FEATURES
Words with Friends
By Roselyn Rauch
It seems like yesterday that I was putting the finishing touches on our pre-Spring Conference edition but, in a flash, time has passed, it's July, and our wonderful May-June event has come and gone. So much time and hard work is invested by the Executive Board, the Conference Chair and Liaison particularly, to provide for you a top-notch professional experience. Big thanks go to Caia Schlesinger and Tina Kern, respectively. Our Conference Chair, Caia Schlesinger, also, extends her gratitude for all of the behind-the-scenes preparation (of which you may not be aware) in Thank You.
Our annual event showcases top leaders in our field, brings lawmakers to apprise you of changes in bilingual/ESL educational law, and vendors with the newest materials. And, it gives everyone the opportunity to have words with friends: networking is critical to our professional success. If you weren’t able to make it this year, know that planning has already begun for the 2018 Spring Conference on Wednesday and Thursday, May 30th and 31st, and Friday, June 1st. Mark your calendars now.
This summer edition of Voices reprises our Conference just past. Our photo gallery will jog your memory of things experienced during our three-day jewel. Shout-out to our photographers, especially Marilyn Pongracz, for capturing those moments. Be sure to view the winners of the Scholarship Awards-those young people whose essays moved us and reminded us of why we do what we do. View the adult recipients of awards for jobs well-done. Past-president and renowned author, Judie Haynes, sums it up for us in NJTESOL/NJBE Presents Ten Scholarships and Awards. The Advocacy Summit, too, held on Wednesday evening gave all the opportunity to celebrate our honorees and have an informative session with representatives and legislators.
In Conference Reflections for Fall Learning, our president, Joanne Negrin, reports how the conference and its many resources have already become catalysts for change in her district.
Our new Elementary ESL Special Interest Group (SIG) Representative, Rosalie Pereda, shares her Reflections from the Conference. Bilingual Elementary1-8 SIG Rep, Sandy Nahmias, sent in The Bilingual Elementary Post-Conference Report and Special Education SIG Representative, Sonya Bertini, offers My Conference Take-Aways.
We welcome new members to the Executive Board, Joyce Farr, Rosalie Pereda, Hana Prashker, and Diana Sefchik. In Reflections on the Immigrant Narrative, Joyce Farr, Representative-at-Large, shouts for advocacy stemming from her own immigrant experience. Our new ESL Secondary SIG Rep., Hana Prashker, shares Reminders: Why I Do What I Do from the classroom to advocacy. The Higher Education SIG has a new representative, Diana Sefchik, who is returning to the Executive Board after a hiatus. Her contribution, A Letter from Your New Higher Education Representative, reveals her extensive experience and her mission. Thank you, ladies, for joining us.
Tina Kern, once again, brings us raw emotion from the classroom experience; read From Trauma and Tragedy to Triumph as it has an exciting twist. Parent and Community Liaison, Angeline Sturgis, tells us something personal in My Labor of Love. New, as a resource for all, take note of Community Guidelines and Resources to Use with Parents and Guardians
With testing always on our minds, Margaret Churchill, our WIDA contact, informs us on the latest WIDA Assessments. In A Capstone for All, Michelle Land, our Bilingual/ESL Middle School SIG Representative, shares the results of a project that “As part of a Montclair University Action Research Grant, a group of Randolph (NJ) Middle School teachers developed a capstone program to engage all 8th grade students.” Read this, see her photos, and rejoice with her.
And last, but by no means least important, after all of the self-congratulations, Bryan Meadows, reporting as Teacher Education SIG Rep, grounds us with Teacher Education Programs in New Jersey: How are we doing? Bryan shares the results of the survey that he conducted among members from January to March, 2017.
Before I close, in Contact Us, we now have included links to our Facebook and Twitter pages. I urge you to take note of the change on the Discussion List Information page on the website. You can search the Hotlist database from the link there. You can also find archived hot topic conversations on the Discussion List Q & A page. Submission Guidelines has some small changes; remember you do not have to be an Executive Board member to submit an article.
In closing, as usual, I strongly encourage you to read beyond your SIG: you never know what may resonate with you.
Have a wonderful, safe, happy, and healthy summer. Rest and restore as you ruminate on the coming year.
See you in the fall,
Roselyn
Roselyn Rauch, Editor
Roselyn Rauch, Ed. D, is the editor of Voices and a retired ESL/ESL Resource teacher from the Paterson Public School System. She is a consultant with ESL Unlimited and may be reached at rrauch@njtesol.org.
