Sunday+Sessions

=Sunday Session Notes:=

9:00 Tricks of the Trade Exhibitor Workshop-Mandarin Chinese
= = =10:00 NOELLA National Online Early Language Learning Assessment= Carl Falsgraf-Director (really like this guy…honest, smart, practical, can discuss assessment in “layman’s terms”) Center for Applied Second Language Studies University Oregon email: falsgraf@uoregon.edu website: http://casls.uoregon.edu Presentation on casls.uoregon.edu and actfl site Available spring 2010

Session Notes: Designed for students specifically in grades 3-6—practice questions on site

STAMP (not recommended for below seventh grade) Purpose: to provide summative information on student performance to help guide instruction Consortium: Practicing elementary teachers and STAMP developers, Wyoming, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, South Carolina and Virginia (CAL-center of applied linguistics who was developing a fourth grade Spanish test and CASLS center for applied second language studies)

What is Noella? • Can assess all four skills: reading, writing, speaking, listening (however, it can be tailored) • Delivered completely online • Characters for each language • English guide Mandy • Languages: Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, French • No English instructions in the test...In target language but kept the instructions very simple and repetitive • Novice test: question at the top with a graphic of several pictures with possible answer—double click (more holistic context)

How was it made? A lot of care and thought... • Each test has 24 items (in pilot) • Form A, B, C (a=novice, b=high novice/intermediate, c=high intermediate/advanced) however they use a combination of items • Items stones analogy (40 question bank-rank from easiest to hardest) • If students master the most difficult items—given more credit versus easier ones—less credit • High, Medium, Easy • Little like the MAPS according to skill ranges • Railroad tracks—items in their challenge-not too hard or too easy • 100% on a test doesn’t really tell you anything • “Floor First” had more “bad decisions” than starting in the middle • 30 questions in final • Exposure rate in stage 1 (need to create more variation) • Teachers may need to grade it themselves…however less reliability than if they higher outside graders (if they decide on teachers as graders may need to provide additional training)

How can I use it? -GOOD TOOL FOR ELL AND BILINGUAL TO ASSESS THEIR LITERACY LEVEL IN NATIVE LANGUAGE -GOOD TOOL FOR EVENTUAL PLACEMENT DECISIONS FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL AS NEEDED • Immediate individual report • Simple description of what the student performed well on…skills (teachers can go back and listen/view their answers) • Evaluate your entire program (reflect on how the group is doing) • Immersion students show particularly high success—promote more programming! • “FLES program” (controversial…not really going to get language…) Need to learn more about! • This will give us more nationwide data on learning trends and evaluation of different language instruction models

Heritage speaker? Need to learn more about this!

Testing really for the teachers….help instruction, placement, benchmarks, etc.

What are its limitations? • What is authentic? • What is proficiency at the novice level? As you get more to the intermediate level it is definitely more a proficiency tests…at novice might be interpreted as a performance assessment. • Did feel it was necessary to show all the ranges of “novice” to support elementary programs…can show progress! • When is it appropriate to assess? Some FLES programs may not assess until fifth grade after students have participated in several years of exposure. • What do we do with the data? • Why assess? • This is a snapshot…not an integrated performance assessment tied to the curriculum and specifics of your community • Debate on the content—FLES versus IMMERSION—looked at what they had in common (proficiency as a goal and students participating in school as another similarity) • 4th grade looked at ACTFL standards and rubrics—looked at text type

What do we want in AHSD25? FLES (exposure approach or limited immersion experiences) or IMMERSION (considerable amount of time and content where students are taught and speaking in English and a second language)

Questions to ask: • Which instruments will give me data to paint a complete portrait of student performance? What is the role and purpose of this assessment event? What information am I missing? • Portrait analogy for assessment • Self-Assessment (Student), Teacher Judgment/Data, External Measures (His recommendation is teacher judgment only in early years. Then as students get older combination of teacher/self…and layer in NOELLA-like external assessments (SOPA, STAMP) • Linguafolio Jr. and Linguafolio