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Summer teaches an after-school French class to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade students in her elementary school and is in charge of selecting an end-of-year listening and speaking test.  The test will be administered to all students in all grades.  She has some concerns about timing and available staff for test administration for her 45 students, since the classes only run twice a week for two hours each day and she only has three assistant teachers.  However, she does have a network of parents who have volunteered to help manage the class while she and the assistant teachers administer the tests.  She also has a set budget each year to cover test expenses.

Using the chart below, think about how you would guide Summer in the test selection process.

After considering your own responses, click here to view the sample responses.

Ms. Park is a high school French teacher in charge of selecting an end-of-year proficiency test.  The test will be administered to all students, from the first to the fourth years of study.  She has some concerns about timing and available staff for test administration for the 312 students, since class periods are 50 minutes and the school has three French teachers total.  However, she does have access to the school’s new computer lab with 30 computers, and two of the teachers have been trained to rate simulated oral proficiency interviews.  She has a set budget each year to cover test expenses.

Using the chart below, think about how you would guide Ms. Park in the test selection process.

After considering your own responses, click here to view the sample responses. 

Esmeralda recently became the chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at a large public university. One of her first tasks is to conduct a comprehensive review of the department’s use of placement assessments for undergraduate level courses. Faculty members have expressed their concern with the department’s current use of placement tests, which primarily consist of textbook-based exams. Although many of them suggested using more performance-based tasks to determine students’ proficiency levels, there is limited time and staff availability for this type of test administration.

Using the chart below, think about how you would guide Esmeralda in the test selection process.

After considering your own responses, click here to view the sample responses.

Ms. Mehra teaches Hindi to adults at a community-based language and cultural center. She is also in charge of researching and helping to find resources for the other instructors, including assessment materials. Unfortunately, Ms. Mehra has not been able to find many formative assessments for assessing Hindi proficiency. Furthermore, what she has found does not seem appropriate or relevant for the current proficiency levels of her students, many of whom are heritage language learners. The community center does not have a large budget, but it was built recently and has a small library with an up-to-date computer lab. 

Using the chart below, think about how you would guide Ms. Mehra in the test selection process.

After considering your own responses, click here to view the sample responses. 

Ligang works for the Department of Education in his state government. His state wants to assess the progress of its students enrolled in high school world language classes at the end of each year.

Ligang is in charge of writing guidelines to teachers for choosing an end-of-year proficiency test to be administered to all students, from the first to the fourth year of study. He has some concerns about the timing and available staff for test administration. Some schools have as many as 500 students studying one language with only five teachers. Furthermore, class periods in some schools are as short as 45 minutes. However, most schools have new computer labs with at least 30 computers each. Ligang has a large budget to cover test expenses, including funding to train 2-5 teachers for each language in each school in administering and/or scoring tests, if necessary.

Using the chart below, think about how you would guide Ligang in the test selection process.

After considering your own responses, click here to view the sample responses.