Assessment of English Learners and Their Peers in the Content Areas: Expanding What “Counts” as Evidence of Content Learning

ABSTRACT

In this article, I argue for expanding what “counts” as evidence of content learning in the assessment of English learners (ELs) and their peers in the content areas. ELs bring expansive meaning-making resources to content classrooms that are valuable assets for meeting the ambitious learning goals of the latest K-12 education reform. Traditionally, however, the assessment of ELs in the content areas (e.g., science, language arts) has been pursued in restrictive ways, with a narrow focus on demonstrating learning through the written language modality and independent performance. This disconnect between the expansive meaning-making resources of ELs and the restrictive nature of content assessments limits ELs’ opportunities to demonstrate what they know and can do and ultimately serves to perpetuate the deficit views of these students. I begin by providing contextual background on classroom assessment aligned to the latest standards in U.S. K-12 education. Then, I present two studies that illustrate two different expansive assessment approaches with ELs in elementary science: (a) multimodal assessment and (b) dynamic assessment. Finally, I highlight synergies of these studies with related research efforts across diverse contexts, toward the goal of developing a collective vision of expansive assessment that leverages ELs’ expansive ways of making meaning.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Lorena Llosa and the SAIL team at New York University for their contributions to and support of this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Although other terms, such as “multilingual learner” and “emergent bilingual,” are increasingly used to foreground students’ assets, in this article, I use the term “English learner” consistent with the federal definition (U.S. Department of Education, 2015).

² As described in detail in Grapin and Llosa (2022b), student responses were scored separately in visual and written modalities by multiple raters using detailed scoring criteria. The scoring criteria for each modality consisted of a rubric with descriptors along with sample student responses at each performance level and modality-specific clarifying notes (see sample scoring criteria in Grapin & Llosa, 2022b).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation's Division of Research on Learning in Formaland Informal Settings Educational Testing Service, National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations, and The International Research Foundation for English Language Education. This research was also recognized with the Jacqueline Ross TOEFL Dissertation Award. [DRL-1503330].