Assessment of English Language Proficiency - Case Study Example

Assessment of English language proficiency 1. Introduction Kery is 14 years old girl currently in grade 8 and is my younger sister’s friend. She has been living in this country for almost two years now since her parents moved here to look for a job from Ethiopia. She moved with her brother aged 11 years and her young sister aged 5 years. She however is not very communicative in English though she has a determined spirit. Kery’s father speaks a bit of English and works in a company that constructs houses. Her mother who is a housewife doesn’t speak any English but only Amharic. Kery and her family speak Amharic at home and live in a 4-bedroom house. Their neighbours speak Arabic as a first language and English as a second language. Kery likes to play piano though she doesn’t have one at home. Her younger brother aged 11 years old speaks better English than her. Her family regularly goes to a nearby protestant church. Her hobbies are singing, playing piano, writing poetry and scrapbooking. Her dream is to be a doctor when she grows up. Kery joined 6th grade in this country and is now in 8th grade. Her brother is in grade 7th while her younger sister is in grade 4. She attended some English classes in Ethiopia for several years before moving to this country, which took one hour a day. She said they don’t have many books at home and most of those available are in Amharic language. She gets up and 7.00am daily to go to school. She does her homework after school and watches comedies then goes to bed by 10.30pm. 2. Fluency 2.1 Listening Kery’s teacher gave her class 50 multiple choices and short answer questions based on a taped story which was delivered at an average speed. There were dialogues, short lectures, interviews and announcements that lasted for around one hour. The time taken to listen to passages was between 50 seconds to five minutes. Kerry can be able to take part in the group activities or group tasks. She is able to respond to simple directions by using words or physical actions. She is able to identify symbols, signs, sounds and pictures especially those that show exit, entrance, restroom, stop signs and other important symbols in the school environment. In responding to questions, she can use words or physical actions. She can also be able to recall some stories, songs, sounds and tunes using words, gestures and picture cues. However she cannot be able to recall all details in a long story. She also cannot retell stories she heard well and keeps on stopping to think what the story was all about and finds difficulties in constructing it like the original story teller. She also isn’t able to ask questions for clarifications even when she doesn’t understand for fear of poor construction of sentences. When asked to paraphrase another person’s story by her teacher, isn’t able to do it perfectly. She can also be able to listen and identify as well as connect events to her own feelings using gestures and words. She can identify mass communication like television, radio, advertisements, and so on. She understands simple sentences better in a sustained conversation and requires repetition to understand better. Vocabulary pause as a difficult concept to Kerry but she is able to identify and recognize simple vocabulary. 2.2 Speaking Assessment of English speaking was collaborated with Kerry’s English teacher who observed her throughout the class session and at one point invited me to her class as a guest. By testing her oral skills in English her teacher gave the class an activity to do for 25-35 minutes which included retelling a personal story. Students were to tell their stories then swap them where they were to retell other students’ stories. Students were given time to think of a good personal story from their own lives. Kery gave a story on her best day ever and retold a story of another student titled ‘my favourite food’. I also asked my sister to invite Kery to the animal orphanage where I could have enough time assessing her. Kery can be able to answer greetings and questions about her family. She can answer ‘Morning is good’, when asked how her morning is. When asked how many they are in her family she says ‘Mother, father, sister and brother, four’. She can also ask and answer questions relating to her immediate needs and can talk freely with her friends but cannot be able to respond to conversational cues. She also can ask questions as well as repeat phrases and is able to give an account of her everyday activities. If asked, ‘Kery how do you spend your day?’, she says “I wake morning early, that is 7.00am and take bath. I take breakfast, then take my books and go to school. I go home at 4pm and watch TV. I do homework, eat dinner then go sleep at 10.00pm”. She also have an ability to describe a familiar happening or event in short form, describe what happens at home, school and family as well as describe past events, and personal experiences. When asked what happened at school she said “It was good. Students from other school came for football game. We wear nice uniform for sports then we cheer our team and dance. Our school then win the game”. She can describe the event in short but has problems using past tenses. She however cannot be able to explain choices clearly and neither can she give reasons for opinions and actions. She neither can develop, explore and give idea clarifications nor talk to different type of audience for different aims which include explaining, describing, predicting, reporting and telling stories. She is slow in sustaining a conversation as she is sometimes afraid of making mistakes in speaking English. However, she can communicate in a classroom setting and participate in discussions, but only when triggered. 