Assessment of English Language Learners - Essay Example

This is done to improve the ability of a test to achieve the required outcomes with little or no drawbacks. Introduction Spanish speaking students in the United States have varying English language proficiency. This might limit their learning ability when undertaking educational programs administered in English. To determine the level of English proficiency on these students, English language learners assessment is crucial. The assessment is currently undertaken in schools using English language proficiency test that is a combination of both summative and formative assessments.

This currently used test has both benefits and drawbacks. Hence, there is a need for review of this test to make it much better. The benefits make it unnecessary to replace the test with other tests. However, the drawbacks call for a review of the test in order to make it more effective. Review of English language proficiency test English language proficiency test currently used in most schools, including ours, is a combination of formative and summative assessments. The summative tests are undertaken at the end of an English language instruction to determine the students English proficiency developed during the learning period.

Formative tests that are used to guide instructions are taken at the beginning or in the middle of instruction. In this kind of a test, an educator designs an assessment activity to detect an aspect of a student’s language proficiency that could guide him in his decisions. However, in this English language proficiency test an educator rarely involve students in the designing of the test. According to Spodek & Saracho (2006), this test is effective in promoting accountability for students’ progress as well as monitoring this progress.

The formative part of this test has been effective in monitoring the progress of the students. Summative part on the other hand has been promoting the accountability for students’ learning among the educators. Moreover, this English language proficiency test has been effective in categorizing students according to their levels of English language proficiency. However, according to Stiggins (2007), this English language proficiency test has been categorizing students into two categories, which are those on the winning streak and those on the losing streak.

Those on the losing streak have become de-motivated and thus failing to succeed in education thus the requires a review in order to reverse the trend. Several reviews applicable to the test that can avoid drawbacks exist. One review is through inviting students in the creating and interpreting the results of the test. This could enable the students to monitor their learning and levels of achievements, as a result, all of them would be more motivated to learn. Another crucial review is involving students in keeping records concerned with the test.

This would enable the student to know and understand his changes in performance levels. As a result, students would be able to monitor their improvements. The other important review is improvement in the test development. English language test could be reviewed to become purpose driven and effective in results delivery (Abedi, 2007). This could be achieved through a collaborative effort between the educators, students, and other stakeholders. Undertaking these reviews would make the test more effective, thus giving it an ability to overcome most of its drawbacks.

Alternative assessment formats Five