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C H A P T E R O N E
A special case for young learner language assessment
Introduction
This chapter sets out to establish a special case for young learner language assessment. What are the characteristics of young learners that need to be remembered in assessment decisions? We all know that young learners are different from adults, but how do we explain the important differences in a simple, accessible way? This chapter provides some central information about young learners – who they are, where they are learning, and what requires us to give them special consideration in assessment.
Young language learners and their language programmes
Young language learners are those who are learning a foreign or second language and who are doing so during the first six or seven years of formal schooling. In the education systems of most countries, young learners are children who are in primary or elementary school. In terms of age, young learners are between the ages of approximately five and twelve. Many young language learners can be called bilingual. Bilingual learners are those learners who learn two (or more) languages to some level of profi- ciency (Bialystok, 2001, p. 5). This rather vague definition – impossible to pin down because of the variety of experiences of learners – would tend to include children who are learning a foreign language in immersion and bilingual programmes and all children in second language programmes. The term would also include many, many children who learn a foreign or
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second language as they interact with speakers of other languages and dialects outside formal language programmes.
Young language learners may be foreign language learners, learning a language in a situation where the language is seldom heard outside the classroom. They may be learning languages like Vietnamese, Spanish or Chinese in Germany or the United States or they may be learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in countries like Turkey, Malaysia or Spain. Other young learners may be second language learners. Second lan- guage learners are usually members of a minority language group in a country where the majority of their peers have spoken the language from birth. Second language learners do not need to speak both languages fully to be bilingual, especially in a second language situation. These learners learn the majority language as their second language. For example, they may be learning Japanese as a second language in Japan, where large numbers of Japanese have returned in recent years with their non-Japanese-speaking children; or Cantonese as second language learners in Hong Kong where numbers of Mandarin-speaking children have been granted residency. They may be learning English as a Second Language, also referred to as English as an Additional Language (referred to in this book as ESL) in Britain, Australia, Canada or the United States. They may have been born in the country and have spoken only their home language before school or they may have immigrated because of family decisions to migrate or because of traumatic events in their home country. For young second language learners, the language they are learning is usually the main language of communication in their class- room, school and community. They are spending every moment of the week engaged in learning the language and at the same time learning through the language; for these students the language is a vital and per- vasive foundation to their life at school.
Young language learners around the world share many common char- acteristics and they learn in programmes that share many common beliefs and practices concerning the environment that young learners need in order to learn. Language programmes for young learners vary in their purposes and intended outcomes, their duration and their intensity.
Foreign language programmes
A range of different programme types exist around the world for young language learners. Some foreign language programmes are language
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awareness programmes or introductory programmes, designed to raise children’s interest in the language and to show that language learning can be enjoyable, but without the aim of achieving set language learning goals by the end of the course. Such language programmes for young learners often have a very small number of contact hours per week, perhaps only 20 minutes per week. However, regular scheduled foreign language classes are the most common type of foreign language pro- gramme in elementary schools. The contact hours for scheduled lan- guage classes for young learners are generally longer than introductory programmes, up to two hours per week or more. These classes are often taught by a foreign language teacher who moves from class to class, taking over the class from the classroom teacher for the lesson period. In some programmes classroom teachers are encouraged to work with the foreign language teacher to incorporate the language into children’s content learning in other subject areas like social studies and science. Partial immersion and total immersion programmes are examples of foreign language programmes that are designed to ensure greater lan- guage learning gains. In partial immersion programmes, children study their curriculum subjects through the target language for part of a day or week and in total immersion programmes they learn through the target language for every day of the week and every week of the year. Immersion programmes are sometimes called bilingual programmes.
The learning outcomes expected in foreign language programmes for young learners depend on a number of factors, including the starting age, the amount of contact time and other factors, such as the appropri- ateness of the curriculum, the language proficiency and teaching skills of the teacher (proficiency is a general term denoting the degree of skill with which a person can use a language), and whether there are wider opportunities for the language to be encountered (e.g., in other subjects as part of everyday classroom learning or in communications with visitors or on the Internet). Generally, regular scheduled programmes for young learners focus on listening and speaking, especially in the first two years. Reading and simple writing may be introduced gradually, depending on the age of the children and whether the programme is an immersion programme. Children learning in immersion and bilingual programmes have opportunities to advance quickly and in more depth in their language ability because they have additional time to use the language, and expectations of what they are expected to do in the language are high.
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Second language programmes
Second language learners may be learning through intensive language programmes, sometimes called sheltered programmes, in which groups of second language learners are brought together, usually for a limited period of time when they first arrive in the country, to study the language together and to be introduced to the school curriculum. Many second language learners go directly into the mainstream classroom, that is, the regular classroom where they begin immediately to study the established curriculum alongside their majority language-speaking peers. Their mainstream teacher is an important person in young second language learners’ school lives, as she or he will be their main lan- guage teacher and helper. Mainstream teachers possess varying degrees of knowledge about the language needs of second language learners. Some fortunate second language learners are given additional language and learning support by specialist teachers; for example ESL specialists in many English-speaking countries work with the mainstream teachers in various ways to provide language-based support to help ESL learners access the mainstream curriculum. Bilingual programmes for second language learners are those programmes that teach children in their first language or in both the first and the second language. The philosophy behind bilingual programmes is that children need to gain access to learning through their first language, often their stronger language, until they have developed the cognitive maturity and language ability that enables them to transfer this knowledge to the second language (Cummins, 1979). Second language learners are surrounded by the target language in their work and play at school and therefore have many more opportunities than foreign language learners to learn the language. But second language learners are expected to (and need to) make huge lan- guage learning gains almost immediately in the target language; they need the language to make friends and survive socially at school and they need the language to study the curriculum. Indeed they are often unre- alistically expected to use language in the classroom as efficiently as their majority language-speaking peers who have been learning the language since birth.
