The Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language - Assignment Example

All concerned stakeholders must assess the language development of the students with the key to identifying and improving their problem areas at an early stage. Various assessment tools exist that teachers can employ in the classroom for students who have developmental issues in both language and communication, such as (CASL).
The Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL) assists teachers in assessing four major learning areas of students with language difficulties, which are listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

This language assessment test focuses on both expressive as well as receptive language options for the students as it enables teachers to identify the problematic areas of their students and concentrate on upgrading them. this test is very simple and a teacher can carry it out within a normal classroom setting, targeting the four main areas of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and as such covering the four main categories of languages which are pragmatics, syntactic, semantics, and supra linguistics. Each of the four categories assesses different language development areas. These include the knowledge and use of words and grammar, complex language comprehension, and appropriate language awareness (Carrow-Woolfolk, n.d.).

The teacher focuses on various subtopics in each of these categories while conducting the assessment to determine the proficiency of the student, as well as empower them to overcome their areas of difficulty. Common subtopics used in such assessment procedures include comprehending basic synonyms, idiomatic languages, pragmatic judgment, grammatical judgment, and ambiguous sentences among others. This test provides a particular sense of specificity that enables teachers to determine appropriately the individual strategies of each of their students.

A grade-appropriate word wall is a good strategy that teachers in a middle school can employ to enable their students to overcome their difficulties in language and communication. A word wall assists students to make choices of different word usage that have similar meanings. Teachers can also use the role-playing strategy in improving the pragmatic judgment of their students. Oral language is another strategy that teachers can use in the assessment of their students, especially in their weakest areas. These tests allow teachers to determine the areas of difficulty in the language development of their students

In conclusion, teachers must note that not all tests provide the same results for their students. The results differ from one student to another depending on their area of language difficulty. As such, since the test is simple and takes only a short time to administer, teachers should deal with each student at a time so that they can give them personalized attention, and as such, determine the critical areas for their language difficulties and assist them appropriately (Kuder, 2008). Read More