Epilogue

Eric Dwyer

Miami, Florida

Because of the CELLA, I lost eight full days of instructional time with my lowest quartile of kids.

—teacher quote from Candace Harper, Lauren Gibson, YaYu Ho, Karla LaCayo, and Jiao Li’s “Understanding the CELLA: ESOL Educators’ Perspectives”

            As Florida ESL instructors engage in acronyms of other people’s power—namely NCLB, FCAT, and AYP—we need stronger voices illustrating a full spectrum of evaluation, yielding stronger and, yes hopefully, more reasonable decisions. To do so entails that we as a profession take a political stand however. While politics is not necessarily the initial motivator of this issue’s authors, a political stand is nevertheless an unintended result. To assess any in ethical way is in today’s Education a political stand. As a result, we have introduced you to several scholars who have inquired into how some of today’s assessments incorporate such humanistic consideration.

Idalís and Jamal both inquire into what we should do in light of mandates to put our students through high stakes tests. They examine the role of accommodations during high stakes tests such that our students are less negatively affected. Idalís resolves to teach well by indirectly addressing tests her employers require her to rehearse. She gives into their demands; however, she does so by orienting her teaching toward teaching rather than toward the test, working with students on skills she would introduce even if FCAT even didn’t exist in the first place. Jamal instead asks what these tests purport to test. He grounds his thoughts in the notion that high stakes tests are first and foremost language proficiency tests before they are tests on reading or math, as native speaking test writers would have us believe. In doing so, he offers changes in language that should reduce the level of indirect testing on language proficiency while hopefully elevating the level of validity without compromising reliability.

Jamal asks us to consider at least two prospects: 1) to make a better test. While he considers cultural bias, to alter a test in a single way would not be a means of eliminating bias—an exercise he may consider impossible in the first place. As a result, he takes a linguistic route—linguistic modification—attempting, instead,  to paraphrase testing items and instructions such that 1) ELLs have a more palatable time during these exams, and 2) test administrators are more secure in their presumption that their tests are valid and reliable for assessing ELLs’ reading and math abilities.

Jamal also suggests, much as Idalís does, that linguistic modification could be a principal feature of content-based ESL instruction, especially in mainstream classes. Certainly, a closer examination of linguistic modification could be a more central feature to our own professional development in terms of teacher training, curricular development in foreign language education Master’s programs, and ESL methodology textbooks. To do this, both Idalís and Jamal point to the linguistic intricacies themselves, namely that nebulous animal called academic language. Jamal names the vocabulary as that which is less frequent, while Idalís points to Averil Coxhead’s (2000) list of academic words and specifically names examples of using such. On the other hand, Jamal examines grammar and names a number of red-flagged constructions we could all pay more attention to, including passive voice constructions, comparative structures, negation, prepositional phrases, and numerous kinds of clauses.

            These are returns to viewing language instruction and testing from a bottom-up point of view. And while we should be grateful for these suggestions, we should be leery that we don’t become complacent, leaving out the more global and broad-based top-down aspects of literacy development.

Justin goes further than simply the vocabulary and grammatical components of assessment. He looks at discourse. Much as Jamal does with specific examples of adapted language, Justin looks at actual ELL speech in detail. Justin also introduces us to the role of the ELL teacher, asking us to trust ELL teachers as part of the assessment process. Justin gives us permission to respect our colleagues’ hunches, and he interestingly argues that doing so actually adds to the reliability of such assessment rather than detracting from it.

Chi-Hui, Ji Young, and Candace examine four new foreign language assessment texts, which delve into the realm of drawing attention away from exam reliability and focuses on students. If these texts are part of the public scope of assessment, we should be feeling, as proposed by both Jamal and Justin, that the humanization of language assessment is conceivably within reach. Certainly Chi-Hui, Ji Young, and Candace offer a collection of books that legitimize choice among various assessment configurations, most of which may be operated without a sense of normalizing. They challenge the notion that reliability in a single assessment can even be remotely satisfying. Instead, they imply that good decision making can only really be developed when multiple assessment measures reflect actual human experiences of actual human people.

Theoretically, we should want to be assessed. Chi-Hui, Ji Young, and Candace say the  “traditional definition of accuracy [now] include[s] sociopolitical consequences regarding ELLs’ right to learn.” Though no one here names such consequences overtly, the composite of these scholars’ voices, I feel, screams out that many of our current assessment practices are unethical.  Chi-Hui,  Ji Young, and Candace then call for equitable assessment as urgency. This issue is certainly not the first, nor do I suspect it will be the last, to showcase the canyon separating scholars concerned about current assessment practices and those who dictate them.

One ironic example comes from the data in the UF students’ CELLA study where a teacher said, “Because of the CELLA, I lost eight full days of instructional time with my lowest quartile of kids.” Clearly, this teacher is focused on the humans in his class and wants to spend quality instructional time with them. On the other hand, he refers to a section of them by the statistical term quartile. I believe this teacher’s comment is prototypical of our profession’s current approach to ELL assessment. It is certainly reflective of the approaches our authors express. Idalís commits to her approach in light of testing environments. Jamal tries to make a better test. Justin attempts to include an undervalued linguistic consideration.  Chi-Hui,  Ji Young, and Candace argue that washback should always considered as we implement various kinds of assessment in order to paint any appropriate picture of any student’s progress; however, they concede that administrative demands will most likely impede such. Finally, the UF graduate students report that teachers have lists of articulate complaints regarding the CELLA but are still somehow miraculously “generally satisfied with” it, particularly the Writing section. Authors here suggest that multiple measures of assessment are indeed preferable and that any assessment warrants a positive experience. However, no author here recommends simply doing away with multiple choice tests or any other distressing procedure.

            Unfortunately, what makes school and learning fun is not, I fear, a key component of this collection. As a result, I bring it up now. If we really believe, as Chi-Hui, Ji Young, and Candace point out, that positive washback is of utmost priority, then we must accept the pie-in-the-sky concept that any student should indeed look forward to any assessment in any enjoyable classroom. Thus, if our scholars here are reporting the condition of today’s assessment practices, we must worry that our best efforts are no better than simply “making the best of a difficult situation.” With that backdrop, to examine assessments with respect to its intricacies toward passing an exam, either linguistically or numerically, is to potentially strip teaching, learning, and assessment of any humanity. I do not suggest, even for a microsecond, that our contributors here intend to do so.

            On the contrary, our scholars here do offer substantial hope. Hopefully these articles offer resistance to bean-counting and exclusively numerical inquiry. Hopefully we may then look beyond the treatment of our students as mere statistics, not to become better assessors but to become better teachers. Naturally, assessment is part of teaching, but it is an approach of this issue’s contributors that assessment be an outcome and reflection of effective instruction rather than a loan instigator of it.

 ***

I wish to thank the following colleagues for their invaluable volunteer time and effort with respect to this collection:

Sylvia Boynton, University of Florida

José Carmona, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University

Sylvia Celedón-Pattichis, University of New Mexico

Ester DeJong, University of Florida

Keith Folse, University of Central Florida

John Graney, Santa Fe Community College

Sandra Hancock, University of Florida

Candace Harper, University of Florida

Teresa Lucas, Florida International University

Rashid Moore, Nova Southeastern University

Eleni Pappamihiel, University of North Carolina at Wilmington

Cinthia Salinas, University of Texas at Austin.

References

Coxhead, Averil. (2000). A New Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34(2), 213-238.

Author Bio

Eric Dwyer is an associate professor in Foreign Language Education at Florida International University in Miami.

Author Bio