This brief overview of language programmes for young learners illus- trates that programmes differ in their purpose, their context, in the nature of their learners and the expectations of foreign and second language learning. In all these types of programmes, whether for foreign language or second language learners, teachers and assessors have
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something in common; they all need to assess the language of their young learners. In this book, teachers are foreign language teachers, classroom teachers and second language specialists who need to assess to inform their teaching decisions, to report on progress to others (as required by their Education Department) and to monitor growth over time. Assessors are those personnel who have testing expertise and are commissioned by schools, Education Departments and/or governments to develop and administer tests. The differences amongst the languages, the programmes, learner characteristic and assessment or testing purposes are very real; these differences can be addressed through a common, principled, framework approach to assessment. This book describes a framework-driven approach to assessment for young learn- ers. Every assessment decision is different; therefore teachers and asses- sors play a central role interpreting assessment principles and frameworks, basing their decisions on their knowledge of the particular programme and the particular characteristics of the learners to be assessed. Yet there are also many characteristics that young language learners share.
The special characteristics of young language learners
Children bring to their language learning their own personalities, likes and dislikes and interests, their own individual cognitive styles and capa- bilities and their own strengths and weaknesses. Multiple intelligence theory (Gardner, 1993) has suggested that children vary individually across eight types of intelligence – linguistic, musical, logical- mathematical, spatial, bodily kinesthetics, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic. Furthermore, because of differences in their socioeco- nomic, cultural and home background, children bring with them an experience and knowledge of the world that is individual. Thus, with regard to individuality, children are no different from older learners. Their individuality is, however, linked to the special characteristics that are discussed below. These characteristics of children set them apart from older learners. These characteristics fall into three general cate- gories: growth, literacy and vulnerability. Since understanding of these differences is central to effective assessment, I will describe these in some detail. The descriptions are indicative only, since children develop at varying and individual rates and in ways influenced by background experiences.
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Cognitive, social and emotional, and physical growth
The general assessment literature is designed for what Bialystok (2001) has called the ‘stable state’ of the adult mind. However, children are in a state of constant cognitive, social, emotional and physical growth. They have a limited but growing experience of the world. The following descriptions of the cognitive, social and emotional and physical characteristics of young learners are a general representation only; it is not possible to describe exactly the characteristic or the approximate age at which it occurs. Cognitive growth characteristics present clear differences between young learners and adults. The attention span of young learners in the early years of schooling is short, as little as 10 to 15 minutes; they are easily diverted and distracted by other pupils. They may drop out of a task when they find it difficult, though they are often willing to try a task in order to please the teacher. As children progress from 5 years old to 12 years old, they are developing abilities to think in new ways and are moving towards being able to reason in a systematic and logical fashion in adolescence. Children are novices as they learn, with help from others, to become more expert in solving problems, in reading and in many more activities.
At first there seems to be too much to concentrate on at once and if we focus on one part, we lose control of another. But once we have mastered it, everything seems to fit together smoothly, we can perform efficiently and flexibly. The skills become more and more automatic and as this happens, progressively more of our attention becomes freed so we can begin to focus on new information, for example other aspects of the task. (Shorrocks, 1995, p. 267)
In early elementary grades, from ages five to seven, children are continuing to learn from direct experience. They are developing their understanding of cause and effect (‘I can have a pet if I take care of it.’) They are continuing to expand their use of their first language to clarify thinking and learning. Their understanding of words like ‘tomorrow’ or ‘yesterday’ is developing, but they may still be unsure about length of time. They are developing the ability to count and to organize information to remember it (Puckett and Black, 2000). Before they are eight years old, children do not find it easy to use language to talk about language. The language children need to talk about and understand talk about grammar and discourse (known as meta- language) does not come until this age and upwards.
As children move into upper elementary grades they move towards more objective thought, being able to recognize, for example, that three
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or four children can have three or four different interpretations of a single cloud formation in the sky (Slavin, 1994). They are still gaining understanding from direct experience – through objects and visual aids. At 11 to 13 years of age, they are beginning to develop the ability to ‘manip- ulate’ thoughts and ideas, but even at this age still need hands-on experi- ences. Their use of language has expanded to enable them to predict, hypothesize and classify. They are continuing to expand their under- standing of cause and effect and are developing a sense of metaphor and puns and by around eleven to thirteen can understand double meaning in jokes. Their understanding of time has developed by 12 years of age to the point where they can talk about recent events, plans for the future and career aspirations (Puckett and Black, 2000). A small percentage of chil- dren in the upper elementary years are moving into what Piaget called the formal operational stage, when they begin to hypothesize, build abstract categories and handle more than two variables at a time. Their interpreta- tion of symbols in stories and art becomes less literal and their under- standing of abstract social concepts, such as democracy, becomes more sophisticated. Most children move into this stage during secondary school (Slavin, 1994).
