APPROPRIATE ASSESSMENTS FOR ELLS
Appr
Appropriate Assessments for Ells
by Jen Meharg
With increased dependence on high stakes
testing in school accountability and teacher
performance measurements, the question of
how to include ELLs is a controversial one.
Here we will look at multiple perspectives.
What are the issues with testing
ELLs?
When assessing ELLs with standardized
tests, it is difficult to determine whether they
are exhibiting their knowledge of content or
their language proficiency is being tested. “If
ELLs are not able to demonstrate their
knowledge due to linguistic difficulty of a
test, the test results will not be a valid
reflection of what the students know and can
do” (Coltrane, 2002).
Standardized tests may also be culturally
biased. They can include items that students
of different cultures may not have been
exposed to or be familiar with. “For example,
a writing prompt that asks students to
produce a persuasive essay about whether or
not the U.S. government should support new
space expeditions by NASA may be quite
difficult for ELLs, whose knowledge of the
concepts and expectations assumed by this
test… could be extremely limited” (Coltrane,
2002).
Appropriate
Assessments for
ELLs
8/3/2019
ESL DATA
Why should we test ELLs?
In the past, ELLs were not tested or included
in high stakes testing (Lara & August, 1996).
With the growing population of ELLs in
public schools, it is necessary to have this
data. If a school is made up of a large
percentage of ELLs, any data that does not
include their data would be quite skewed.
It has also been found that when students
were not expected to perform on
standardized tests, there was a lack of According to the US Department of Education, there are
accountability of student progress When approximately 4.8 million K-12 public school students
students are not held accountable for their
that are identified as English Language Learners. This
accounts for 21% of all students. It is estimated that by
growth, their instructional needs may not be 2025, this will increase to 25% (NYU Counseling, 2018).
held at the same level of importance as those
required to pass a standardized test. Page #
How can we hold ELLs
accountable for their learning in
an appropriate way?
By providing our ELLs with appropriate,
alternate assessments, we are able to assess
their growth and academic progress while
taking their language proficiency into
account.
CCPS ESL Population Growth
APPROPRIATE ASSESSMENTS FOR ELLS | Issue # 2

Alternative
Assessments
Rather than depend on standardized tests to
assess ELL growth and mastery, the
following alternative assessments may be
appropriate.

 Student Portfolios- a collection of

student work samples that can
show mastery of the standards and
student growth. Products might
include:
o Projects
o Writing samples
o Photographs
o Video recordings
 Limit answer choices on multiple
 Native Language Assessments- In choice assessments
some cases, a translated test in the  Simplified language and/or
student’s native language may be instructions
appropriate.

Testing
Modifications:
 Tests may be read aloud
 Testing one on one or a small group
setting
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 Extended time allowed to complete
 Students can dictate short answer
and essay responses
APPROPRIATE ASSESSMENTS FOR ELLS | Issue # 3

REFERENCES

Coltrane, B. (2002). English Language Learners and High-Stakes Tests. ERIC Digest.

Law, B., & Eckes, M. (2016, January 20). Creating an Effective Data Reporting System for ELLs. Retrieved from https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/creating-
effective-data-reporting-system-ells