{"pk":35998,"title":"Placement, Progress, and Promotion: ESL Assessment in California’s Adult Schools","subtitle":null,"abstract":"In California adult schools, standardized language assessments are typically administered to adult English as a second language (ESL) students upon enrollment; students\nthen take these same state-approved tests throughout the\nacademic year to demonstrate progress. As these tests\nassess only listening and reading skills, schools may use\ntheir own internally developed assessments to more accurately place students and subsequently to determine level\npromotion. Engaged in participatory action research, the\nresearcher interviewed adult school staff to document\ntheir varying assessment policies and procedures of adult\nESL learners, highlighting the agency-created assessments\nthat provide critical information of students’ language\nproficiencies and achievements. This study underscores\nthe discrepancies between the state’s policies and actual\npedagogical needs, and it proposes ways to reconstruct\nhow ESL assessment is conducted, such as making available a wider, more comprehensive base of assessments for\nschools to use, and proposing an updated, common set of\nstandards for use statewide.","language":"eng","license":null,"keywords":[],"section":"Theme Section - Feature Articles","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/33f1f5j2","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Lisa","middle_name":"","last_name":"Gonzalves","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of California, Davis","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2017-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/catesoljournal/article/35998/galley/26850/download/"}]}