The cognitive development of bilingual learners has been the subject of much research over many years (Bialystok and Hakuta, 1999; Bialystok, 2001; Cummins, 2001a), but, despite this, Bialystok (2001) points out that the research literature on the development of bilingual children is thin and suggests this is because of the difficulty of doing research in the area. In an early summary of research findings, Cummins wrote the following:
Recent research findings indicate that access to two languages in early childhood can accelerate the development of both verbal and non-verbal abilities. There is also evidence of a positive association between bilingualism and both cognitive flexibility and divergent thinking. (Cummins, 2001, p. 51)
In a more recent account, Bialystok (2001) finds that there are some cog- nitive processes, namely attention and inhibition, that develop earlier and possibly more strongly in bilinguals, contributing to metalinguistic awareness and language learning. But Bialystok points us to advantages that go beyond those found in specific cognitive processes.
For the most part, the cognitive and linguistic differences between bilingual and monolingual children who are otherwise similar turn out to be small. Some may even consider that the differences that have been established are arcane and trivial. But that would be to
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miss the point. The development of two languages in childhood turns out to be a profound event that ripples through the life of that individual. (Bialystok, 2001, p. 247–8)
Bilingual children not only experience and learn to master the social conventions and conversational styles of at least two languages. Their bilingual experiences ‘challenge their world views and social identity’ (Bialystok, 2001) and possibly give them different and broader perspectives on events and people around them. The cognitive development of bilingual learners is qualitatively different in these ways, even though they follow the generally expected steps in cognitive development outlined above.
Knowledge of children’s cognitive stage of development is important for the effective assessment of young language learners. The cognitive demand of tasks should be commensurate with children’s age-related abil- ities. Young learners are unlikely to see the ‘whole’ in a complex task that spans several parts. Older children, however, can see and enjoy some kind of coherence across parts in tasks if the parts are connected within a the- matic or narrative approach. Assessment tasks should not extend beyond the child’s experience of the world; if children have never seen or talked about the sea or sandcastles, they may not be able to respond to the instructions in the input, regardless of the general language ability. Children should not be asked to analyse a picture or an idea or to describe a language rule – this type of abstract analysis is likely to be beyond most elementary learners’ cognitive ability. Assessment should take place in a quiet, calm setting that helps children to concentrate and not be distracted by noise or movement. These are just some of the kinds of actions and deci- sions in language assessment that teachers and assessors make when they take account of the nature of their young learners’ cognitive development.
Children are also growing socially and emotionally as they are learning language in their elementary school years. They are gradually developing from a main interest in self towards greater social awareness. They are also developing a growing understanding of the self in relation to others and an ability to function in groups. Their need for love, security, recognition and belonging accompanies a gradual shift from dependence on adults to peer group support and approval. Socially, most children are gaining in confidence and reducing dependency as they progress through from 5 to 12 years of age. Children’s contact with their peers expands greatly during their school years. They learn to interact with peers, to deal with hostility and dominance, to relate to a leader, to lead others, to deal with social problems and to develop a concept of self. Between five and seven, they
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are learning to cooperate and share and take turns with others, which means that they are developing the ability to take part in small group tasks. They are beginning to develop feelings of independence but may become anxious when separated from familiar people and places. By the time they are around 11 years of age, children have become sociable, spending time with friends of the same sex. They are continuing to develop the ability to work and play with others. They may appear rela- tively calm, with short-lived moments of anger, sadness or depression. They are often able to hide feelings of anxiety; their behaviour may appear over-confident because of this. At this age, they are defining themselves in terms of their physical characteristics and their likes and dislikes. They are sensitive to criticism and their feelings of success or failure are dependent on how adults and peers respond to them.
The influence of the peer group may be stronger in some cultures than others, but the increasing influence of peer groups on a child’s motivations and interests from 5 to 12 is likely to influence the learner’s participation in different kinds of tasks. A task that requires a 12-year-old child to stand up and perform alone, for example, would not ensure that all learners were going to participate or if they did, some would be able to do the task only with a high degree of nervousness. From around 7 years of age, right up until 12, children continue to prefer to play in same-sex groups, enjoy team games and may show a strong sense of loyalty to their group or team. Characteristics of sharing and cooperating, of being assertive and of fitting into the society they live in are social skills that vary from culture to culture and generation to generation (Phillips, 1993). Children need to be helped to learn appropriate social skills, particularly if they are in a new culture. Children in a second language context react to their new situation in many different ways. A child with an outgoing personality most likely moves into groups quickly and subsequently learns the language faster; another may be more introvert and take more time to learn the language ( Wong Fillmore, 1976). Some children are traumatized by terrible events in their past or by the changes caused by migration to a new country and/or tran- sition to a new language and culture. Again children react differently depending on their personality and the nature of their experiences. Some are withdrawn; others extremely angry; others adapt well with care and consideration from others. Bilingual children’s experiences, their reac- tions to them and the reactions of others to their needs may influence their social development for several years.
Assessment should therefore, wherever possible, be familiar and involve familiar adults, rather than strangers. The environment should be
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‘psychologically safe’ for the learner. Texts used in assessment tasks should deal with familiar content – with home and family and school and with familiar, simple genres (culturally based forms of discourse that have distinctive forms of structure and are used to achieve particular communicative goals) like children’s stories and folktales. If the assess- ment situation permits, interlocutor support should be available to encourage the children, remind them, keep them on track as they com- plete the task. Immediate feedback is valuable – thus computer assess- ment tasks that give immediate responses (with sounds and visual effects) and teachers responding kindly to the child’s efforts, are ideal for young learners. Such feedback maintains attention and confidence. As children grow they are able to work more independently and for long spans of time without ongoing feedback.
