The purpose of this paper is to design an assessment system for a relatively small elementary school that will measure whether English language learners are ready to exit from ESL-support services. Such an assessment system is important because of the way ESL children learn. As pointed out by Krashen (1997), children learn much in their first language and what is required is that they be able to transfer this learning to their second language. To achieve this, ESL learners require diverse instructional strategies and methods; however, schools also need to be able to identify when this transfer has occurred. This means schools need a high quality assessment system
The school for which the assessment program is designed is a relatively small elementary school with 423 students located in a rural area with a changing ethnic composition. Specifically, in the last few years, the area has shifted from primary African-American and Caucasians (mostly poor) to a majority of Mexican-American families, necessitating that the school increasingly make adjustments for ESL students. Students range in age from six to ten years of age. Currently, the ethnic composition of the school is: African-American 13 percent; Mexican American 56 Percent; Caucasian and Other 31 percent. There are 15 classroom teachers and five administrative staff members. All teachers have their degrees and they are teaching in the areas in which they are certified. Several teachers are currently working on their English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) endorsements.
Purpose of the Designed Assessment Program
The school has had to make several adjustments to accommodate its ESL students in the last couple of years and many students have been assigned to support services. However, there is no formal assessment system for establishing precisely when students are ready to exit ESL-support services. The purpose of this paper is to design such a system for the scho...