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.

COMPLEX CHALLENGES
linked to the diversity of mobility and travel situations

HOW TO WORK WITH THE DIVERSITY
of languages when dealing with assessment

SOME OF THE PRECONCEIVED IDEAS
that the RECOLANG resources seek to transform

LEARNER
STATEMENTS

EXPLORATORY
RESEARCH

Some of the preconceived ideas that RECOLANG resources seek to transform

"Assessing home languages is not important because they are not part of the school curriculum - there's no point in having a diploma in Lingala, for example."

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"Assessing home languages may be useful for "major languages" / languages with "official language" status. It is only useful for languages with a national or international dimension, not for languages which are local."

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"You can't assess languages that aren't written. You can't assess languages that vary from region to region."

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"Assessment is used to check on learning. Assessment is useful for introducing a standard."

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"You can't assess something that hasn't been explicitly learned."

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To assess is to gather information about a process of learning that is taking place, whether in a formal or non-formal situation.

The complexity of today's classroom contexts is not just quantitative (more learners, coming from a multiplicity of contexts, etc.). Above all, it requires an appreciation of the diversity and variety of backgrounds (socialisation, schooling, etc.) in situations of language learning that differ markedly from one learner to another. In order to assess the heterogeneous "hybrid" language competences resulting from formal and/or non-formal learning situations, the assessment tools of course need to be adapted. This encourages the development of a continuum in language didactics (didactics for the teaching of foreign languages, the language(s) of schooling and home languages).

The school must also help to break down the barriers between formal and informal learning environments by taking account of what has been learned in other contexts and building bridges between these different learning environments, for example by involving parents or family members in the teaching process, particularly in school activities.

Being part of a 'learning community' has a cognitive, affective and also a symbolic function for learners who may feel able to mobilise all their resources to advance their own development. This can enable the school to empower all learners (Le Bossé & Lavallée, 1993) to develop their critical faculties and their role as active citizens. By fully developing their language competences, learners become aware of the power of language. They realise that the structure and tools of the language(s) in their repertoire can be used to organise their thoughts in interaction with society and the world around them. This happens, for example, through reading, developing literary competences, exchanging ideas and adopting standpoints as part of discovering and affirming their "plural" self.

"Assessing oral competences is complicated, difficult and time-consuming. It's impossible to assess home languages in their spoken form."

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"To assess home languages, you need experts."

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"It's easier / simpler to assess knowledge than to assess competences"

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The framework for reflection and the tools proposed have been designed with a view to assessing communicative competence, focusing on the type of learning proposed in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages Companion Volume and the Framework of Reference for pluralistic approaches. These are the competences that are mobilised when one needs to solve a task in a concrete situation. Linguistic aspects are included, but so are other competences. From the perspective of a dynamic repertoire model, transversal competences (cognitive, non-cognitive) and the skill of learning how to learn, for example, are also included.

From this point of view, communicative competence involves mobilising the speaker's (internal) resources, which include knowledge, but also interpersonal competences, for example, readiness to perform a task, and know-how, for example, the ability to compare two pieces of information. Knowledge by itself is not enough. Research is converging towards positive assessment as opposed to assessment as punishment. This move towards a formative approach to the assessment of competences that supports the learner’s language development is close to the real uses of language. Language competences are assessed through a variety of tasks (rooted in everyday life), tools (e.g. portfolios), and levels of responsibility of those involved (assessment organised by the school, at national level, in a local partnership between school and assessment body, etc.).

The diversity of learners means broadening the methods and content used to assess competences by choosing multilingual methods of assessment. These may be similar to those used to assess competences in the languages of the curriculum or may be the result of innovation. The methods may involve mediation or translanguaging activities. In this sense, the idea is not to prioritise the assessment of specific language competences (e.g. grammatical knowledge), but to verify the ongoing development of communicative competence in a repertoire where languages, and in particular the language(s) of schooling, co-exist, interact and are in synergy with each other. The aim is to identify and make use of learners' developmental potential.

"There's no point in assessing ... in a dialect of Arabic, for example."

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"If the learner doesn't write his/her language, he/she can't have a level."

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"Mastering the language is everything: you have to know how to speak and write."

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