Standardized+Testing+for+English+language+Learners

Wendi Ben-Ari October 26, 2006

__**Standardized Testing for English Language Learners**__

How would you feel if you had just arrived in your new country yesterday? Today you enter a new school in your new neighborhood. Everyone is speaking a strange language you cannot understand. The school building is very different in size and structure from your school back home. The teachers look and dress very strangely, and the children seem very different from your friends. You do not understand their words, but they are smiling at you and you understand that you are to sit down at an unfamiliar desk. You try to follow what the other children are doing, but it is all so different from the beginning of the school day at home. Then booklets are put on each desk, pencils are given out, and everyone is quiet. When everyone opens their booklet, you do the same, staring at the unfamiliar shapes and lines on the page. The teacher is reading something from her booklet, but you cannot understand. Suddenly, everyone is quietly reading and making marks on a paper. You do not understand what to do, but the teacher just smiles at you as everyone else works. You do not know this, but you are taking part in a Standardized Test.

According to the No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law by President George Bush in 2001, every child is to be tested in the content areas of Math, Science and Social Studies, regardless of when the child has entered the country. This means that English Language Learners, who are not yet proficient in English, are required to take City and State tests in English, and are held to the same standards as their native English-speaking classmates. In some cases, there is a native language version available, and students are given the English version together with their native language version of the test. I can only imagine their confusion when faced with two tests on the desk, one in a language they can't understand, and the other in their native language, but covering a curriculum that is probably unfamiliar to them. In other cases, when there is no native language available, a translator is provided. The translation is only as good as the translator, who often is brought in from another grade, rorm somewhere else in the school building, and is unfamiliar with the student and the subject matter of the test. Often, neither the native language version nor a translator is available. This is the case in my school if the child speaks Chinese, Albanian, Japanese, Hindi, Tagolog, and probably hundreds of other languages. The child is then required to take that test in English.

I fail to see how it could be advantageous to a child to be required to take a test in a language he or she is not yet proficient in. Aside from the emotional distress this causes, it is also setting the student up to fail. Despite their best efforts, these children cannot succeed on these tests. How is this helping these students to "not to be left behind"? In previous years English Language Learners were tested for English proficiency and progress in the four skill areas of Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing through use of the LAB (Language Proficiency Battery), and more recently the NYSESLAT (New York State English as a Second Language Assessment Test). The results of this test drove English language instruction based on the level of proficiency of the students. Students were exempt from other standardized tests until reaching the level of proficiency in English required by their grade, according to the NYSESLAT. Now, however, no child is left behind, so all students must take content area tests. To make matters worse for these new students, the regulations regarding the English Language Assessment (ELA) taken by native English speakers, is now required of students who have been in this country for only one year or more. Students were previously exempt from the ELA for three to five years, the minimum time needed to achieve English Language proficiency. According to experts in the field of language acquisition, Stephen Krashen (Krashen, 1981) and D.E. Freeman and Y.S. Freeman (Freeman and Freeman, 2001), gaining proficiency in a second language typically takes from five to seven years. Only then, when students are in the Advanced Language Proficiency Stage, have students developed sufficient specialized content-area vocabulary, allowing them to fully participate in grade-level classroom activities if given occasional extra support. In New York State, however, our English Language Learners are required to take a native English proficiency test after one year! This is in addition to the NYSESLAT, to test for second language proficiency, three English Language Interim Assessment tests throughout the year, Math, Science and Social Studies standardized tests, depending upon grade level, as well as Field tests that we are occasionally directed to conduct in our schools. When do we have time time to just teach these students English?

I feel that in an attempt to be fair to all children, we are actually over-testing our English Language Learners. Is it fair to require a child to struggle through a test that is obviously way beyond his level of ability? Does not leaving any child behind mean that all students are to be held to the same standard, regardless of the amount of time they have been in this country? Is it fair to hold schools accountable for low test scores, when they have a large population of English Language Learners in their schools who are being required to take tests beyond their levels of English proficiency? Imagine your frustration and embarrassment if, upon arriving in Japan, for example, you were put into a room full of your peers, and were immediately given a test in Japanese, a language totally unfamiliar to you. Would you feel uncomfortable? Then, why are we doing this to our students?

__References:__ Krashen, S.D. (1981). //Second language acquisition and second language learning//. New York, NY : Pergamon Press Freeman, D.E., & Freeman, Y.S. (2001). //Between worlds: Access to second language acquisition// (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH : Heinemann U.S. Department of Education. (2001). //Language instruction for limited-English- proficient and immigrant students// (Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, PL 107–110). Washington, DC The State Education Department (2006). //LEP/ELL Student Statewide Assessment Policy/Title I Requirements.// Albany, New York