With 4 days until Spring Break begins, the kids have Friday off, we have meetings, I have begun the best time of the year, testing season.Our state testing does not begin until April, but those of us who teach ELL will not get to wait until April to start our testing, we are giving our ELL students the ELDA test this week. The ELDA is a standardized test designed to evaluate an ELL students' readiness to succeed in a non-ELL classroom. The description should any brochure for a vacation spot blush.
"The ELDA is designed to measure the annual growth of English language development in the domains of listening, speaking, reading, and writing of limited English proficient students. In addition, it will also yield a score for comprehension. The ELDA is aligned to state standards and has vertical alignment across clusters to measure growth in proficiency.
Also, the ELDA has five levels of performance standards, with a rigorous definition of full English proficient (FEP) at Level 5 and a realistic definition for beginners at Level 1. The listening, speaking, reading, and writing tests of ELDA are designed around four topic areas (three academic and one social): math, science, technology; English language arts; social sciences; and school environmental. This design will help schools determine if ELL students are linguistically prepared to function in mainstream content classrooms. Still, ELDA is a test of four language skills, not of academic content, and therefore, there are no content area prior knowledge requirements to score well on ELDA. "
Also, the ELDA has five levels of performance standards, with a rigorous definition of full English proficient (FEP) at Level 5 and a realistic definition for beginners at Level 1. The listening, speaking, reading, and writing tests of ELDA are designed around four topic areas (three academic and one social): math, science, technology; English language arts; social sciences; and school environmental. This design will help schools determine if ELL students are linguistically prepared to function in mainstream content classrooms. Still, ELDA is a test of four language skills, not of academic content, and therefore, there are no content area prior knowledge requirements to score well on ELDA. "
Wow, only 2 acronyms, usually there are at least 10.
After giving my students the three reading sections this morning, we are now play catch-up. No time for SS and Science today, I've lost over 2 hours of teaching time and now have to get in all the reading and math possible.
I also have to "progress monitor" 6 students with the DIBELS test, one-on-one while the rest of
the class is engaged in... something. Another 30 minutes per day or so lost.
With three more sections of ELDA to go including the daylong Speaking section which is one-on-one, I expect to do about half of what I do in a normal week this week.
I can't wait until we get to even more high-stakes testing which will waste at least 6-7 days.
2 comments:
Thank God I'm an Art Teacher.
Our art teachers have to give district art assessments, do you?
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