Unpacking Standards-Referenced Grading for English Learners: Beyond Language Proficiency
Standards-referenced grading (SRG) aims to measure a student's mastery of specific learning standards, separating academic achievement from other factors like effort or behavior. In theory, this sounds ideal for all students. However, when applied to English Learners (ELs), especially those with limited English proficiency (LEP), a crucial nuance emerges: how do we truly assess comprehension and knowledge when the medium of assessment is often the very language they are still acquiring? Without careful consideration, SRG can inadvertently penalize ELs for their language proficiency rather than accurately reflecting their understanding of content.
The Promise and Peril of Standards-Referenced Grading
SRG offers several potential benefits for ELs:
Clarity on Learning Targets: Standards explicitly state what students need to know and be able to do, providing clear targets for ELs and their teachers.
Focus on Mastery: It encourages a focus on genuine understanding rather than simply accumulating points.
However, the "peril" lies in the inherent linguistic demands of most assessments. A student might conceptually understand a scientific principle, but struggle to demonstrate that understanding due to:
Receptive Language Challenges: Difficulty understanding the vocabulary, complex sentence structures, or nuances of the assessment questions themselves.
Productive Language Challenges: Inability to articulate their knowledge in grammatically correct, coherent English, even if the ideas are fully formed in their minds (Gottlieb, 2016).
Cultural and Prior Knowledge Gaps: Assessments may contain cultural references or assume background knowledge unfamiliar to ELs, further hindering their ability to showcase true understanding.
The result is that an EL's grade might reflect their English language proficiency (ELP) more than their content mastery, undermining the core principle of SRG.
Challenges When Assessing Comprehension and Knowledge
Confounding Language and Content: It becomes incredibly difficult to disentangle what an EL doesn't understand about the content from what they can't express in English. A low score might signal a language barrier, not a knowledge gap (Lightbown & Spada, 2013).
Bias in Assessment Design: Many assessments are not designed with ELs in mind. Complex sentence structures, idiomatic expressions, and culturally specific scenarios can act as linguistic and cultural barriers, masking true content knowledge.
Time Constraints: ELs often require more processing time to read, translate mentally, formulate a response, and then write it in English. Standardized time limits on assessments can disproportionately disadvantage them.
Impact on Motivation and Self-Efficacy: Consistently receiving low grades due to language barriers, despite understanding the content, can be incredibly demotivating for ELs and erode their confidence in their academic abilities (García & Kleifgen, 2018).
Strategies for Teachers to Mitigate Challenges
To ensure SRG accurately reflects an EL's content knowledge, teachers must employ intentional, language-sensitive assessment practices.
Differentiate Assessment Methods:
Strategy: Offer varied ways for ELs to demonstrate understanding beyond traditional written essays or multiple-choice tests. Allow for oral responses, drawings, graphic organizers, models, demonstrations, or the use of their first language (L1) (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2017).
Example: Instead of a written explanation of a science concept, allow an EL to draw a diagram and label it, or explain it verbally to the teacher.
Scaffold Assessment Language:
Strategy: Simplify complex instructions, pre-teach key vocabulary used in the assessment, provide word banks or sentence frames for responses, and allow extra time for processing and completion. Highlight key terms in questions.
Example: For an essay requiring comparison, provide sentence starters like "One similarity is... Another difference is..."
Focus on Concepts, Not Just Grammar:
Strategy: When grading for content understanding, prioritize the accuracy of the conceptual knowledge. While language development is important, separate content grades from language accuracy grades. Use rubrics that clearly delineate expectations for content vs. language.
Rationale: This ensures that ELs are not penalized for developing English proficiency while still acquiring subject matter knowledge.
Leverage First Language (L1) Support:
Strategy: Allow students to use L1 dictionaries, discuss concepts in L1 with peers (translanguaging), or even provide brief L1 explanations to the teacher to confirm understanding before attempting to articulate in English.
Research: Cummins's (2000) theory of Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP) suggests that conceptual knowledge in L1 transfers to L2, making L1 a powerful tool for demonstrating understanding.
Use Formative Assessment Continuously:
Strategy: Employ frequent, low-stakes formative assessments (e.g., quick checks for understanding, thumbs up/down, exit tickets) that require less linguistic output. This provides ongoing feedback and allows teachers to adjust instruction before summative assessments.
Rationale: Formative assessment allows teachers to catch misunderstandings early, often before they become major barriers on high-stakes assessments.
Conclusion
Standards-referenced grading holds immense potential for focusing on genuine student learning. However, for English Learners, this potential can only be realized when educators critically examine the linguistic demands of their assessments. By consciously decoupling content knowledge from language proficiency, and by employing targeted, inclusive assessment strategies, teachers can ensure that SRG truly measures what ELs know and can do, fostering both academic growth and self-efficacy.
References:
Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power, and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Multilingual Matters.
Echevarria, J., Vogt, M. E., & Short, D. J. (2017). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP model. Pearson.
García, O., & Kleifgen, J. A. (2018). Educating emergent bilinguals: Policies, programs, and practices for English learners (2nd ed.). Teachers College Press.
Gottlieb, M. (2016). Assessing English language learners: Bridges to equity and academic achievement. Corwin Press.
Lightbown, P. M., & Spada, N. (2013). How languages are learned (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.