Assesment for english learners

Literacy Development for English Language Learners

February 28th, 2009

Learning Unit 1 Assignment

Why is it necessary for teachers to assess English learners’ acquisition stages?
Researchshows that the natural developmental process of language learning is divided in five predictable stages of a Second Language Acquisition, which are: PreProduction, Early Production, Speech Emergence,Intermediate Fluency, Advance Fluency; and these stages are identified by The Natural Approach. Besides, it is important to consider that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) classifies the EnglishLanguage Learners (ELL’s) in four groups: Beginning, Intermediate, Advance and Advance High; this classification is based in the Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS) and we believethat the classification that should be used with our ELL’s is the one that the State of Texas has determined. Also, for practical purposes, we think that Advance and Advance High can be in one group:Advance. We believe that the importance for teachers to assess English Language Learners is extremely high, because one of the most important factors for an effective learning is the Understanding, andit can be accomplished easily if you speak the language. So, if we assess our ELL students in order to see in which level they are, it is going to be easier to accommodate and structure ourinstruction in order to improve their understanding of the content being taught. Besides, every teacher can design exercises in order to improve the Language Learning in all their aspects. Another importantthing that has to be considered by the ELL’s Teachers is the Psychological Aspect, because a student that come out of the country with a different native language is struggling with the lack ofknowledge of the language and the content being taught at school, so we have to find the way to help our ELL’s students in an individual basis and a very important tool that is going to help us is the...