FINAL ESSAY 1

Final Essay

Peralta Natalia

UCLA: 377939 Assessment of English Learners EDUC X 426.2 (Winter 2021)

02/28/2021

 FINAL ESSAY 2

1. If you were to move to another country and were only able to communicate in

your new language on an interpersonal communication level, what problems do you think

you might have with academic content? What strategies could teachers use to help you bet-

ter understand the concepts they are trying to teach? How do you think your new peers

might help you?

I can relate to this question personally because I did move to another country, but I go

farther than just communicating at an interpersonal level. If I were studying in college here, pro-

fessors wouldn’t care if your English is not native. They assume that you are able to perform

well in an academic environment. If I had come as a middle schooler, I could realize that every-

thing is different, because the references and methodologies that I had in my education, like au-

thors, readings, math, science, history, among others, are different from the ones in this country.

So I could get a lot if my teachers followed a model like the SIOP Model, where teachers know

what my level is and start working based on that. They know what objectives to follow to help

me reach a goal and they let me know them, so I’m aware of what I need to do to be successful.

Another essential aspect is that they make content comprehensible to me. It could be

more enjoyable to read a text that I understand or adapting the text could help too. Having class-

es that are meaningful helps a lot too, as does using a variety of resources like realia or technolo-

gy to be engaged. I also consider it necessary to interact with peers. I could learn from listening

to their opinions, discussing a text or evaluating each other. The peer support is essential to feel

that you are not alone in this process. If your peers are native speakers, you can absorb a lot of

information from them. They are a good source for learning and practicing the new language.

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2. For what purposes do you think English language learners should be tested in

your classes? For each purpose you mention what sorts of information would you want to

collect? Discuss both formal and informal assessments for English learners.

The main purpose of testing ELLs in my classes is to know where they are in the profi-

ciency level, where they need to be and how they are progressing. It is essential to start with the

results from the ELPAC, and then in classes we can have formative assessments that can help me

to know if the students are understanding the topic and if they need to put more emphasis on any

of the skills they need to develop, or if I need to stop and go back in the lesson. I can activate

prior knowledge, I can collect reports, quizzes, presentations, journals, Q&A activities, observa-

tions. To know if they are ready to progress towards the next level, they can take a formal as-

sessments to show their knowledge.

3. In your experiences with assessment as a student yourself, reflect upon the extent

to which you felt the assessment was worthwhile and fair. Be as specific as you can about

the type of evaluation, its intended purposes, and the strategies that were used to imple-

ment it. Name three specific informal assessments that you will use in your own classroom

to monitor English learner progress.

I had a class in college that provided the best assessment to me. The material the teacher

offered was explained in detail before the assessment, and I knew the assessment criteria since

the first moment. Then I had to write the first draft of an essay, which meant that I had the oppor-

tunity to improve if I needed it. Also, I had freedom in choosing the theme of study. When I

wrote the first draft, I got a complete feedback from my teacher with detailed explanation of

what to improve and why to improve it. It was enlightening, and it motivated me to do a better

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job next time. The final draft contained enough explanation about the successes and weaknesses

that it helped me improve in the rest of my studies.

I like to do speed-writing activities that shows me what students really know. Likewise

with activities that involve the students speaking to a partner or a teacher without script. This

shows the proficiency of the students in a real context. The students can read an article and write

their opinion about it, I can check comprehension and I can see how they are progressing in the

writing structures, grammar, and vocabulary. And I do what my teacher did to me when comes

to more polish assessments.

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References

Echevarría, Jana, Vogt, Maryellen, & Short, Deborah, (2017). Making content comprehensible

for English learners: the SIOP method. Boston, MA: Pearson.