Children’s physical growth is characterized by continuing and rapid development of gross and fine-motor skills. From 5 to 7 years of age, chil- dren are developing in their ability to move around (climb, balance, run and jump) and are increasing their fine-motor skills (handling writing tools, using scissors), which involve developments in hand–eye coordin- ation. As development progresses, children can progress towards holding thinner pens, drawing finer pictures and building intricate models. At this age they are still very active, tiring easily and recovering quickly. Important for many school activities, children tire more easily from sitting than from running. They usually love physical activities, which they often participate in noisily and sometimes aggressively. Young learners around this age have a need to play and to engage in fantasy and fun. They are often enthusiastic and lively. By the time they are 9 to 12 years of age, children are still developing hand–eye coordination, but they are better coordinated than seven- or eight-year-olds. These abilities continue to develop on into secondary school. Their large muscle coordination is also continuing to develop, so that they have shown gradual increase in speed and accuracy during running, climbing, throwing and catching activities. Boys can be 12 to 18 months behind girls in physical development in the later years of elementary school. Physical development needs to be taken into account in language assessment tasks, perhaps particularly with regard to tiredness, ability to sit still and hand–eye coordination. Assessment tasks that involve physical activity to accompany the language-related response – moving, pointing, circling or colouring in a picture – are helpful to encourage young learners to complete the task, especially for children in the early grades. Children in upper elementary classes are more able to respond without this type of requirement.
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Teachers and assessors therefore need deep knowledge of children’s development – their cognitive, social and emotional and physical growth – in order to be able to select and construct the most appropri- ate assessment tasks and to give appropriate feedback. For example, assessment tasks may need careful introduction (recall of previous knowledge; reminder of vocabulary needed) before children can proceed to show what they are able to do with language. In another example, children’s interests and concentration spans determine the kinds of tasks (the use of colourful pictures; a short, interesting story) that motivate them to complete the task.
Literacy
A vital dimension of difference for young learners, compared with most older learners, is that they are learning literacy skills and understandings at the same time as they are learning their target language. They may be doing this in their first language and continuing to develop literacy, in parallel, in their foreign language or they may be learning the bulk of their literacy in their second language.
The general expectations of literacy development for first language learners are summarized in Table 1.1. A defining characteristic of literacy development is that children have first to develop understandings about how reading and writing work and that these develop over several years, beginning before they start school. These understandings establish the foundation for literacy. For example, as skills of decoding and whole word recognition and knowledge of discourse organization begin to develop, children’s reading is slow and deliberate at first; then they develop abilities to read aloud and silently and an ability to read for information and for pleasure. Messages are conveyed through writing in the early years with the help of drawing, the development of writing is determined by progress in fine-motor skills, in children’s ability to remember words and spelling and to combine words in sentences and paragraphs. By the time children are between 7 and 9, they are beginning to self-correct and are beginning to convey meaning only through writing. Their writing skills continue to develop, until by the end of their elementary years they are able to write in ways that expand their thinking and to write in the required form or genre for the particular purpose for which they are writing. By 11 to 13, children are able to read a variety of fiction and nonfiction and importantly, to develop critical literacy skills, that is, to understand that people may
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Table 1.1 Widely Held Expectations of Literacy Development (Extract from Table 3.4, Puckett and Black, 2000, p.100)
5–7 years 7–9 years 9–11 years 11–13 years
Are continuing to develop a Begin to understand and use Can expand thinking more Continue to expand thinking more sense of how writing and writing and reading for specific readily through writing and readily through writing and reading work purposes reading reading
Combine drawing and writing May combine drawing and Continue to increase Continue to increase silent reading to convey ideas writing, but writing can stand reading vocabulary rate and time spent at reading
alone to convey meaning Understand that print ‘tells’ Continue to self-correct Continue to increase ability to the story Develop a rapidly increasing errors adjust rate and reading to suit
vocabulary of sight words purpose (skim, scan, select, study) Develop a basic vocabulary Read silently with increased of personal words Begin to self-correct errors speed and comprehension Continue to broaden their interests
(Silent reading speed greater in a variety of fiction and non-fiction Read slowly and deliberately Develop the ability to read than oral speed may result in
silently oral reading difficulties) Begin to understand that people Will substitute words that may interpret the same material in make sense when reading Increase ability to read aloud Adjust reading rate to suit different ways
fluently and with expression purpose (scanning)
Expand reading skills to gather information from a variety of sources. Make personal choices in reading for pleasure
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interpret material in different ways and that there may be a variety of assumptions and purposes behind material they read.
The outline of expected progress in Table 1.1 presumes that children have commenced reading and writing between five and seven with well-developed oral abilities in their first language. First language learners are able to build on their oral language to read and write. Foreign language learners bring a background of literacy development in their first language to their language learning. Their skills in literacy in the foreign language build on their developing first language literacy understanding and skills but are dominated by a lack of oral knowledge of the foreign language. Many young second language learners have not had an opportunity to develop first language literacy skills and are therefore learning literacy in their second language, compounding the challenge of second language learning. Hence, not only do these children not have literacy understand- ing and skills, they do not have oral knowledge of the new language.