2.3 Reading comprehension To assess Kery’s reading comprehension skills, her teacher gave her passages of various lengths with fifteen to twenty five questions which were both short answer and multiple choices. Fourty minutes were given for reading comprehension and answering the related questions. Kery with her fellow students were also given a story to read each for ten minutes. They were then asked to retell the stories they just read to the rest of the class. Kery can be able to express herself in words, actions, gestures and drawings to answer simple questions, as well as make simple predictions. She can notice unfamiliar and familiar sounds in words and recognize rhyming words which have familiar sounds but has a small problem producing them. She can easily read short phrases and follow written directions that are in simple form like match, underline, circle, and so on. She also can easily recognize the use of printed English concepts like words and sentences, upper or lower case, parts of a book, alphabet, and so on. She does well in recognizing, responding and producing words that rhyme and participates in a class discussion where a story is read aloud and does this by use of simple word responses and gestures. She can also identify common vowel and consonant sounds in popular words and use phrases and words to participate in a class discussion of a story read to her. She makes an effort to recognize rhymes and decode familiar words that follow common vowel patterns. She listens well to text read aloud and can repeat to it. She tries to do choral reading but in most cases lags behind. She can read aloud independently but hesitates to get correct pronunciation. She can retell a simple text or story and can identify a character, events and the plot of a story she has read. She however can relate reading to her personal experience though she doesn’t use variety of reading strategies which makes the class get bored and impatient with her reading. In addition, Kery cannot be able to respond critically to text and neither can she draw inferences from what she has read. 2.4 Writing In assessing these skills, Kery’s teacher asked them to write a story on ‘My hobbie’ in 30 minutes time. This was graded according to the use of language, organization and the content. Kery can be able to copy short sentences from a board, words and letters. She knows how to form letters correctly and can be able to spell some simple words correctly without difficulties though she does with a lot of hesitation. She however can be able to write her own name, give information about herself and her family. She is able to write simple texts that are connected on familiar topics or topics of personal interests. She can also describe her personal impressions and experiences though she writes too slowly to be sure of what she is doing. However she cannot be able to pass information in an essay or report form or write formal letters that describe the significance of her events and experience in her life. Kelly uses present tense verbs predominantly demonstrating errors of omissions, meaning, she leaves some words out. For example, she writes ‘I go to market tomorrow’ instead of ‘I will go to the market tomorrow’. When writing, she uses pictures and phrases that are patterned as well as single words to portray what she means. She can spell simple words well but has a problem with difficult words like ‘pronunciation’ which she writes as ‘pronountiation’, and has difficulties with subject-verb agreement. She can write an entire paragraph but portrays a variety use of verb tenses that are inconsistent and her use of preposition and transition is limited. She uses simple vocabulary repeatedly and the spelling error she makes sometimes interferes with the meaning. 2.5 Body language Kery communicates well through appropriate gestures and facial expressions. Though she doesn’t understand the use of social space, she utilizes it well. She uses gestures like facial expressions, nods, heading shaking, and so on as a sign of agreement, disagreement or approval. When listening to or reading a text she uses facial expression well to give a reflection of what she feels. It is easier to recognize if Kery is happy, excited, anxious, sad or irritated. However sometimes when a vocabulary is used in a text or conversation that she didn’t understand, she smiles it off or giggle showing that her response is irrelevant to what is communicated to her. In fact Kery’s use of body language fills her sentence with the missing words. For example when she explains how she uses her diary, she writes in the air with her finger. Body language is used to repeat the message she makes verbally while speaking. When Kery is bored with a conversation from a person that she can’t understand, she roles her eyes. When Kery thinks deeply especially about a composition she needs to write, she leans on her desk and holds her head. She