Accomodations for E.L.L. Students

With all the words in the enlish langauge don't you think E.L.L. Students should receive some accomodations on their standardized testing. Illinois is among four states that don't allow for any accomodations what so ever. When taking a test as an E.L.L. student it is not only a test of their mathmatical or scientific knowledge, but also their english reading and comprehension. This is an unfair disadvantage.



As this graph clearly shows there is a discrepantcy between native speakers and their E.L.L. counterparts. The E.L.L. students are clearly not all below the marks of the native speakers, but they they experience a language barrier in testing situations.

Registered methods of Accommodating E.L.L. Students in standardized tests are:

Linguistic Simplification
Use of Dictionary or Glossary
Native Language Testing
Reading Aloud
Extra Time

Simplification
As a test accommodation, linguistic simplification, refers to the process of decreasing the linguistic complexity of the test to make the meaning more accessible to the student, without changing the meaning of the text. This accommodation confronts the issue of understanding the test. In many cases a test taker is limited by his knowledge of the language as many tests use ambiguous language with high vocabulary and using many synonyms that are not at the base of understanding the language.
With use of the simplified vocabulary it has been shown that a test is not “dumbed down” and it does in fact raise ELL test scores. The only problem is that ELLs showed no more improvement than non-ELLs did on the same test. The fact remains that linguistic simplification has promise as an accommodation for math and science testing.

The Use of Dictionaries
The use of dictionaries and glossaries is an accommodation meant to help ELLs with understanding language that has not been learned due to their level of English knowledge. The reference material used in testing this accommodation was designed to help students comprehend without providing clues that could reduce the validity of the test.
This method has a lot of concerns revolving around the validity of the test. Having the definition to a word can compromise a test. This is where designed dictionaries have been implemented rather than general English dictionaries. Designed “customized dictionaries” are heavy with the use of synonyms rather than definitions. Also, bilingual dictionaries are used. This method is yet to be tested along side with the provision of extra time which could greatly increase scores. Extra time would allow the students to access the dictionaries as much as they need to without the pressure of using the dictionary while on a tighter schedule.

Native Language Testing
Native language is an interesting provision for ELL students. It provides them with dual language testing material or oral directions from a proctor. This method hasn’t been proven to help ELLs. This is because they receive instruction in math in English rather than Spanish so when the language is switched on a test it is less helpful than one might expect. The one exception where native language testing is helpful is when implemented with new ELL students. Those who have just recently made a switch from their native language can really be helped by this dual language text.
Other than the new ELL student native language testing has an adverse effect on test scores. This brings up a necessity in ELL testing. Each student must be tested to see how much or little accommodation is necessary to be helpful.

Reading the Test Material Aloud
Reading the test material aloud is used as a means of letting students hear and see material. This accommodation started as a means for the blind and dyslexic students to be tested. In that case there is no written text just the oral instruction by the proctor. However in the ELL format they have both. It allows students to connect verbal clues along with textual clues because much of the first steps of language comprehension is done verbally before textually.
This method hasn’t been as extensively tested as some others and for that reason the validity as a an accommodation is yet to be determined.

Extra Time
Extra time works under the belief that if language poses a problem for students they may not be able to take all items on the test under careful consideration in the time allotted. Although extra time does stand alone it is mostly used in conjunction with other accommodations. Extra time may not be used for tests which are based on completion of speeded completion. It has been proven that extra time does not unfairly give advantage to ELLs, but it does show more results than reading the test material aloud and native language in some cases. It is also a good accommodation when paired with others as it lets students use their other resources more efficiently.

Overview
ELL students having to take a test that is in a second language must be recognized as a disadvantage. I believe that that should constitute some sort of handicap. However, before being allowed some sort of assistance with test taking a pretest should be administered to test what level a student is at before taking the test because it would be unfair to give a 6th year ELL student the same accommodation a brand new one unless their English aptitude were indeed on the same level. It’s a touchy subject to call being bilingual a disadvantage in test taking, but it is and appropriately students should receive some sort of accommodation.




Lessow-Hurley, Judith. Foundations of dual language instruction. New York: Longman, 2000. Print.
State Assessment Policy and Practice for English Language Learners A National Perspective. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006. Print.