Assessment for Children Learning English as an Additional Language

Claudine Bowyer-CraneDept of Education

claudine.bowyer-crane@york.ac.uk@ccrane74

Collaborators

• Dept of Human Communication Sciences, University of Sheffield

– Dr Silke Fricke

– Dr Blanca Schaefer

• Dept of English, University of Chester

– Dr Frank Herrman

Assessment in All Languages

• Assessment in ALL languages a child speaks is important– Tease apart children who may have difficulties

with language from those who simply lack proficiency in English

• Challenges– Norms

– Concept vs Lexical item (e.g. Gross et al, 2014)

– Culturally appropriate (e.g. Teoh et al, 2012)

Norms

• English norms not appropriate for children learning EAL

• Mahon & Crutchley, 2006 – BPVS

– 165 children in 3 schools in London Boroughs (n=96 EAL)

– Ages 4 – 10 years

– Raw scores showed weaker performance for EAL children.

Adapted from Mahon & Crutchley, 2006

Lexical Item vs ConceptN = 98 aged 5-

7yrs

40 monolingual English

39 simultaneous Spanish/English

19 Sequential Spanish/English

Receptive:• Peabody Picture Vocabulary• Test de Vocabulario en

Imágenes PeabodyExpressive• Woodcock Johnson III

Picture Vocabulary• Batería III Woodcock-Muñoz

Pruebas de aprovechamiento

ResultsTypical Scoring:English Receptive Vocabulary -Monolinguals < Simultaneous < SequentialEnglish Expressive Vocabulary –Monolinguals < Simultaneous < Sequential

Conceptual Scoring:English Receptive Vocabulary -Monolinguals = Simultaneous < SequentialEnglish Expressive Vocabulary –Monolinguals < Simultaneous = Sequential

Adapted from Gross et al, 2014

Culturally Appropriate (e.g. Teoh et al, 2012)

Expressive Vocabulary (CELF preschool)

Singapore English Action Picture Test

Poorer performance on EV test compared to UK norms (mean 6.96, SD

3.34)

A higher proportion of children identified as at-

risk using CELF than SEAPT

Importance of Vocabulary

• Knowledge of basic vocabulary is vital for communication

• Vocabulary is a fundamental building block for reading comprehension (e.g. Muter et al, 2004; Ricketts et al, 2007; Bowyer-Crane et al, 2016)

• Children with EAL tend to have poor expressive and receptive vocabulary knowledge

• And poor knowledge of multi-word phrases (e.g. Smith & Murphy, 2014; Smith & Bowyer-Crane, in prep)

Study Receptive Expressive

EAL ML EAL ML

Burgoyne et al, 2009

73.33 (12.90) 83.48 (11.41)

58.13 (12.19) 71.98 (13.95)

Burgoyne et al, 2013 80.44 (9.35) 92.25 (10.57) 58.88 (9.78) 79.44 (13.22)

Bowyer-Crane et al, 2016 - - 8.31 (6.73) 12.89 (5.76)

Babayigit, 2014 83.28 (16.36) 100.45 (14/15) - -

Babayigit, 2015 86.70 (15.54) 99.45 (12.46) - -

Role of Vocabulary

Longitudinal e.g.

All children improved but EAL

children < ML children at all

timepoints

Hutchinson et al, 2003• Receptive and Expressive

vocabulary • Years 2, 3 and 4

Burgoyne et al, 2011• Receptive and Expressive

Vocabulary• Years 3 and 4

Bowyer-Crane et al, 2016

Expressive Vocabulary

Reception and Year 1

Relationship between Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension in

Children with EAL

Vocabulary Knowledge e.g.

- Hutchinson et al, 2003

- Burgoyne et al, 2011

- Babayigit, 2014Reading Comprehension

Assessment: Receptive Vocabulary App

• User-friendly

• Quick to administer

• Presents instructions and items in child’s first language including English

• Data recorded directly to database

Selecting Items

• Kuperman et al (2012) – 63 verbs/74 nouns

– Concrete

– Culturally unbiased

• Online questionnaire

– Native speakers

– Do the words exist in …..?

– Does the word have a direct translation?

– Write word down in home language

• Final selection 22 nouns/22 verbs plus distractors

Report for Practitioners

Pilot 1: Schaefer et al, 2015

10 schools

EAL = 72

English version = 72

Home language = 38

ML = 67

• Weak language skills

• Composite– Early Repetition Battery

– Expressive Vocabulary

– Sentence Structure

• Low SES areas

• All taking part in RCT

• Beginning of Year 1

• Noun version onlyCzechn=6

Polishn=2

Punjabin=12

Urdun=18

ResultsChildren Measure N Mean SD Min/Max

Monolingual

BPVS Raw 67 69.31 14.2 39-92

CELF Raw 67 22.79 7.09 6-36

RVS Eng 67 17.12 2.14 8-20

Multilingual

BPVS Raw 72 61.65 15.10 15-85

CELF Raw 72 18.19 8.59 2-34

RVS Eng 72 17.04 2.13 12-20

RVS Home 38 15.13 4.63 5-20

Results

Groups N Chronbachs Alpha

RVS version

CELF Expressive Voc

BPVS RVS English

Monolingual 67 - English .324** .306*

Multilingual 72 - English .508*** .597***

38 .88 Home Language

.214 .391* .673***

Combined 139 .60 English .410*** .456***

Pilot 2: Schaefer et al, in prep

N= 80

(age 3:0-6;6)

44 monolingual German speakers

21 German-Turkish speakers

15 German-Polish speakers

Receptive Vocabulary Screener in German and Turkish/Polish

German receptive vocabulary (standardised) Patholinguistic Diagnosis, K(auschke & Siegmueller, 2002)

Results Children Measure N Mean SD

Monolingual

RVS German Nouns 44 17.95 1.26

RVS German Verbs 44 16.41 2.4

Bilingual

RVS German Nouns 36 15.11 3.68

RVS German Verbs36 13.86 3.80

RVS Polish – nouns 15 16.47 1.96

RVS Polish - verbs 15 15.20 2.65

RVS Turkish - nouns 21 14.19 3.66

RVS Turkish - verbs 21 13.62 3.58

Results Group Version PD nouns PD verbs

Monolingual RVS German - nouns .452** .404***

RVS German – verbs .266 ns .671***

Bilingual RVS German - nouns .748*** .816***

RVS German - verbs .671*** .820***

RVS home language -

nouns

.334* .239 ns

RVS home language -

verbs

.448** .476**

Whole group RVS German - nouns .715*** .702***

RVS German - verbs .580*** .780***

Summary

• App based screener designed to measure vocabulary multilingual learners

• Shows concurrent validity when compared with standardised measures of vocabulary in English and German

• Pilot work ongoing

Future Steps

• Trial with younger children

• Trial verb version

• Expand languages

• Extend upwards

• Develop cloudbased datasharing system to establish norms

• Produce Expressive measure

www.vocabularyapp.org.uk

• participating nurseries, schools and children centres and their staff for their commitment and support

• parents and children for taking part in the study

• research assistants for their hard work

• Sue Withey (Sheffield City Council), Beverley Booker (Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council)

• Sheffield University for funding the RVS project

A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO

Contact details:

Claudine Bowyer-Crane University of Yorkclaudine.bowyer-crane@york.ac.ukhttp://www.york.ac.uk/education/research/perc/

http://www.vocabularyapp.org/