Teachers who work with English as a Second Language learners will find ESL/ESOL/ELL/EFL reading/writing skill-building children's books, stories, activities, ideas, strategies to help PreK-3, 4-8, and 9-12 students learn to read.
Assessment and Evaluation
American Federation of Teachers: Get Ready for Spring Testing
The AFT provides tips on preparing for spring assessments, and strategies for helping students perform their best.
Assessment in ESL and Bilingual Education: A Hot Topic Paper
This site, provided by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL), examines various assessment techniques used with ESL and bilingual education students. Another feature of this site is its section on things to look for when selecting an assessment instrument for ESL and bilingual students.
CAL: ELL Testing & Assessment Resources
CAL presents a number of projects and resources designed to encourage and foster higher levels of academic achievement among English language learners through its assessment projects.
Education Alliance: Assessment for Diverse Learners
The Education Alliance at Brown University provides information about assessment for English language learners. The resources are broken into three main topics: initial assessment, ongoing assessment, and high-stakes testing.
NCELA: Academic Content Standards & Assessment
This information from NCELA includes links to resources about academic content instruction, accommodations for ELLs, and professional development.
NCELA: ELP Standards & Assessment
NCELA offers a wide variety of information on English language proficiency standards and assessment at a regional and national level.
Northwest Regional Comprehensive Center
The Northwest Regional Comprehensive Center provides training, technical assistance, and research to support states and school districts in the administration and implementation of Title III programs under the No Child Left Behind Act. Here you'll find direct links to materials NWREL has created for teachers, staff, and families; State guidance and regulations; and National clearinghouses for the most up-to-date, useful information to help you serve English Language Learners in your schools and communities.
Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA)
The OELA was formed to help ensure that children who are limited English proficient attain English proficiency, develop high levels of academic attainment in English, and meet the same challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards that all children are expected to meet.
This practitioner brief from The National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems highlights four key elements of culturally- and linguistically-responsive prereferral intervention for culturally and linguistically diverse students: (1) Preventing School Underachievement and Failure, (2) Early Intervention for Struggling Learners, (3) Diagnostic/Prescriptive Teaching, and (4) Availability of General Education Problem-Solving Support Systems.
State English Language Proficiency Standards: California*
This document presents a summary of the skills California students must master as they move toward full fluency in English.
State English Language Proficiency Standards: Minnesota
These standards highlight the English language development goals for English Language Learners (ELLs). They are designed to guide ESL and mainstream classroom teachers in their instruction to ELLs, inform policy makers, and provide a bridge to Minnesota’s content area standards.
State English Language Proficiency Standards: New York
The New York State Education Department Office of Bilingual Education has developed these standards, which are meant to serve as the foundation for ESL curriculum, instruction, and assessment for all LEP/ELLs in New York State, grades Pre-K through 12. The NYS ESL learning standards also serve as the framework for the New York State ESL Achievement Test (NYSESLAT), which is administered annually to all LEP/ELLs in New York.
State English Language Proficiency Standards: Texas
The English language proficiency standards outline English language proficiency level descriptors and student expectations for English language learners (ELLs). The English language proficiency standards are to be published along with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for each subject in the required curriculum.
State English Language Proficiency Standards: Wisconsin
This website from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction includes information on the ACCESS test, translation accommodations, standards, and criteria for reclassification of ELL students.
TESOL: ESL Standards for PreK-12
The ESL Standards for PreK-12 Students is the result of many years' effort on the part of TESOL members and others who have sought to improve the education of students who are learning English as a second or additional language in the United States.
TESOL: Pre-K-12 English Language Proficiency Standards
The new PreK-12 English Language Proficiency Standards, an augmentation of the WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards, provides extensive matrices elucidating sample performance indicators, organized by the five standards (targeting language in social/intercultural interactions, language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies) and grade-level cluster. This publication is available for purchase from TESOL.
Understanding the WIDA Language Proficiency Standards: A Resource Guide
Language proficiency standards from World-class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) that incorporate easy to understand benchmarks and connections with content learning.
This is an invaluable resource for parents and bilingual educators, (especially) for those of us who want to maintain our culture.
~ Kenia R.