Oral language underpins literacy development for children learning literacy skills in their first language. Throughout their elementary school years, they are increasing their ability to interact conversation- ally with a range of people, in different situations, with different goals and on different topics. They are able to talk about familiar topics about the home, family and school when they begin school, with topics broad- ening to the wider world as they grow and their experience of the world widens. They are increasingly able to talk in longer stretches of inter- actions and engage in different types of talk beyond narratives and descriptions, for example in instructions, arguments and opinions. They are also increasing their ability to engage in extended talk, which requires greater cognitive and linguistic abilities than conversational interaction, especially when a supportive interlocutor is usually present. For foreign language learners, literacy knowledge from their first language is available to assist them to handle reading and writing in the language, though a different script can negate this advantage. For second language learners, too, literacy knowledge from the first lan- guage can assist them to acquire high levels of reading comprehension in the second language (Bialystok, 2001).
The developing first and second language literacy of young learners ensures that young learner assessment will always require special consid- eration. Assessors need knowledge of the pathways of literacy develop- ment in the first language and its conflicting as well as constructing influence on literacy in the second language. They need to know about the pathways of foreign/second language literacy and its interface with oral
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language learning in the foreign/second language. This knowledge has importance for the appropriate choice of tasks (e.g, the texts that are used for reading; the expectations in writing) and particularly for judgments about the nature of progress over time or of performance in a task.
Vulnerability
Whilst many older learners are vulnerable to criticism or failure, young learners have a particular vulnerability that requires careful attention. For the most part young learners have confidence in their own abilities, if they have received love and support in the past. However, at this age, children have a heightened sensitivity to praise, criticism and approval and their self-esteem is strongly influenced by experiences at school. Children need experiences that help them to succeed, to feel good about themselves. These experiences can help them maintain their enthusiasm and creativ- ity. A lack of a positive self-concept can result in loss of motivation, loss of self-esteem and can sometimes have long-term consequences. Even the smallest failure can cause a child to feel worthless. When young learners are assessed, it is important that children experience overall success and a sense of progression. Healthy adults, on the other hand, have developed a general sense of worth that can withstand failure in an assessment task and they can see the broader picture; most can see how the result fits into the present and the future (I can do something else; I can try again). This is difficult for young learners who tend to judge themselves on their accomplishments, rather than on a general sense of worth (Slavin, 1994).
Rates of development may vary markedly among children. Individual children may also vary in their own development: that is, a child may develop quite rapidly physically, but quite slowly in the social and emo- tional sphere. The implication of the reality of variable growth amongst children is that it is likely that assessment procedures designed for broad groups of young learners are not appropriate for all children. Some chil- dren may do badly or fail because they have not progressed at the same rate as most children in their age group, for example in their cognitive development and literacy skills development.
The fact that individual patterns of development exist should con- stantly ring warning bells for teachers and assessors of young learners. Observation-based assessment helps to determine the developmental phase that children are entering or consolidating and to target assess- ment appropriately. If this is not feasible, extreme care needs to be taken
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to ensure that there is some flexibility in assessment (e.g., tasks catering for all levels; passes for all at different levels) so that a degree of success can be experienced by all children.
The beliefs and practices of elementary education
Effective assessment of young learners is integrally tied to the principles of learning adopted within the curriculum in which the children are learn- ing. If the underlying pedagogic principles of assessment and learning are not aligned, this would indicate a serious problem with the assessment procedures being used. Across different cultures, there are variations in beliefs and practices in young learner programmes (Feeney, 1992; Alexander, 2000). These differences are tied to the ideas and values, habits and customs and world views of the country or region (Alexander, 2000). This section summarizes just some central themes in elementary educa- tion in the Western tradition. These themes align with the idea of language use assessment promoted in this book. Many of these principles of elem- entary education also underpin the teaching of young learners in other cultures and therefore will be familiar to many readers.
Elementary school teaching, that is, early childhood and middle school teaching, is based on principles of child growth and development. Because children develop cognitively, socially and emotionally and phys- ically at different rates and because they develop differently depending on their experiences, children are viewed as individuals, with individual needs in each of these areas. Pye (1988) refers to children’s emotional needs in the following statement:
a teacher treats a pupil as an interesting and unpredictable individ- ual, not as an inhabitant of convenient generality. Pupils will gain from teachers with whom they make close relationships, time, patience and regard. But most important of all, they will gain from being acknowledged as not wholly known, as able to surprise.
(Pye, 1988, p. 16)
In elementary education and most particularly in early childhood educa- tion, it is believed that the characteristics of each child should be known and that the child should be taught with knowledge of the combination of all of these characteristics ( Jalongo, 2000; Kershner, 2000). Some children need privacy and space for reflection; others need structured group work to help them to become integrated more into the social interactions in the
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classroom. Children have individual learning styles. Some are mature enough to handle some types of tasks and others are not. Bilingual chil- dren have particular strengths and motivations that influence their par- ticipation and success. The extent to which teachers are able to know and to cater for each child’s individual needs depends on a number of factors including the size of the class and the ability of the teacher to manage multiple goals through diverse groupings in the classroom.
It is generally believed in elementary education that each teacher should take some responsibility for the development of the whole child, that is, for the child’s cognitive, social and emotional and physical devel- opment. Thus when making decisions about assessment tasks, language teachers and assessors need to know of the developmental characteris- tics of children, for example their curiosity and sense of wonder, their eagerness to test and practise their own powers and their fascination with words and delight in rhythm, music and movement. They need to under- stand the cultural backgrounds of children, their skills and abilities in their first language and the range of experiences and knowledge they bring to their foreign and second language learning. When language teachers are assessing through observation in the classroom, they need to observe children’s many developing abilities, for example, in pencil- holding, in problem-solving and in group social skills as they engage in learning activities. The cognitive, social and emotional and physical char- acteristics of the whole child have an impact on language learning and therefore need to be monitored and, where necessary, addressed.
