Providing appropriate academic evaluation and intervention services for English learners remains a challenging goal for school support teams. Understanding English language proficiency assessment and universal screening processes can help teams make better decisions when considering possible continued intervention or referral for a comprehensive…

Senses, specifically sight and hearing, are the mechanisms through which we access and navigate our everyday lives, and use of language is the cornerstone of how we connect. For students who are deaf or hard of hearing, barriers to access and inability to effectively use language within an environment can have significant impacts. Accessibility…

It is widely accepted that written corrective feedback (WCF) is an effective tool for helping learners develop their L2 knowledge. Yet, it remains inconclusive as to which type of WCF can best facilitate L2 learning. In recent years, many second language acquisition (SLA) researchers agree that "direct" and "focused" WCF may be…

This brief emphasizes the importance of English learner reclassification in California, where over 19 percent of students are classified as English learners. It outlines the high-stakes nature of this process, particularly under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which mandates uniform criteria for exiting English learner programs. The four…

Over the first 18 years of life, students spend a large portion of their time in school and at home. Having a good relationship between the adults at home and school is vital for the success of children throughout their schooling. This relationship can often feel one sided, but what if there is another reason why the relationship between home and…

Culturally Responsive Education (CRE) refers to a comprehensive ecosystem of "pedagogy, curriculum, theories, attitudes, practices and instructional materials that center students' culture, identities and contexts throughout education systems" (Peoples, 2019). In the context of these simultaneous and complementary efforts, culturally…

Dr. Lucinda Lee Katz was born and raised in North Beach, San Francisco, CA adjacent to Chinatown proper, where she spent her K-12 years attending San Francisco's public schools. Throughout her K-12 education, her peers were primarily Chinese, but she never had a Chinese teacher. She attended Chinese school every day after school and on Saturdays…

Evaluating students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (i.e., emergent bilinguals) presents challenges to evaluation teams, as distinguishing between a language disorder and typical second language development is more complex. The skills and knowledge required to do this task often exceed the level of training that evaluators…

This tutorial offers speech-language pathologists (SLPs) an opportunity to consider the theoretical constructs of language acquisition theory and the multifactorial determinants that can impinge on the language acquisition process for children with complex communication needs. The system of constraints observed through the lens of optimality…

Direct Entry Programs (DEPs) at Australian universities are designed to enhance students' English language and academic skills, with the primary goals of preparing and assuring students' readiness for university studies. Given that university tasks often require the integration of language skills (e.g., writing assignments using information from…

Syntactic complexity has long been used to gauge language learners' performance, proficiency, and development, offering language teachers valid recommendations for syllabus design and materials development. Progress in syntactic complexity research foreshadows the imperative of measuring syntactic features at a high level of granularity, which…

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by Section 3113 of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), requires state educational agencies (SEAs) to establish and implement standardized, statewide entrance and exit procedures for English learners (ELs). WIDA provides the English language proficiency placement and annual…

Research confirms that critical thinking plays a fundamental role in decision making and problem solving, skills that are essential to function as successful adults in a complex world. Consequently, it has been a focus of educational research for decades. Faculty meetings and teacher training sessions repeatedly run sessions on ways that teachers…

Placement tests are used to support a particular need in a local context--to determine the best starting place for a student entering a specific programme of language study. This brief report will focus on the development of an innovative placement test with self-directed elements for our local needs at a university in Canada for students studying…

This report describes a calibration, scoring, and reporting method applicable to an assessment requiring aggregation at multiple levels. We demonstrate the method using an example of an assessment that targets a small and diverse population, an English language proficiency assessment for English learners with the most significant cognitive…