What does equitable grading look like for language learners? How do we make sure we’re not penalizing students whose English is not yet proficient? What might a culturally responsive competency based approach be?
These are the questions that one devoted educator wrote to us with recently. We have versions of this conversation all the time, so wanted to share it here.
Hi, Competency Collaborative,
I hope you’re doing well! I’m reaching out because I know you work closely with schools who serve multi-language learners (MLLs). My school is building towards our first year of competency-based education (CBE) next year, and many of our BIG questions come from the ELA department, especially regarding our MLL students. We are worried about how assessing MLL students in ELA will work. Beyond providing support and accommodations, how does CBE support MLL students?
What have you learned from other schools with large MLL populations?
~Love our language learners
Hi, love our language learners,
What I’m hearing is that you want to avoid the phenomenon so common in schooling, where language learners are graded on conventions (spelling, grammar, vocab, even fluency) at every turn. So important. There are two ways we can use CBE to push back against this. As we at CC always say, competency-based learning isn’t inherently culturally responsive; it’s up to use to make it that way. Here’s where you might start…
Student & teacher work together at The Young Women’s Leadership School of Astoria, a CC Living Lab school.
Clearly articulated learning outcomes. Part of the work of competency learning is to separate out the various skills that students need in each subject, of which conventions is just one! Here's an example of English outcomes from one beloved CC International school:
E.1 Determine the focus
E.2 Thesis Statement
E.3 Organize ideas
E.4 Analyze & Support
E.5 Voice
E.6 Connections
E.7 Conventions
E.8 Presentation
E.9 Speak/listen
A MLL student might have to work hard at E.7 Conventions at first, but making connections is a skill that can be practiced in any language.
A first step for your ELA department would be to have their learning outcomes clearly defined, that’s the CBE piece, and then pay attention to how those outcomes might play out for various students, that’s the Culturally Responsive-Sustaining piece. When it comes to language learners, if conventions or fluency are showing up in every outcome, it's likely those outcomes are still measuring something that looks more like compliance and less like deeper thinking. The sample outcomes above are largely accessible to language learners! They capture the deeper goals of ELA, and give space to give actionable feedback to students who are learning English.
Focused feedback & assessment. Once your ELA department has done the work of creating learning outcomes, it’s still important to pay attention to how they’re being assessed. It would be possible to assess any of these outcomes in ways that require reading and writing fluency, which is conflating two things, right? If I'm trying to understand a student's ability to present a viewpoint / thesis statement (E.2 in beloved CC school’s outcomes) that doesn't require the student to speak or write in English. That could easily be assessed through a conversation in the student's native language.
If the outcome of focus is creating a thesis statement, the feedback and assessment should focus on that learning outcome. This narrows both the student’s and teacher’s focus, so that the feedback becomes more meaningful and actionable. (This is also key when you start thinking about reassessment – having a clear focus makes retakes and revisions more manageable!) This intentionality focuses instruction, and helps students see their growth. There’s something here, too, about pushing back against perfectionism. This approach leaves room for work to shine in one area, and need improvement in another. That duality creates more human learning environments, I think.
While we’re talking about it, a few other big ideas to hold in mind in this conversation about language learners in ELA.
Smiling students at Flushing International HS, a CC Living Lab School.
It might be useful to track English skills for MLLs without grading them. I suspect that a student who is still learning English is having that show up already in their grades in other places. The goal is to walk the balance of not grading students for factors beyond their control, and giving students meaningful feedback about their areas of strength and places for improvement.
In this conversation, as you're likely aware, I think it's crucially important to be really wary of the history of schooling for assimilation. What does it mean to say that English is required to do well in a course? That a student who is still learning English, through no fault of their own, cannot succeed? What history is that aligning with? What does that say about what is valued in a graduate? What skills and knowledge of that child are being overlooked in favor of the hyper focus on language?
This could be a place where a bit of a data audit is useful, too, if your grading system allows for data to be made sense of in that way (by outcome, by demographic).
Thanks for taking up these questions with such care, and for seeking the answers in community.
In solidarity,
Competency Collaborative
What would you add to this conversation? What questions should educators consider to guide decisions like this one?