1. Dr. Comfort Pratt

2. RATIONALE
 Determine the L1 and L2 proficiencies of
CLDs to ensure that they acquire the CALP
they need to be successful in the grade-level
classroom.

3. WHY ASSESS L1?
 Necessary in bilingual or dual language programs.
 Skills and knowledge from the L1 are transferable
to L2 acquisition. Looking for foundational
referents. Eg. Common underlying proficiency
(CUP) (Cummins 1984). Once cognitive linguistic
knowledge is acquired in one language, those
concepts become part of a common underlying
proficiency the speaker can access and apply to
other languages.

4. WHY ASSESS L2?
English is the primary vehicle of
instruction.
BICS is informal conversational language
used in non–academic contexts.
The required skills are different—
cognitively demanding and requiring a
strong repertoire for CALP but much less
demanding for BICS.

5. SAMPLES
SAMPLE CATEGORY
1. I have a dog little.
2. They not study.
3. Their dead is a beeg man.
4. I walks there yesterday.
5. The cut had a long tale.
6. I saw a leetle beet.
7. She come here last night.
8. They meet always to their uncle.
9. Mothers can fid their babies anywhere.
10. Not move the triangle.

6. CATEGORIES OF LANGUAGE ISSUES
 Phonology
Study of how sounds function in a language
 Morphology
Study of word structures of a language
 Syntax
Study of the sentence structures of a language
 Semantics
Study of the meaning of words and gestures used in a
language
 Pragmatics
Study of the ways in which context influences the
interpretation of language

7. PHONOLOGICAL ISSUES
 Phonology
Study of how sounds function in a language
 Phoneme: The smallest distinct sound unit in a
given language which causes differences of
meaning.

8. PHONOLOGICAL ISSUES
MINIMAL PAIRS OR SETS
They are pairs or sets of words with
different meanings which are identical
except for one sound segment which
occurs in the same position in the
string.

9. MORPHOLOGICAL ISSUES
 Morphology
Study of word structures of a language
 Morpheme
 Derivational and Inflectional Morphology

10. SYNTACTIC ISSUES
 Syntax
Study of the sentence structures of a language
 Different types of sentences have different
structures

11. SEMANTIC ISSUES
 Semantics
Study of the meaning of words and gestures
used in a language

12. PRAGMATIC ISSUES
 Pragmatics
Study of the ways in which context influences
the interpretation of language
 What do these words mean?
 Wonderful, great, bad, …
 Key word: CONTEXT
 What to say, when to say it, to whom, and
under what circumstances?

13. INFORMAL ASSESSMENT
 Observation
 Home language survey
Fig. 6.3
Lily (Pg. 160)
 Parent interviews
Lily (Pgs. 160-161)
 Communication Functions Checklist
Jean (Pg. 162)

14. INFORMAL ASSESSMENT
 Informal Assessment of Academic Language
Proficiency - BICS/CALP
Figure 6.5 (Pgs. 164-165)
Mrs. Adelaja
 Anecdotal Logs
Figures 6.6 & 6.7
 Matrices and Rubrics
Figures 6.8 & 6.9

15. INFORMAL ASSESSMENT
 Narrative Assessment
 Story Retelling Assessment
 Written and Oral Cloze Assessments
Figure 6.10
 Listening Skills Assessments

16. FORMAL ASSESSMENTS
 Standardized Formal Assessments
Table 6.1
 State-Developed or State-Adopted Variations
of Standardized Formal Assessments

17. Language learners are not deficient or
unintelligent. On the contrary, they are very
smart. They are learning English in addition
to other languages they already know and
must be recognized for their high linguistic
abilities. The only way they will not be able to
achieve high proficiency levels in English is if
they are not taught well or understood by the
teachers who are responsible for them.
Therefore, teachers must make sure they are
well informed and highly competent before
they take on that responsibility.

18. THE END