I thought I would use this blog as an opportunity to revisit and review the assessment side of EAL. We use a tool called WIDA MODEL, which stands for WIDA Measure Of Developing English Language (no one knows what WIDA stands for, it’s been lost to the annals of time).
WIDA helps teachers to do a number of things:
Understand what multilingual learners can do
Measure language growth over time
Integrate language with content learning
Collaborate effectively
Connect across a global network
WIDA MODEL provides information about a student’s level of English proficiency (ability to listen, speak, read, and write), both in social and academic language. Social language is English used in everyday communication. Academic language is English used in association with school subject areas including: Language Arts, Mathematics and Social Sciences at all age levels.
The assessments are done in four stages and then scored on a level of 1.0 to 6.0. In the past we have received the scores in a table similar to this one:
To help us understand what these numbers mean, WIDA used to provide us with the below table.
In the most recent (and dare I say exciting) update to the WIDA MODEL online platform, this information is now available in a variety of languages, some of which I have included here.
These descriptions will be included when the Secondary reports are sent out. Unfortunately, these are not available for Primary just yet, (fingers crossed they will be in the next WIDA update). For individual student specific discussions about WIDA (and their EAL progress), we will be having PTCs at the end of term and you will be able to discuss this with our fantastic EAL team.
For general information and questions about WIDA (and the EAL program as a whole), please contact me, Gary Pixsley at: gary.pixsley@britishcollegebrazil.org
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