slides in her sit and leans back when tired and when alert she sits upright and smiles. She taps her fingers on her desks and changes sitting position more often when she is restless. She waves her hand when she greets people who are a far distance from where she is, points to a certain object to explain what she means and when speaking, arguing or expressing herself, she uses her hands. Kery also uses eye contact when communicating with other people around her. When she is shy she lowers her eyelets and looks down. She maintains great eye contact when she is interested to a certain topic or a story told by a person. She uses touch as a way of getting someone to give her attention when speaking, for example, tapping on the shoulder. When someone is sad and she can’t express her sincerely sorry to the person in, she simply pats on the person’s back. When she is happy and wants to show her appreciation, she gives the person a warm hug. Though she doesn’t understand the use of space while communicating with other people, she does it well though unconsciously. She doesn’t stand too close to people to look like she is evading their space unless it’s her family or best friend. In addition one can understand what she feels or communicates through her voice. The tone, pitch, volume and rhythm of her voice can tell if Kery is excited, happy or irritated. 3. Accuracy 3.1 Pronunciation To test Kery’s pronunciation skills, her teacher gave her a poem to read each verse everyday for 20 minutes repeatedly. The poem was excerpted from The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité. Examples of sentences from the poem are as follows; “Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe”(1922) According to Grant (2001), word stress in conjunction with intonation and linking, create the rhythm of a fluent English speaker. When words are pronounced correctly it provides a building block of rhythm. Kery has a problem with this part. She isn’t able to know which syllable of a word that should be said longer and louder than others. In addition, she isn’t able to know which words to reduce, say quieter or quieter or which ones to bring attention. Sometimes she gets confused between ‘l’ and ‘r’ so that instead of ‘streak’ she pronounces ‘sleak’ and vice versa. 3.2 Grammar Assessment of Kery’s grammar was done through my conversation with her and her class report from her teacher. Her teacher gave her homework, quizzes, and tests to assess her written grammar skills. Verbal grammar knowledge was done through grammar games that involved dialogue with other students. Kery’s class was divided into groups and given a shop setting where they had to play by using of proper grammar. Kery has a problem of using past, present and future tense as she predominantly dwells on present tense in her writing and speaking. Though she uses variety of sentences, they are inconsistent to application of grammar rules especially in verbs. However the errors she makes doesn’t interfere with the meaning. She also has a big problem in discourse directly. She cannot be able to report word for word what someone has said. However she can be able to report indirectly or paraphrase through leaving out some words. For example instead of saying, “She said she will go”, she reports, “She says she go”. When writing she forgets to use quotation marks and sometimes confuses with apostrophe. Syntax being the arrangement of words in a sentence or ways in which words are combined to form sentences, clauses and phrases is a very important part of grammar (OÕMalley & Lorraine, 1996). Kery doesn’t have a problem with using syntax. She won’t say ‘School went to she’ when she means ‘She went to school’. The only little problem she may have in this area is living some words out though correctly arranged. For instances, she may say ‘She went school’ instead of ‘She went to school’. Weir (2005) says that in a normal sentence, the subject comes directly in front of the verb and the direct object comes directly after it. For instance ‘The girl bought a book’. In this case, ‘the girl’ is a subject, ‘bought’ is a verb and ‘a book’ is a direct object. 3.3 Lexis Kery’s teacher gave her a 30 minutes exercise to test her vocabulary. The test entailed a sentence where a word was underlined and from the given multiple choices she was to choose the meaning of that word. Kery can recognize simple vocabulary like ‘content’, ‘conclude’, ‘location’ and so on. However, she finds it a problem to produce meaning for words like ‘sophisticated’, ‘contract’, ‘construct’, and so on. She is still learning to use lexical chunks in a sentence like ‘out of my mind’, ‘if she were you’, ‘until now’, ‘a long way off’, ‘by the way’ and so on (Wray, 2002). These groups of words give her a hard time but she has interest of knowing. She however can use some simple lexical chunks like ‘sounds great’, ‘terrible death’, ‘bring good luck’ and so on. B. Conclusion. Kery has passed the English beginner level and is at the developing or middle level. Knowing her English status, her teacher should look towards meeting her needs as an ESL student. According to Khalifa and weir (2009), the teacher should avail resources to Kery’s classroom like dictionaries that are specifically designed for English learners, visual and picture dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, printed