Solano- Flores, G. (2008). Who is given tests in what language by whom, when, and where? The need for probabilistic views of language in the testing o

I found this article to have a lot of new vocabulary amongst a couple of surprises...
First in the abstract were the words: testing of ELLs is a random process, and deterministic views.... that caught my attention. Then the phrases/statements that caught my attention were:
*erroneous assumptions about the capacity of assessment systems to serve ELL's
*affects of the dependability of academic achievement measures
The new vocabulary that I appreciated is: mapping sentence. A descriptors tool- an awesome tool provided. It looks like a rubric and I see that it is referred to as a guide. It looks very useful.
The six components (who, tests, language, by whom, when, and where) of the process of ELL testing were analyzed for their affects, which I found beneficial and helpful. I just ended up feeling so sold by this article.... I was wondering to my self, where was the author all these years? And will something be done now that this is out? Will the government take this information into consideration or action?
I want to remember that ELL's are from the WHO section: rarely tested comprehensively enough; neglected as a source of information .... because of basing evaluation on L2 development!, and inaccurately classified because of assessment of their linguistic proficiencies. From the TESTS section: Underrepresented in pilot tests and that accomodations may not be appropriate or beneficial at all.
From the LANGUAGE section, I was totally surprised, almost blown away to see that word dialect and the serious issues involved with it. The topic of translations and translator technicalities gave me something to think about. In the By WHOM section, I thought it was a very good question to ask, (and wondered why I didn’t think of that before) when the author asked, “What are the developers qualifications?”
I was thankful for the reminder of the bilingual and foreign language teachers’ job differences. The question about whether or not the author of the tests are familiar with the target population's communicative style? I appreciated that the author said, “the process of ELL testing suggests that the ability of assessment systems to communicate with ELLs needs to be examined.” I think that the word communicate in this sentence the key to test development.
In the WHEN section, the information about the instability of performance across testing occasions for ELLs, was a concern even ten years ago I remember.
In the WHERE section, linguistic simplification, was good information to think about as well as the information on test localization, both of which I assumed would not be factors. In the part where the author said, “Improved approaches to ELL testing should be based on research that examines the effect of context on the effectiveness of testing strategies for ELLs.” I realized that I think this is where I find myself stuck about assessing students on things that require real-life performance when we’ve only been practicing amongst ourselves.
The information under the heading: Probabilistic views of language on the process of ELL testing, was enlightening. The whole paragraph that begins, “In an ideal world.....,” I want in my thesis as a quote.
I see that there’s a new buzz word: fidelity. It was brought up at our in-service.
It was a relief to see and nice to finally know there's a way to deal with this issue when the author shared that effective research approaches can be devised through the G theory! Thank God- so why isn't it in use???
For the Conclusion section, it was very smart of the author to remind me of the fact that "Valid testing for ELLs cannot be achieved of we focus solely on the proficiency of the ELLs in English but fail to examine linguistic factors involved in the development, adaptation, administration, and scoring of tests."
All in all, I'm sold on the G theory even though I don't understand how it works, I see what it does.

Shohamy 10/7

Shohamy, E. & Inbar, O. The language assessment process: A “multiplism” perspective.
Tel Aviv University.

This article made me wish we had this class along side our research methods class the first summer… but that’s ok, better late than never… or not???. Anyways- I like this article for it’s fluent flow and especially that the authors provided some of the definitions, from their origins which I thought was nice (and smart because this almost felt like a review and almost boring). The authors also provided the definitions according to the original creators which was beneficial, they helped put the assessment/teaching/politics indefinate puzzle/picture together.
Obviously I got hung up on definitions and couldn’t wait to read up more on what the “tools” were…. It seemed like that was a mysterious word, and I so wanted to see what its definition would be in this article…. And I missed it…. For a little while… so I was hooked… on “tools” which seemed to be used interchangeably with instruments. Anyways…
After reading up to half way, I began to wish I created a flow chart, then began wondering if these authors did, then I felt like they should have and provided that instead along with their little text boxes.
The three questions suggested to consider before designing the instrument (tool?) was at first glance appearing easy enough to answer and thus was the case with the first question-easy to answer about what is the purpose(s) of the assessment procedure?- of course these were already thought of for us to be in our 6th- 7th year of standards based design… levels. The second question: How is the language knowledge to be assessed defined?- in which the term valid arrives in the explanation…. Then the 3rd question was: What instruments or assessment procedures will be chosen to elicit the required language knowledge? I like this question because I’ve wanted to ask something like this for a while
The section on the teaching approaches, language knowledge and testing methods was finally able to provide me with what they meant by tools, which was a relief to see, because we do require these in our district… just when I was beginning to wonder if our administrative people really knew what they were getting themselves into, because I’ve never heard them refer to theories or methods or anything “professional” like that at our inservices- so when I go to them and then read this stuff, I see parts of us in this whole SLATE program as far as the classes… just that I wonder who else knows this stuff in this district that we can begin to collaborate with using this information we’re gaining here to really have these authentic assessments that are genuine and effective enough for the state to accept for those needing alternative assessments so as not to be left behind/ out of the job market.
I have seemed to use the words assessment s and tests interchangeable but now, I am more aware of their specific differences, to where I feel confident I can use them appropriately and proficiently in context.
Oh- there’s more but this will do for now.

