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    Chapter 12: Assessment for Placement

      Ensuring Student Success- Chapter 12

       

      How do we decide what levels to put students into?

      ► There are a number of methods and tools for assessing the skills of your students at the outset of a class.

      Assessment for Placement

      The options below range from informal to formal assessment; you will want to choose an option that fits the type of program you have and your organization’s staff and budget resources.

      General Assessment
      • Many programs that are only doing a couple of levels, conversation classes, or drop-in programs just have students self-report to save time. It can be as simple as just asking if they think they are beginning or intermediate or asking how much English they know with appropriate hand gestures.
      • Many textbooks have placement tests that will place students based on the levels for their textbooks.
      • There are standardized tests that are aligned to the six National Reporting Standards (NRS) levels that can be used as placement tests. These have a cost involved.

      ► CASAS test:
      https://www.casas.org/product-overviews/assessments/appraisals

      ► Tests of Adult Basic Education (TABE) Complete Language Assessment System—English:
      http://tabetest.com/students-2/tabe-class-e/

      • Students might also self-assess by filling out a can-do chart, such as one developed by Family Services, Inc (see Worksheets Tab for full-size printable chart)

       

      Considerations when selecting placement tests:

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      Assessment of Specific Skills

      You can also test students to see what they are able to do in the different areas of language. The advantage to this is that you can align it better with the outcomes you have for each of your levels. We have listed some general criteria often used to evaluate these skills. You could also use the content standards in Chapter 11 to set the criteria to help you to decide what you think students should be able to do for each of the levels in your program.

       
       

      ■ Writing Tests

      What can students write about?

      You can have them write about a variety of topics, but also demonstrate they can do a number of tasks. There are examples below and hundreds of prompts available online.

      They can demonstrate how to give instructions:
      It can be a question about giving directions (turn right, go straight, etc.) or how to do something. It can also be series of pictures in a sequence that they can explain.

      They can describe something:
      It could be a picture with a number of things going on, like a picture of a workplace.

      You can see what sort of vocabulary they have about a topic:
      Make a list of things you do at work.
      Describe the things you do when you go to the doctor.

      You can give a task that requires they use a particular type of grammar:
      Imagine you had a month when you could do anything you wanted. What would you do?
      What are some things you haven’t done in your life yet that you want to do?

      You could have them express a point of view:
      What do you think are the best ways to learn English?

      They can compare and contrast something:
      How is your country different from 100 years ago?
      How will it be different 100 years in the future?

      They can tell a story:
      Tell me the story about how you got your first job.

      They can talk about a problem and a solution:
      What is a goal you want to reach? What can you do to reach it?

      How do I evaluate their writing?
      • Rubrics give a set of criteria that can be used to evaluate what students produce. A writing rubric can include
      • topics such as:
      • Connection between ideas (focus on the topic of the writing)
      • Sentence structure (from simple sentences with one clause—one subject and verb, such as “I eat breakfast.”— to more complicated compound sentences with multiple clauses, such as “I eat breakfast late each morning because I don’t get up early, which makes me late for work.”)
      • Number of sentences
      • Grammar
      • Vocabulary choice
      • Mechanics: punctuation, spelling, capitalization
      • For higher levels: clear topic sentence with supporting ideas
       
       

      ■ Oral Tests

      Most of these assessments look at a variety of criteria:

      • Related to the topic
      • Amount of time spent speaking (one-word answers to a long period of time)
      • Appropriate grammar and vocabulary
      • Simple/complex language used
      • Comprehensible pronunciation
      • Fluency (how hesitant is the speech?)
      • Interaction (can they maintain the conversation?)
      • Compensation strategies (what do they do when they aren’t sure how to respond?)
      • Prompting (how much extra do you have to say to get them to understand the question or keep talking?) Most of these tests will go through a series of questions
      • that move from simple to more complex.
       

      These are some examples:

      Connect Placement Test
      http://old.fltrp.com/download/11011811.pdf
      English Unlimited Placement Test
      http://shvidko172.narod.ru/olderfiles/1/Oral_Placement_Test.pdf
      CASAS Oral Screening
      https://www.casas.org/docs/default-source/training-materials/casas-oral-...
      IECP Penn State Oral Placement Test
      https://scholarsphere.psu.edu/concern/generic_works/d217qp592

      Other options: You can give them a topic and ask them to talk for one minute. (If you have access to video, you can show them an example.) The questions listed in the “Writing Tests” section are some examples of what you can ask.

       
       

      ■ Listening/Reading Tests

      Listening and reading tests often ask students to demonstrate they can do the same sorts of tasks. Questions look at whether students can:

      • Figure out the main idea
      • Identify important details
      • Answer inference questions
      • Guess the meaning of unknown words
      • Identify referents in reference words, such as he, it, them, etc.
      • Decide what might come next
      • Say where they might hear/read the passage
       

      Are there other options?
      Some programs have tried a placement test students can do before they come to register for the program.

      Brookline Adult and Community Education ESL Placement Test
      http://www.brooklineadulted.org/esl-placement-test/

      What many programs will do is a combination of these types of tests. For example, many of the standardized and textbook placement tests may adequately assess reading, listening, grammar, and vocabulary, but not assess speaking well or at all. So, in addition to using those tests, programs may design (or find online) a speaking assessment to place students.

       

      Assessment for Placement

      ♦ NOTES FROM THE FIELD

      Linkages to Learning Family English Literacy Program StatisticA Conversation with Linakages to Learning

      We discuss with Debi Edick, Former Coordinator, Family English Literacy Program at Linkages to Learning, changes they made to improve the way they assess students for placement:

      To begin with, why did you choose to make the change from what you were doing before?

      “When I took over as ESOL coordinator the ‘placement’ test being used was something the previous coordinator had developed. I wanted a placement test that could be used for any level learner and  tested learners on what they would be learning once they started ESOL class. We wanted to make the test comprehensive but not overwhelming, especially for lowlevel students or students with limited experience in an educational setting.” 

       
      What do you do in the test? What are the skills that you cover, and how do you assess those skills? 

      “Our primary textbook for the program, Ventures, has a placement test that focuses on reading and grammar recognition. While it’s not perfect, it definitely helps us place learners in the appropriate level of that textbook. Before administering the placement, we conduct a brief interview with potential learners to help determine their speaking and listening skills. Potential learners also fill out a registration form; if we notice they have trouble with this (can only write in a non-Roman alphabet, don’t know how to hold a writing utensil, etc.) we typically forgo the placement test and automatically place them in our basic literacy level. Those learners who display basic reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills are given the placement test. We reiterate that the purpose of the test is to help determine the best class for them and they should not be nervous (although they always are). The placement test is long, 40 questions, so we typically break it up into two parts. If a learner easily gets through the first 10-13 questions we give them the remainder of the placement test, if not, we stop there so the learner does not become frustrated or upset.”

       
      What are the benefits you have seen  to these changes?

      “Again, the placement test is definitely not perfect. We would like something to measure all four areas of language (reading, writing, speaking, listening) more fully, but the combination of placement test and interviews has definitely helped us to place learners in the appropriate level. We still end up having learners we need to switch to different levels a couple of weeks into the course, but that is happening much less frequently than it used to.” 

       
      What are challenges you have had to overcome?

      “At sites where we only offer one level, onsite coordinators will sometimes put a learner in a level because that is the only level offered (regardless if the learner actually placed in a lower/higher level). I ask site-staff to refer learners to another Linkages site or contact me, so we can refer the learner to another program where they can be in the correct level. But often the learner wants our location because their child attends that school, so it is a) a very convenient location for them and b) they have a certain comfort level with said location.”

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