CAL Blogs
Keira BallantyneMap credit: Jessica Debski What laws protect voting access for multilingual voters? The United States is a multilingual nation. The U.S. Census Bureau (n.d.) estimates that around 66 million … Read more
In this opinion piece, Tim Boals, WIDA founder and director, gives his perspective on what it takes to make sure that multilingual students encounter opportunities to learn and experience equality … Read more
If testing (rather than assessment) continues to prevail as what ‘counts’, and schools measure multilingual learners’ progress from only a restricted accountability perspective- that is from score to score- without considering the other purposes, audiences, and contexts for assessment, what ultimately serves as evidence of learning?
The return to in-person learning at school has prompted the renewal of many pre-pandemic practices, as in the resumption of a testing regimen… but there is no mention of how assessment in multiple languages can provide more accurate information about multilingual learners’ long-term accumulated experiences.
Lisa Tabaku, Director of Global Languages and Culture at the Center for Applied Linguistics, spoke with DualLanguageSchools.org about the shift in professional development from in-person to online during the pandemic — and what’s next.
Does the presence of multimodalities confound comprehension of text in testing situations, especially for multilingual learners? In this blog, we explore three of many ways multimodalities can positively impact classroom assessment for multilingual learners.
“Schools confuse the assessment of general linguistic proficiency, which is best manifested in bilinguals while translanguaging, with the testing of proficiency in a named language, which insists on inhibiting translanguaging.”
Do translations and transadaptations of tests into languages other than English serve as equity tools for assessing multilingual learners?
Is it equitable to have the same grading policy for all students, including multilingual learners? Read this week’s “Multilingual Mystery” blog and share your thoughts.
Do you consider it counterintuitive to assess in multiple languages when accountability rests in English? Read this week’s blog and submit your answer!