9/30 rdg responses-NCLB

McNamara Ch. 2 Communication and the design of language tests

I found myself skimming through the history section of testing when I realized that they seemed to coincide with the reading readiness and emergent literacy periods. It seems like they also coincide with the SLA theories of the time also (I think).
The author seemed to imply the politics of it all, which I naturally read deeper into and allowed myself to get frustrated. Still, I liked that McNamara said that the complexities of communication competence and performance measurements cause difficulties for standardization.
I took a great interest in the section, “Models of communicative ability”, particularly the strategic competence information.
The information provided on page 19 about strategic competence and the test designs and complexities were of great interest to me. I found myself agreeing with a lot of the statements he mentioned because I realized that I’ve wondered about some of those things before (which made me feel ok about having those thoughts, and glad that they were stated more clearly than I could have ever done.) For instance,
I’m aware of the factors, and am having a hard time thinking of authentic assessments to create, but I don’t feel that I’m reluctant like the author states the assessment field to be.
The author said it best, that it definitely is an “eclectic scene in language testing (p. 21- conclusion).” (I’m biased because eclectic is how my classroom syllabuses are.)


Abedi, J. (2004). The No Child Left Behind Act and English language learners:
Assessment and accountability issues. Educational Researcher, 33, 4-14.

This article presents very important information about the annual yearly progress (AYP) reporting issues. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) has four subgroups of children not to leave behind. These subgroups are based on a student’s financial standing, major racial & ethnic groups, disabled, or/and Limited English Proficiency status. The requirement to report the status of these four subgroups presents serious issues.
Of these four subgroups, the author focuses on the complicated and serious issues involving the LEP students. The author pointed out that many LEP students also fit in to one of the other subgroup categories. I suppose the not so many group would consist of stereotyped groups of people/students like say, for instance, the immigrants, like maybe Russians. Where they would fit in? What happens to them? Are they considered a part of the unstable group? I’m assuming that they’re not poor, disabled, but I guess they’re from a major racial & ethnic group. Anyways,…that was my little brainstorm. I now share the author’s identified four critical issues concerning the LEP students within states, counties, school districts, schools, classrooms, and they are:
1. Classification inconsistency
2. Sparse LEP population
3. lack of LEP subgroup stability
4. Measurement quality of AYP instruments for LEP students
On top of that, it should be remembered, as we were reminded by the author, that “state academic achievement tests have lower reliability and validity for LEP population that are constructed and normed for Native English speakers.” It doesn’t look like Alaska is taking that advice? Is it because a lot of the schools are funded by the state?
The information about the cut off points of compensatory aseessments that allow test scores to compensate for each other is of the past, and that that government now has the nation under the conjunctive model which is known as the NCLBA, which does not allow any one subject to be less than proficient for positive AYP results to occur, despite your subgroup category and it’s issues.

I needed more time to understand, but finally read their interpretations and it took a while for me to see the point of the tables because it was explaining accountability. I am glad for the high expectations, but I remember when this word first came flying around when we were abruptly told that our district was now a standards based model and teachers got so frusterated and turned the accountability word around and left it in the hands of the students with little guidance and direction, either in retaiation against change or maybe that was their interpretation of accountability, literally to mean that the students were now/ finally accountable for their own learning and took no responsibility for their learning after that for the rest of the year. My son got caught in this change over adaptation and it was not cool.

Finally, the information on the LEP baseline scores section about not meeting AYP for four (again) years in a row are considered a school in “crisis” which is supposed to get overhauled as they say, hasn’t happened yet to a school I know and this is their fifth year in crisis. This real life situation is not just a scenario, it’s about student’s lives that are going to affected by this NCLBA’s AYP expectations. It goes to prove that invalid assessments and unreliable reporting can determine if a student gets a diploma or not to be able to make a decent living.