Learning English as a foreign language in any formal education context requires opportunities for learners and teachers to give and receive feedback on the teaching learning process as it is happening. These opportunities could be created via various in-class activities specifically designed for this purpose. Teachers who create and use these diagnostic opportunities effectively detect what learners need in a timely fashion, and provide remedial teaching in the right time and mode, so that chances can be created for learners to improve their learning. There is no one universally accepted way of how to do this, however, with various approaches for collecting, analyzing and reviewing data for this purpose. This book encapsulates the unbreakable relationship between teaching, learning and assessment through a range of articles which scrutinize assessment from a wide spectrum, ranging from the role of assessment in language learning to ELT teacher assessment literacy, from the use of technology in classroom-based assessment to practicing teachers’ reflections on their teacher classroom action research, and from the role of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) to empirical data analysis.

Many English language learners (ELLs) require extra support to become successful writers. This book helps teachers understand the unique needs of ELLs and promote their achievement by adapting the effective instructional methods they already know. Engaging and accessible, the book features standards-based lesson planning ideas, examples of student work, and 15 reproducible worksheets, rubrics, and other useful materials. It describes ways to combine instruction in core skills with ample opportunities to write and revise in different genres. Invaluable guidance is provided for assessing ELLs' writing development at different grade levels and language proficiency levels. This book will be valuable for teachers in general education and ESL classrooms; literacy specialists and coaches; graduate students in literacy and ESL programs. It will also serve as a text in graduate-level courses such as Writing Instruction, Teaching English Language Learners, and Teaching English as a Second Language.

This book provides teachers with an entirely new approach to developing and using classroom-based language assessments. This approach is based on current theory and practice in the field of language assessment and on an understanding of the assessment needs of classroom teachers. The following key questions are addressed: • Why do I need to assess? What beneficial consequences do I want to help bring about? How can my assessments help my students learn better and help me improve my teaching? • When and how often do I need to assess? What decisions do I need to make to help bring about these beneficial consequences? • What do I need to assess? How can I define the abilities that I want to assess? • How can I assess my students? What kinds of assessment tasks should I create? How can I score my students’ responses to these tasks? The authors guide the reader step-by-step through the process of developing and using classroom-based assessments with clear explanations and definitions of key terms, illustrative examples, and activities for applying the approach in practice. Extra resources are available on the website: www.oup.com/elt/teacher/lact Lyle Bachman is Professor Emeritus of Applied Linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He serves as a consultant in language testing research projects and in developing language assessments for universities and government agencies around the world, and he conducts courses and training workshops in language assessment. Barbara Damböck was Director of Studies of the English Department at the Teacher Training Academy in Dillingen, Germany, from 2003 to 2011. From 2003 to 2017 she supervised the training of oral examiners for the certification examination for elementary school English teachers in Bavaria. She has extensive experience as a classroom teacher, teacher trainer, and teacher of teacher trainers. She conducts courses and workshops for teachers and teacher trainers around the world.

Building on current theoretical and practical frameworks for English language assessment and testing, this book presents a comprehensive, up-to-date, relevant picture of English language assessment for students in China (Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) and for Chinese learners of English around the world.

The significant challenges faced by English Language Learners (ELLs) become greater during the middle and high school years, when they must learn more abstract academic concepts with emergent English language skills and differing levels of background knowledge. To meet these challenges, ELLs need immediate feedback about how the development of their language abilities interacts with their academic performance; and teachers need practical strategies to help ELLs develop the specific content and language abilities necessary for success. In Formative Language Assessment for English Learners, the research team of Rita MacDonald, Timothy Boals, Mariana Castro, H. Gary Cook, Todd Lundberg, and Paula A. White demonstrates what good language assessment for formative purposes is, explains the cycle of formative language assessment, and shows how it unfolds stage by stage in a school setting. Based on a five-year collaborative project with middle and high school teachers in three major school districts, the book presents a process for: Weaving a language focus into content lessons Analyzing students' language from writing samples to help them broaden their linguistic choices Creating active partnerships with students as they learn and practice new ways to use English. When classrooms are defined by effective language assessment for formative purposes, they become dynamic spaces in which teachers can use that information to plan clear, attainable steps to increase student learning, and students develop deeper understandings of both academic content and academic language. Formative Language Assessment for English Learners provides practical strategies to implement a unique process for formative assessment that can truly change classroom practice. This team of authors works together at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and have collaborated on formative language assessment for English Language Learners through their work for WIDA (World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment), a 36-state consortium that supports academic language development for linguistically diverse students through standards, assessment, research, and professional development.