alphabet letteres, modeling supplier, painting and drawing, heavily illustrated reading material like catalogues and magazines, games like computer games, card games and board games that aim at appropriate use of language. To help her be fluent in reading comprehension her teacher should use a picture dictionary to show meaning of new words in order to demonstrate her understanding. Pictures can also be used to help her gain meaning of new words from what is read aloud. A teacher can help her identify pictures from words that are written or identify words from pictures. After reading aloud from a variety of communities and cultures her teacher should ask her to recognize simple vocabulary in response to that (Schrutt, 1999). To ensure that Kery has fluent reading, the teacher needs to embed public speaking in her learning. According to Khalifa and Weir (2009), public speaking has same elements that are associated with reading fluently that deal with speech; accuracy, an appropriate speed, expression and phrasing. These fluency aspects facilitate the comprehension of the listener. Kery needs to know how to use appropriate phrases, raising and lowering volume, having varying intonation, and emphasizing certain words. Fluency in reading bridges word decoding and comprehension. Shared reading is an approach that will enable Kery develop in reading fluency. This can be done in small groups where she will be located in the same group with students speaking better English. The teacher does most of the reading and encourages students to re-read along depending on their ability. This enables a student join in and read along other readers, get exposed to sounds and patterns of English, gets exposed to structure of English language and organizational features of texts that is written, be provided with a fluent reading model and behaviors of proper reading, be supported in learning by using diagrams, charts and illustrations, and present vocabulary in a text context. A student can also be able to have multiple readings to support his or her reading of the text. A student can also be able to connect text to himself, and to the world as a whole. Kerry’s teacher can use grammar games to improve her grammar skills. Grammar games provide benefits to the process of learning and encourage direct competition between learners. Grammar games can be oriented to writing and verbal skills. When students compete against friends they can test their grammar limits and playing the games regularly may encourage Kery to get inspired to win the future grammar games (Bachman & Palmer, 1996. To help Kery with pronunciation her teacher should identify a native speaker whom she can hang around with during her free time to listen to how he or she uses word stress and word pronunciation in general. Kery should also be provided with tapes of word pronunciation where a teacher can have a session with her to ensure that she does exactly what is said in the tapes (Grant 2001). According to Shaw & Weir (2007), dictation is another strategy that can be used to improve Kery’s writing skills. Dictation focuses on listening, writing, speaking and reading. It encourages a student have better pronunciation thus a hearer will have good listening practices as it forces attention from students. Dictation allows immediate feedback from the teacher and allows the student to repeat the task. Her teacher can dictate to her simple words and gradually chip in difficult word s. This can be practiced everyday for a period of three months. Kery can be asked to use the dictated words given by the teacher to search for their meaning in the dictionary and submit for marking. The teacher can then ask her to use the same words to write a composition on a particular subject. This will improve not only her vocabulary knowledge but also enable her to recognize vocabulary when reading and understand what they mean. Grammar exercises should also be given to Kery everyday for homework. She should be encouraged to read a comprehension and answer related questions every day before she goes to sleep in order to keep her connected to English while at home (Khalifa & Weir, 2009). References Bachman, L & Palmer, A. (1996). Language testing in Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D. M., & Goodwin, J. M. (1996). Teaching pronunciation: A reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grant, L. (2001). Well said: Advanced English pronunciation, 2nd ed.. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Khalifa, H & Weir, C. (2009). Examining Reading: Research and practice in assessing second language reading, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OÕMalley, J& Lorraine V. (1996). Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners: Practical Approaches for Teachers. Toronto: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. Shaw, S & Weir, C. (2007). Examining Writing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schrutt, N (1999). The relationship between TOEFL vocabulary items and meaning, association, collocation and word-class knowledge. Language Testing, 16(2), 189-216. Weir, C. (2005). Language testing and validation: An evidence-based approach, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Wray, A. (2002). Formulaic language and the lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Read More