WL ED 483 Evaluating Schools’ Performance & ESL Programs

Meeting objectives: 2, 4

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      This course familiarized future ESL teachers with the legal foundation of ESL programs in Pennsylvania school districts: who are English Language Learners (ELLs)? What are impacts of the No Child Left Behind Act? What are differences among ESL programs? By sharing her experience of teaching ESL in a public school, the instructor introduced many sociopolitical challenges ESL teachers will face outside the classroom.

Textbook 1.

        For the final project, I did a critique review of the standardized tests which ELLs need to take in order to be exempt form ESL courses (please refer to the attached file-final project). I reviewed four larger scale tests—English Language Development Assessment (ELDA), Comprehensive English Language Learner Assessment (CELLA), Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State to State for English Language Learners (ACCESS for ELLs®), and Mountain West Assessment (MWA)—their design rationales, objectives, test items, and evaluation methods. While doing this review, I reviewed what I learned from the assessment design class and became more familiar with the ESL teaching contexts in the United States.

Textbook 2.

        Another project was “teaching metaphor” (please refer to the attached file-teaching metaphor) in which I described my teacher philosophy after finishing the teaching practice in Ecuador. I found that, although the project overlapped a little bit with my developing teaching philosophy, this time, I focused on constructing a culturally responsive classroom  which demonstrated the influence of immersion learning in Ecuador.

        This course helped me become aware of the political factors of ESL teaching. In the States, ESL cannot be taken as a subject neutrally as other content classes. There are more and more legal issues related to new immigrants and local governments.