This practical resource book will familiarize teachers, staff developers, and administrators with the latest thinking on alternatives to traditional assessment. It will prepare them to implement authentic assessment in the ESL/bilingual classroom and to incorporate it into instructional planning.

English Language Proficiency Assessments for Young Learners provides both theoretical and empirical information about assessing the English language proficiency of young learners. Using large-scale standardized English language proficiency assessments developed for international or U.S. contexts as concrete examples, this volume illustrates rigorous processes of developing and validating assessments with considerations of young learners’ unique characteristics. In this volume, young learners are defined as school-age children from approximately 5 to 13 years old, learning English as a foreign language (EFL) or a second language (ESL). This volume also discusses innovative ways to assess young learners’ English language abilities based on empirical studies, with each chapter offering stimulating ideas for future research and development work to improve English language assessment practices with young learners. English Language Proficiency Assessments for Young Learners is a useful resource for students, test developers, educators, and researchers in the area of language testing and assessment.

This book provides interdisciplinary perspectives on task-based language teaching (TBLT) and task-based language assessment (TBLA) in English as a second language (ESL) context. It discusses theoretical and experimental insights of TBLT and TBLA from cognitive, cognitive linguistic, and psycholinguistic viewpoints. The chapters, written by leading language teaching specialists in the field, introduce the reader to a comprehensive range of issues related to TBLT and TBLA such as curriculum design, materials development, and classroom teaching & testing. With interdisciplinary appeal, the book is a valuable resource for researchers in task-based language teaching and assessment. It is equally useful for teachers to whom it offers practical suggestions for designing tasks for teaching and testing.

This classroom-ready resource provides teachers in grades K-8 with specific assessments that can be administered to English language learners within the regular classroom. Long overdue and with a focus on the needs of English language learners (ELLs) within the classroom, Instructional Assessment of English Language Learners is a unique book designed to teach readers the basic concepts of assessing English. Today's education courses place an increasing emphasis on the regular classroom teacher to instruct and assess English language learners. Yet, classroom teachers have few resources available to them in regard to assessing ELLs within their classrooms. This book helps readers master the assessments to be administered to English learners and cover a range of literacy skills deemed necessary for English language acquisition and reproduction, while also assessing the student's literacy skills in their primary language. The overarching goal of this book is to enable teachers to acquire a deep understanding of the value of instructional assessment for ELLs and the importance of evaluating the results to provide the students with immediate, appropriate and meaningful instruction. The book addresses the specific areas of language arts related to the development, acquisition, and reproduction of the English language: oral language development and vocabulary; concepts of print and the alphabetic strategies; word recognition and word identification strategies; reading fluency; reading comprehension; written language development and spelling; content area literacy; procedural knowledge; and problem-solving strategies. The strategies presented in this text are research-based and are known to increase reading comprehension for ELLs.

Because procedures are not in place in many schools and school districts to successfully determine academic placement of English language learners, many of these learners are placed inappropriately. Some who don't need special services (other than English as a second language) may find themselves in special education classes. Others who need special services may be placed in regular classes without the extra supports and services that they need. Working with English language learners and with students requiring special education services requires collaboration among teachers, school psychologists, speech pathologists, and assessment personnel with expertise in general, bilingual, and special education.