Pauline Rea-Dickins Funded by ESRC (ESRC Major Research grant R000238196)

1. Pauline Rea-DickinsFunded by ESRC (ESRC Major Research grant R000238196) Measuring or Nurturing Language Development: is there a tug of war for teachers? University of Bristol, England

2. Overview 1. Context of the assessment research 2. Assessment Policy Context in England 3. Data & Findings • conceptualisation of classroom-based language assessment • what counts as assessment • roles of teachers and learners • formative language assessment & SLA 4. Emergent Issues

3. Research Study • Aims: to investigate assessment of learners with EAL • Sociocultural approach • 3 case study schools; total 6 classes; 6-7 year olds • Data collection procedures: • Classroom observation: 3 complete weeks over a school year in each class; 2 classes in each of 3 schools • Pre- and post-observation interviews • Pre- and post-observation assessment activity questionnaires • Additional interviewing as need arose; workshops with teachers, e.g. to develop assessment activities, update on project findings • Video & audio recordings; learners’ written samples • Analysis of lived classroom assessment episodes Funded by ESRC (ESRC Major Research grant R000238196)

4. Assessment Policy Context in England (see Leung and Rea-Dickins, 2007) • Prominence: Assessment for Learning Agenda • Signs of Change: Standardised Testing vs. Teacher Assessment • Policy for Teachers Working with Learners with EAL

5. Narrowing of Curriculum Teachers are quite frank about the methods they use to push up their pupils’ results. Adele Ewan, 30, a Year 6 teacher … says: “In the spring term, I drop design and technology , music and religious studies. When you need to get through four year’s work, it’s just bang, bang, bang all the time”. (H. Ward, TES, 2004-03-19, p18)

6. The Welsh LeadDaugherty Assessment Review Group (2004: Section 3.4) It is clear that test preparation and practice, a narrowing of curriculum coverage and styles of learning that contribute to good test performance have become prominent features of the Year 6 experience of pupils in many schools ... The Group has considered whether end-of-key-stage testing, in terms of the ‘hard’ data it gives us on pupil attainments and the targets it gives some pupils to aspire to, is of sufficient value to compensate for the evident impoverishment of pupils’ learning that is occurring at a critical stage in their educational development. Note: National tests for 7-year-olds ended in Wales in 2002

7. Policy Analysis: Official Guidance for Teachers on AssessmentThe Assessment of Pupils’ Learning EAL (DfES, 2003) A conceptualisation of assessment: • setting targets, measuring achievement towards those targets • a total absence of any reference to learner involvement in the assessment process • assessment at the discourse level is completely absent: role of teacher as ‘rater/examiner’

8. Policy Analysis: Official Guidance for Teachers on Assessment • No explicit mention of: • language use across the curriculum and the assessment of learners in the different subject activities and discourses • the distinctive EAL developmental trajectories beyond the beginning stages; EAL learning is equated with English L1 acquisition

9. Some Data • Illustrate my characterisation of classroom language assessment • Provide exemplars of the type of interaction associated with classroom assessment episodes • Show how individual learners, peers and teachers may be involved in potentially formative assessment episodes, i.e. formative for the learners themselves.

11. Teacher Assessment Purposes • Teaching and checking: in relation to set targets usually content-related • Assessing achievement: have targets been achieved: assessment of learning. • Supporting language learning: orientation towards language development & assessment as learning

12. Teachers’ Planned Language Focus • sequencing, hypothesising, agreeing/disagreeing (M1) • past tense, conjunctions, adverbials, adjectives, phrases/developing into sentences (M5) • key words, name of shapes plus all numeracy vocab (M9) • social language to do with working with other children (M25)

13. Formative assessment episode 1 - The Lion & The Mouse T: ok the mouse takes the net off the lion fine ok that's another lovely end - that's a bit different - right Jessica let's just have yours and then - Jes:you can get scissors and cut the rope to get the (.) the lion out T: ok who would get the scissors? Jes: Mouse T: the mouse would get the scissors - where would he get them from? Jes: erm T: not quite sure? (J shakes her head) ok so then he got the lion - and then what happened? BEA: explanation in Mirpuri Jes: after that the lion comes out T: and after that the lion comes out - ok - …

14. Formative assessment episode 2: We

15. Assessment episode 3: A Sunny Day

16. Classroom language performances involve learners in: construing & constructing meanings, developing language knowledge (e.g. functions, register), language awareness, using & exploring language, self-assessment Displaying language achievement Peer-as- language facilitator Teacher-as- language facilitator: formative support Dynamic interplay In these two roles Teacher-as-rater: summative judgement

17. Analysis • Opportunities for incidental focus on form: Defined as any occasion when attention from the subject content shifts, or has the potential to shift and to focus on a ‘problematic’ or ‘potentially problematic’ linguistic item (grammar, vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation) • Incidental focus on form: Defined as any occasion when the attention does shift to focus on the language ‘problem’ • Uptake from the feedback: Learner response: - no uptake or uptake - unsuccessful or successful

18. Incidental Focus on Form Assessment Episodes 4 x 40 minute lessons • Social Science Lessons (N=2): both Year 2 Exploring Different Places Exploring Different Settings • Literacy Lessons (N=2); both Year 1 Composing Story Endings

19. Incidental Feedback on Form and Learner Uptake

20. Successful Uptake

21. Emergent Issues • Overpowering policy • Teachers expertise & questions • FLA & SLA research

22. Brindley (2001:127) they [teachers] assess constantly through such means as observation, recycling of work, diagnostic testing, learner self-assessment, various forms of corrective feedback and ad hoc tests. With experience, many teachers will become skilled judges and observers capable of evaluating the quality of language performances and making fine-grained diagnoses of learners’ difficulties.

23. Questions for Teachers • What do you focus on in your feedback in class? • What influences your feedback decisions? • In what ways do you build upon learners’ language awareness in order to consolidate language learning? • Should you focus more than you do on the learners’ demonstrated need for language support? • Should there be more direct elicitation of uptake from learners (uptake moves following teacher’s language support appeared in relatively few cases; cf. topic continuation)

24. Questions for Teachers • How much learner self-repair occurs in your classrooms? • What prompts such learner self-repair? • How effective is learner peer-assessment in your classes? • What strategies do learners use in providing feedback?

25. Questions for Teachers • Which peer-feedback strategies appear to work? • Is their ‘untapped’ potential for learning from peers? • Should learners be provided with more ‘wait time’ for their response before a topic continuation move is made (limited wait time?). • What are the effects if you increase ‘wait time’?

26. Much evidence in assessment Standards (e.g. NLLIA & TESOL) and criteria that teachers are encouraged to sample learner's language performance in different situations through a rich diversity of activities Risks in the strict adherence to rating criteria & implementation of band scales: Reductive: narrow view of language proficiency series of summative ‘test-like’ activities as opposed to a classroom climate where exploratory language development may take place through formative assessment opportunities A Tug of War?

27. supporting language development supporting language development supporting language development measuring language attainment supporting subject learning measuring subject learning A Tug-of-War?

28. A Tug-of-War? • How much rating do you do in your lessons or are expected to do? • How much training have you received in this role? • What opportunities do you provide for your students to explore language use and develop their awareness of language • How much training have you received to support your role as facilitator of language development?

29. Brindley (2001:127) they [teachers] assess constantly through such means as observation, recycling of work, diagnostic testing, learner self-assessment, various forms of corrective feedback and ad hoc tests. With experience, many teachers will become skilled judges and observers capable of evaluating the quality of language performances and making fine-grained diagnoses of learners’ difficulties.