HIGH-STAKES TESTS AS DE FACTO LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICIES

KATE MENKEN

IMPORTANCE OF TESTING

Tests have shaped the way we teach.

Tests scores determine:

• achievement, lingusitic level, graduation, promotion , life or death situations

Tests used in schools affect the curriculum content, textbook materials, teaching methods, teacher preparation , language medium of instructions

The higher the stakes of a test – the greater is its impact in education

Therefore

High stakes tests act as de facto language education policies

So what is the connection between testing and language policy?

Definition:

Spolsky (2004), language policy is defined as all of the “language practices, beliefs and management of a community or polity” (p. 9).

Shohamy (2003) makes a distinction between language policy and language education policy:

Language policy is concerned with the decisions that people make about languages and their use in society, whereas language education policy refers to carrying out such decisions in the specific contexts of schools and universities in relation to home languages and to foreign and second languages . . . (Shohamy, 2003, p. 279).

Language education policy establishes:

• which language(s) will be the medium of instruction in schools,

• which languages will be taught,

• how they will be taught,

• and to whom they will be taught.

SOME HISTORY ….The creation of IQ Tests

Alfred Binet created the first IQ test in 1904, to place children in special education programs.; later on applied to immigrants, and students (as a sorting mechanism in education)

IQ Test scores ranked students within schools of that era (Mensh and Mensh, 1991).

Congress passed an act restricting immigration by “non-Nordics.” “English literacy became a gatekeeping tool to bar unwanted immigrants from entering the United States ….

Although claimed to be neutral and impartial, tests very effectively sort, select, and punish (Shohamy, 1998; Spolsky, 1995).

HIGH-STAKES TESTING FROM A LANGUAGE POLICY PERSPECTIVE Why is testing a language policy issue? (Shohamy,

2001, The Power of Tests.)…. I again learned about the power of tests as it became clear to me that the ‘language testing policy’ was the de facto ‘language policy’.

In Israel, a new national reading test was introduced in grades 4 and 5 which aimed to assess and monitor reading comprehension levels. ‘

Consequences:

• increased focus on reading comprehension and ‘test-like’ teaching which, in essence, became the new curriculum (Shohamy, 1998).

A new test of Arabic as a foreign language was introduced in Israel for seventh, eighth, and ninth grades- -- intended to raise the prestige of Arabic among Hebrew speakers.

Shohamy (2001) found that the test had influenced teaching, learning, and the curriculum, to the extent that teaching and testing essentially became synonymous.

Policymakers use tests to create de facto policies characterized by Shohamy as unethical, undemocratic, and unbeneficial to the test-taker.

Three major language policy implications of testing:

• determining prestige and status of languages,

• standardizing and preserving language correctness,

• and suppressing language diversity

In Europe, a ‘Common European Framework’ - unifying language testing and assessment across different countries.

Teachers believe the Common European Framework represents a sequence of how and what learners learn and they interpret it as as prescriptive.

SOME TESTING CASESTesting ‘washback’ : effects of tests on teaching

and learning (Cheng, Watanabe, and Curtis, 2004; Wall, 1997).

• Case of Britain:

Revised writing tests did not lead to improved student performance, but rather impeded the curriculum and caused it to change in negative ways.

• Case of New Zealand:

Changes to the English language testing system showed washback effects (with teachers and students focused on test tasks rather than on academic language proficiency in the broader sense).

• Case of China

National Matriculation English Test (NMET) --type of language taught is limited to the skills tested.

• Case of Hong Kong

The washback effects are negative because high-stakes exams drive teaching and learning in the direction of drilling what is required in the exam.

WORK IN PROGRESS - Bilingual Education Act,

It encourages English-only approaches

-No Child Left Behind Act

Schools must demonstrate student progress in order to continue to receive federal funding.

Menken (2005) has documented the effects that NCLB testing policies are having on ELLs from a language policy perspective.

- The effects of a recent requirement that ELLs pass state exams in order to graduate from high school .

- The study found that all of the exams rely heavily on language proficiency, which poses enormous challenges for ELLs and their teachers.

Crawford (2004) reports that NCLB testing policies undermine bilingual education programs when the tests are provided in English only.

Children took a full range of language and content courses in both languages;

-instructional time was balanced equally between English and Spanish

PROBLEMS, DIFFICULTIES, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS • Classroom curriculum and instruction

covers primarily or solely the material on the test; within a high-stakes testing context, ‘teaching to the test’ becomes commonplace.

• Tests wield enormous power over the lives of the students and educators.

• Tests shape the instruction and educational experiences of students in school, and also determine students’ futures.

Tests affect the status of languages and limit their diversity in schools.

At the school level, curriculum and teaching is narrowed to the material on the tests, and certain languages are privileged over others in education.

More research is needed:

• to explore how testing shapes language education policy

• Examine the impact that language education policy has on testing policy and vice versa.

Determine what impact testing has beyond schools,

Questions?