures of handwriting readiness, spelling, punctuation, capitalization,and word usage by writing out the answer. The first two subtest measure orallanguage ability, and the second two subtests measure reading-writingability. A combination of the four tests measures broad English/Spanishability from Advanced to Negligible English or Spanish. It is administeredindividually and takes approximately 15-20 minutes to complete the fourtests for each language.
The authors' definition of language and how it is measured are differentfor each test. The three measures described above have different tasksconcerning the measurement of language in students who are learning English.While the BSM purports to assess language dominance on the basis of syntax,the LAS-O assesses language proficiency on the basis of vocabulary, auditorydiscrimination of speech sounds, pronunciation, and story telling. TheWoodcock Munoz assesses academic language through oral abilities andwriting-reading skills on the basis of 2 subtests only. Each of these testshas flaws. The reliability and validity for the tests range from good topoor or are not discussed by the authors with rigor in the manuals. TheWoodcock-Munoz does have an advantage over the other two tests in that ithas greater normative data in English and Spanish for young children toadults.
The language theoretical framework of a test will determine how childrenwill perform on a test. The language framework that is most likely toprovide a holistic view of the child and their communicative competence isone that will look at the child's abilities to communicate in oral andliterate forms in a variety of contexts and at intervals as the childprogresses through a program. Informal methods have been promoted becausechildren do learn English at different rates and in different modalitiesdepending upon the child's experiences, abilities, and educational needs.
Informal Methods of Assessing Language Proficiency
There are a number of informal methods for assessing language proficiency.Three will be briefly discussed. Each has advantages and disadvantages.While one may require time in transcriptions of a language sample anothermay only take a few minutes for charting on a rubric.
The most informal method of assessing language proficiency is elicitingseveral language samples from a student during the course of a semester andcomparing the samples for progress in language development over time. Thetranscription is time consuming. What is measured or how the language sampleis analyzed would depend upon the teacher or clinician. A simple formatwould be to count the number of complete utterances that are grammaticallycorrect. A percentage of correct utterances in a sample would then give theprofessional a general idea of how a student is producing utterances. Thishas the disadvantage or lack in validity if the child has 50 utterances withsimple and similar structures such as "This is a dog." There is no measureof complexity and content variability. Thus, the professional would have tobe competent in eliciting a representative sample from the student thatwould accurately reflect the child's progress in English. Other possiblevariables that could affect the language sample are topics and materialschosen, whether they are familiar or unfamiliar to the child, and possiblythe child herself, whether she is cooperative in the testing situation.What is measured is limited to oral language ability.
The portfolio/authentic assessment is a collection of student work samplesthat reflects the student's achievements, growth, and efforts in one or moreselected areas (e.g., reading, writing, listening, speaking). It measures achild's performance on meaningful tasks that are relevant to classroomlearning and real-world activities. Children and teachers establishevaluation parameters for the portfolios. An advantage of the portfolio isthat, instead of emphasizing what the child cannot do, it provides anopportunity for the child to show what he or she can do (M. Gottlieb,Personal Communication, February 6, 1998). This method is time consumingbut does produce valuable information about a child's progress in a numberof areas related to academic and communicative competency.
Another method of assessment involves the development of a rubric. A rubricor standard could assist teachers in determining what should be expected asthe student develops proficiency in English. Rubrics or guidelines of thestages of development in comprehension, expression, reading and writing havebeen developed for second language learners (Chapman, 1997; Jacobs, Zingraf,Wormuth, Hartfiel, Hughey, 1981; Lowe, 1987; & O'Malley & Pierce, 1996).The Illinois State Board of Education published The Language Proficiency Handbook: A Practitioner's guide to instructional assessment (1999) toassist teachers to assess and students to self-evaluate their progress inthe four modalities of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Rubricsprovide the specific guidelines or stages of development that a student willprogress. The teacher is then able to assess the students' progressspecifically to a modality. An example for speaking, Preproduction I: saysisolated words or phrases, repeats short phrases, and relies exclusively onfirst language for communication. Developed Speaker V: Speaks in academicand social settings commensurate with first language peers. Speaks fluentlyusing both formal and informal language, expresses abstract concepts incompleting academic tasks. Teachers and clinicians would need training sothat observations and samples would be reliably recorded. But this form of assessment has promise.
Informal methods of assessing language proficiency are alternatives orcould be an additional source of information to standardized testingprocedures. These methods are time consuming but the information gained willbe worthwhile if the purpose is to improve instruction for English languagelearners or to chart children's progress.
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