Theories of learning in elementary education have moved from under- standings that learning centres on the individual’s efforts, constructing knowledge through individual mental growth as a consequence of indi- vidual interaction with experience (Piaget, 1930) to a view of construc- tivist learning, in which knowledge is not constructed so much by the isolated learner but by the social group ( Vygotsky, 1962). In constructivist education, children’s learning skills are promoted; children are encour- aged to become active learners, becoming aware of their own needs, their own strengths and weaknesses and taking some responsibility for their own learning. Children learn through a two-way communication of ideas with other people, with other children, with peers and with teachers. They try their ideas out for size through talking with others in a social mode of thinking (Mercer, 1994). In this philosophy, children are encour- aged to become responsible for their own learning through the use of assessment contracts from time to time, in which they work through a list of tasks in their own time (see Chapter 5 for an example).
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Learning in the elementary years is therefore seen as a reciprocal activ- ity between students, teachers and also with parents. It is also seen as an active process, in which children interact with others and also with their environment and concrete materials within it. Language plays a central role in the learning process; thinking depends on these active, jointly constructed processes and children learn through the use of language since they are predisposed to make sense of themselves, other people and the environment around them (Urquhart, 2000). Teachers set up condi- tions that allow children to discover things for themselves and they plan activities that give children direct, concrete experiences requiring them to act rather than expecting them to sit and listen, read and write. They refer to children’s wider experiences out of school when explaining curriculum topics and elicit ideas from children rather than telling them directly. Teachers and assessors who subscribe to a constructivist philosophy of learning expect to see active learners engaged with the assessment task in front of them and to see creative and new uses of lan- guage in their assessment responses. They set tasks that encourage active and creative response, hoping for and looking for more than a ‘correct answer’ in the child’s work. They provide scaffolding support. Elementary teachers are very familiar with the concept of scaffolding, a means by which they can give children cognitive and language support, by talking through a task with children and thus helping them to learn.
[Scaffolding] is not just any assistance which helps a learner accom- plish a task. It is help which will enable a learner to accomplish a task which they would not have been quite able to manage on their own and it is help which is intended to bring the learner closer to a state of competence which will enable them eventually to complete such a task on their own . . . To know whether or not some help counts as ‘scaffolding’ we would need to have at the very least some evidence of a teacher wishing to enable a child to develop a specific skill, grasp a particular concept or achieve a particular level of understanding.
(Maybin, Mercer and Stierer, 1992, p.188 )
In current theories of elementary education, knowledge is not only the recall of certain (prescribed) facts, although this is important. Knowledge also involves the processes which relate to that knowledge and a growing understanding of successively higher orders in relationships ( Whitebread, 2000). Gaining knowledge involves a continuous process and learning takes place when children have the opportunity to visit and revisit the knowledge in new contexts and over time. Meadows (1993) has
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written that children are more likely to be able to transfer understandings or processes from one task to another when:
• the skill or procedure has been thoroughly learned • the learner encounters a range of examples with a common struc-
ture but different irrelevant characteristics • the abstract rule is made explicit • the new task ‘appears’ similar to the old task
(Meadows, 1993, in Whitebread, 2000, p. 149)
As learning takes place over time, concepts are refined and awareness of relationships between concepts is extended. New knowledge gained is based on the child’s present understanding and on his or her previous experience. Thus children’s culturally based knowledge and experience has a profound influence on their learning.
Principles and understandings about children’s learning underpin approaches to language assessment in the elementary school. They are present in each move teachers and assessors make, for example, when they are engaged in assessment as part of their moment-to-moment teaching and when they are selecting assessment tasks and developing assessment criteria for more formal assessment procedures. The lan- guage assessment principles and practices that are presented in this book are built on the foundation of elementary education and interpret- ations of the ideas in this book into actual assessment procedures require professional knowledge of the principles and practices of elem- entary education.
The power of assessment on young learners’ lives
Assessment has the power to change people’s lives (Shohamy, 2001). The effect of assessment may be positive or negative, depending on a number of factors, ranging from the way the assessment procedure or test is constructed, to the way it is used. Effective assessment proced- ures (which this book aims to help teachers and assessors to produce) are assessments that have been designed to ensure, as far as possible, valid and fair information on the student’s abilities and progress. The meaning of ‘valid’ and ‘fair’ is addressed in more detail in Chapter 4; briefly, valid assessments are those that measure what they are sup- posed to measure; fair assessments are those that provide meaningful and appropriate information about a child’s language use ability and
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avoid bias against any child because of that child’s characteristics (first language and cultural background, age, gender, etc.). Effective assess- ment gives educators feedback in the teaching and learning process, informing the next teaching decision and giving guidance on how stu- dents should be optimally placed, for example, in the next grade level. Effective assessment provides valuable information to administrators on the achievement of cohorts of students and on whether schools are successfully delivering the curriculum. With this knowledge they are able to make decisions about the allocation of resources (usually teach- ers and funding) to different schools. Parents rely on assessment to know how their children are moving ahead and how their achievement compares with the expected rate of progress of their peers. And above all, effective assessment gives students knowledge of their own progress, giving them feedback on what they have done well or perhaps misunderstood and from time to time providing some ‘creative tension’ to motivate them to study harder.
