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Resources for assessing the home language competences of migrant pupils

Introduction
Why assess?
What are the principles of assessment?
Whose competences
to assess,
and how?
By
which means
 to assess?
How to get involved?
This page will be available in English soon. Please refer to the pages in French.


WHO ARE
the learners
concerned?


TYPES
of assessment
situations


WHO IS 
responsible for or shares responsibility for the assessments?


WHAT IS THE OVERALL PICTURE
as regards responsibility for assessment?

Types of assessment situation

There are various ways of assessing home language competences, depending on where learners are in the education system, and assessment is done with different purposes in mind:
  • on arrival (diagnostic assessment) to assess learners' competences (in language(s), reading and writing, mathematics, etc.), to check their learning achievements and to determine their place in the school system (or school year);
  • during learners’ schooling , in particular during home language teaching if it exists, to assess learners’ progress, for example (formative and summative assessment) ;
  • as part of end-of-cycle examinations or to obtain a certificate, for admission to the next cycle of study, for example (summative and certificate-based assessments). The knowledge and competences acquired can be used by learners later in their schooling.
Contribution from Marian van Popta

 To the video

Marian van Popta is a senior researcher in the "Multilingualism and Education" research group at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. Working with a range of education professionals, her research explores strategies and methods for inclusive education in contexts of linguistic diversity.

How can competences in a home language (reading and writing, for example) be identified via a test that looks at prior learning (of mathematics, for instance)?

Degrees of proficiency in the home language vary greatly, which explains why the boundary between knowledge and competences in the language of schooling and in the home language is blurred. In such cases it seems important to distinguish whether the test designed to assess prior learning is in a home language and/or in a language which is familiar to the learners from their previous schooling, In the latter case, they will have will most likely have learned to reflect on the way the language functions.

Proficiency in the home language depends on the learner’s previous level of schooling, previous usage of the language, etc

. 

La The boundary between the subject knowledge and competences acquired during previous schooling, which are focused on in these diagnostic tests, and (home) language competences as such is porous (for example, the link between reading and writing competences of a given age group or at a given school level, and the ability to understand written language in a given text). Here it could be useful to take the opportunity to use material that has been designed to measure prior learning also as a means of highlighting general language competences (reception and production). This could be done with the help of an interpreter or a teacher of the home language being assessed.

 Further information:  more detailed examples of assessment methods are available in the "When and how to assess" section.