However, assessment is not always effective and it can play a subver- sive role in the lives of children. Assessment is able to establish power relationships (between teachers and students; between administrators and principals) that become established and habitual (Foucault, 1979). Assessment is able to establish and maintain social position, if it is designed in such a way that it favours the privileged in society, perpetu- ating the status quo. For example, the failure caused by a child’s lower socioeconomic status (involving probably a lack of knowledge of school language and culture) is perpetuated through tests that do not take account of diverse backgrounds. Assessment procedures are therefore able to carry with them and maintain the culture (the language, the knowledge, the ways of being) of the established group. Second language learners in countries around the world are often caught in this position. In some countries where English is not the first language but is spoken in government service and powerful businesses, children who speak English at home (usually from elite homes) are able to succeed in English exams at school. Thus in these situations assessment perpetuates the position of those in power.
Teachers and assessors (including those developing large-scale tests) of young learners need to examine the assessment tasks and procedures they construct, to work to become aware of and if possible to redress, institutionalized power of this kind in assessment and to ensure that the impact on the child, the community, the teacher and school and the learning programme is positive.
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Assessment terms and purposes
There are many reasons why young language learners might be assessed and there are a variety of different people interested in the results of their assessment. The decisions that need to be made determine the purpose for the assessment procedure and this in turn determines the kind of informa- tion that is needed from the assessment procedure. Thus, for example, when teachers need to make decisions about what to teach next, the purpose for the assessment procedure is to assess whether students have achieved the curriculum objectives so far and the information that is required is data on their performance in relation to the objectives. The stakeholders in the assessment procedure, that is, anyone affected by the assessment proce- dure itself or by the decisions made that are based on the results of the assessment procedure – parents, students themselves, teachers, principals, administrators – may require different kinds of information depending on who they are and on what their interest is. Administrators, for example, require a summarized set of data about the student cohort. Teachers require as much detail about the performance as soon as possible, so that they can use the information to inform their teaching decisions.
Some decisions made on the basis of assessment results are low-stakes decisions. Low-stakes decisions are relatively minor and are relatively easy to correct. There is a low cost for making a wrong decision. High-stakes decisions, on the other hand, are likely to affect students’ lives and deci- sions are difficult to correct. The costs of making a wrong decision are high (see Bachman, 2004). Not only formal tests are high-stakes; many assess- ment procedures are more high-stakes for students than we think, since many decisions that teachers and schools make have a cumulative effect on students’ futures (Rea-Dickins and Gardner, 2000). Assessment might be informal or formal, though these terms are not concise in their meaning. Informal assessment usually refers to classroom assessment carried out during the course of the teaching and learning process. Formal assessment usually refers to assessment that is planned and carried out following formal procedures; for example, students are organized to do the assess- ment task without support or interruption and they then submit their work to the teacher for marking at a separate time. Assessment procedures may also be classroom-based or external. Classroom assessment is prepared and conducted by teachers in classrooms, whereas external assessment is prepared by those outside the classroom. Sometimes classroom assess- ment results are used to report to others who are interested in the children’s results. Sometimes an external test is prepared by those in a central educa-
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tion office and administered by schools. The purposes of both classroom and external tests can be tied to high-stakes decisions, especially if the results are used to select students or to compare achievement across schools (in order to evaluate the quality of the school or programme).
There are many different purposes for assessment. There are sometimes tensions between pedagogic purposes for assessment, aimed primarily at promoting learning and administrative purposes for assessment, aimed primarily at furnishing information about the performance of children and schools to Education Department administrators and others, who use this information for management and accountability purposes. These two purposes overlap to some degree; however, it has been found that adminis- trative purposes often tend to prevail over pedagogic purposes since high- stakes accountability and resource-allocation decisions inevitably impact strongly on children’s and teachers’ futures. For example, where teachers are held accountable for children’s achievements, based on external tests often tied to standards, it can happen that teachers train children to pass the test, rather than concentrate on the wider curriculum learning needs of the children.
Recently, curriculum standards have been introduced to help admin- istrators define the curriculum, monitor learner achievement and thus check accountability of teachers and schools. Standards are descriptions of curriculum outcomes, usually described in stages of progress. They may be content standards (describing what students should know and be able to do) or performance standards (describing how much or at what level students need to perform to demonstrate achievement of the content standard). Many standards combine both purposes in the one document. Achievement on standards is often measured through exter- nal tests, though data is sometimes also collected on achievement through teachers’ reports based on classroom assessment.
A common distinction in assessment is between formative and sum- mative assessment. These two types of assessment, traditionally thought of as different, may overlap, reflecting the tension between pedagogic and administrative purposes described above. Assessment is also used for placement, motivation and research purposes.
Formative assessment
Formative assessment is ongoing, usually informal, assessment during teaching and learning. Formative assessment gives teachers
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information about how well the student is doing. The teacher makes constant decisions about how to respond, based on the student’s response or the student’s work so far. The teacher is the one most inter- ested in the results of formative assessment; the data collected helps him or her to make further decisions about teaching. Formative assess- ment often involves diagnostic assessment, when teachers analyse learners’ specific strengths and weaknesses. Diagnostic assessment can also be planned and carried out through a special diagnostic pro- cedure. Commercially prepared diagnostic procedures are often used, for example, with young learners to assess their reading strengths and weaknesses. Formative assessment is predominately used for peda- gogic purposes, though increasingly, teachers are asked to observe chil- dren’s performance over time and from these observations devise a summative report. Thus the purpose behind formative assessment can possibly shift from involving low-stakes decisions to more high-stakes decisions. On-the-run assessment (a term adapted from Breen (1997)) refers to informal, instruction-embedded assessment that is formative in purpose and carried out by teachers in classrooms. On-the-run assessment involves teachers in observation and immediate feedback, usually of individual learners, as they teach. Planned assessment may be formative, helping the teacher to target specific observations or plan language use tasks to check if children have achieved the objectives along the way.
Summative assessment
At the end of a course of study, a teacher and others too, want to know how a student has progressed during a period of study. This information is needed not only to measure what has been learned during the course, but also to report to others about achievement. This is summative assess- ment, which usually takes place at the end of a school term or school year. Summative assessment may be based on results of internal or external tests or on a teacher’s summative decisions after observations of the child’s performance made during the year. Stakeholders become more involved at this point. Parents want to know how the child has progressed and perhaps how he or she compares with others. School administrators want to know how individuals and classes have progressed. Education departments want to know how schools and districts have progressed and may be required to report this information to a central government
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authority. Summative results may be made public and may be used for comparisons with past and future results. A child’s acceptance into the next level of schooling may rest on their summative results. Therefore the stakes can be raised high in summative assessment and careful consider- ation is needed of the validity and reliability of the assessment proced- ures used to come to decisions.
Assessment for placement purposes
When children enter a new school or classroom, assessment procedures are used for placement, that is, to place them in the most appropriate class or group. Assessment for placement of young learners may involve an interview, a short reading session and a writing task. Since teachers are able to continue to check children’s abilities further as they teach, the initial decision can be confirmed (or otherwise) as time goes on. In most elementary school situations, teachers teach to meet a range of different learning abilities and therefore placement in one class or another is not critical. However, placement assessment might involve high stakes; when the placement decision is fixed and children are wrongly placed (perhaps in the wrong year level), then this can have a major impact on children’s lives.
Assessment to encourage and motivate
Assessment can also encourage and motivate learners. Teachers and assessors of young learners have found ways to structure assessment procedures to encourage children by showing them what they have learned and to give positive feedback, motivating them to succeed. They ‘bias for best’ (Swain, 1985), making sure that the tasks are appropriate and motivating and give some indication of success, however small. Large-scale external tests for young learners can motivate by using, for example, two or three shield rewards rather than pass–fail results (see details of the Cambridge Young Learner English Test in Chapter 9). However, internal and external assessment can also discourage and demotivate. It requires knowledge of child development, child language learning and (in the classroom) knowledge of the individual child to incorporate and maintain a purpose of encouragement and motivation into assessment.
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Assessment for research
Assessment is also carried out for the purposes of research. Children’s performance is measured to inform researchers about the nature of second language ability and acquisition and the rate and order of acqui- sition of particular areas of language knowledge (Bachman and Palmer, 1996). Research into the role of assessment in the classroom learning process also relies on information about the assessment decisions of teachers to advance knowledge in the area.
Summary
Young language learners are learning a foreign language or a second lan- guage and are doing so in a number of different kinds of language pro- grammes around the world. A special approach to the assessment of young language learners is needed because of the special characteristics of growth, literacy and vulnerability that children bring to language learn- ing and assessment. Children are growing cognitively, socially, emotion- ally and physically. They are developing literacy knowledge, skills and understandings that may or may not be transferred from their first lan- guage; young children take some time to develop in this way and most are still doing so as they begin to learn the new language at school. In add- ition, children are vulnerable to criticism or failure, more than older learn- ers who in general are able to draw on a sense of worth that can withstand failure in an assessment task. Older learners are in a more stable state in this regard and therefore assessors do not need to take into account the age-related and individual features of growth in the same way as assessors of young learners. Most adults have mature literacy knowledge and skills when they learn their new language. Differences such as these warrant a special approach to the language assessment of young learners.
The beliefs and practices of elementary education underpin any educational endeavour with young children, including assessment. Elementary education is based on principles of child growth and devel- opment, recognizing that children develop at different rates and bring different experiences, learning styles and emotions to their learning. In constructivist theories, children learn through active engagement with their environment and with others and are encouraged to become cre- ative and reflective learners. Language plays a central role in the learning process. Current theories in elementary education also suggest that
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knowledge entails not only the recall of certain facts, but also the processes that relate to that knowledge. New knowledge is gained through a refined awareness of relationships between concepts and is based on a child’s present understanding and on past experiences. Theories of elementary education necessarily underpin teachers’ and assessors’ decision-making in language assessment.
Assessment has the power to change children’s lives; the effect of assess- ment may be positive or negative. Effective assessment provides valuable information to educators, parents, administrators and students them- selves. The power of assessment is wielded both explicitly and implicitly within society. Young learners are particularly vulnerable in their forma- tive years to assessment that sends messages of worth and status and that thus perpetuates power relationships in society. Teachers and assessors are obliged to examine the impact of their assessment on young learners and to work towards a positive impact for the present and future.
The next chapter describes how children learn a foreign or second lan- guage and presents a framework of the components of language use ability needed to make informed decisions about young learner language assessment.
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