By JoAnne Negrin
Conference Reflections for Fall Learning
Wow. Here we are, another school year in the books. It doesn’t matter if this was your first year or your fortieth in the classroom, no matter what kind of year you had, chances are you were in need of some rest by the time the last student left the building.
Those of you who attended the Spring Conference hopefully have much to reflect on (once you regain that ability.) The fact that the conference takes place in June is driven by necessity. Even in June we can’t escape conflict with testing dates. The upside of a later conference date is the fact that there is time once the craziness of the school year fades into summer to think about those ideas that have stuck with us, and find ways that we will incorporate new ideas into our practice to make the next year even better.
The downside of organizing a conference is that you don’t get to see as many presentations as you would like. Even so, I came away with some important ideas that my district is putting into practice immediately. Like so many districts, we have seen our students come to us terrified about what might happen to them, or to their parents, under the current administration’s immigration policy. My Superintendent and I were able to have a great conversation about our concerns and about the resources that we became aware of through the conference sessions and the Advocacy Summit. We then pulled together a team of community leaders, district leaders, the Mayor, the Chief of Police, and others to coordinate our response to any situations that might arise, and to create a plan for educating our immigrant community about their rights and for educating our community-at-large about the value that our recent arrivals bring to our city. It was gratifying to see so many stakeholders in the community with diverging political leanings completely on the same page about protecting our most vulnerable community members, and in agreement about the positive contribution they make to our society. Our committee will be drafting a resolution to be approved by the Board of Education declaring our schools to be safe and welcoming environments for our students. School leaders will receive training so that they will react uniformly in the event that ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) should appear at the school or in the neighborhood. Each stakeholder organization promised to do their part to create an atmosphere of safety and respect. We will be meeting several times over the coming year to continue to monitor events and coordinate a response. Our community organizations are reaching out to community organizations in North Jersey that are far more established than we are, and as a result, our communities and organizations will be strengthened.
Concrete ways to coordinate a response to student fears was my take-away from the Spring Conference. For others, their take-away is a new way to present information or an activity or technology that they want to incorporate. There truly is something to fulfill every need. I would love to hear about your take-away. If you would like to share, please feel free to join the discussion on our Facebook page, on the Hotlist, or on Twitter, using hashtag #njtesolbe.
JoAnne Negrin, Ed.D, President, NJTESOL/NJBE
Supervisor of ESL, Bilingual Education, World Languages, Performing Arts, ESSA
Vineland Public Schools
Thank You
By Caia Schlessinger
On Saturday, June 17th, 2017, the dedicated volunteer members of the NJTESOL/NJBE Executive Board gathered together at the Hyatt Hotel in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to begin planning for the upcoming year. One of the topics on our agenda was our annual Spring Conference. I am so grateful for the hard work of our volunteer Board members. Without these dedicated members, we wouldn’t be able to have our wonderful Spring Conferences. Our organization also wouldn’t be able to run as efficiently as it does without the behind- the- scenes hard work of our Business Administrator, Gwen Franks. I also would like to thank our Past-President, Sandee McBride, and our President, JoAnne Negrin, for mentoring me throughout this process. It was daunting to take on the role of Conference Chair but I’m glad that I did.
Apart from our Executive Board and other volunteers, I would like to thank everyone who attended and presented this year. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedules in order to attend and/or present. Thanks go to our keynote speakers, featured speakers, Special Interest Group (SIG) Representatives, and other presenters for sharing their expertise.
We have some presentations from the conference on our website:
http://www.njtesol-njbe.org/handouts17/index.htm . Please click the link for presentations by our keynote and featured speakers, as well as the New Jersey Department of Education’s (NJDOE) presentation ‘State Initiatives in Bilingual/ESL Education’.
And, lastly, thanks to those of you who filled out our online survey. Stay tuned for the updates to our 2018 Spring Conference. Please save the dates: May 30th, May 31st, and June 1st, 2018, again at the Hyatt Hotel in New Brunswick.
Have a wonderful summer.
Caia Schlessinger, Vice President/Conference Chair, NJTESOL/NJBE
ESL Teacher, Highland Park School District
cschlessinger@njtesol-njbe.org
NJTESOL/NJBE Presents Ten Scholarships and Awards
By Judie Haynes
NJTESOL/NJBE was pleased to present nine scholarships and awards to English language learners and teachers of ELLs, and also to one parent, at the 2017 Spring Conference on June 1st. Fifteen NJTESOL/NJBE members read applications and chose the winners. Judie Haynes, the committee chair, wants to thank Debbie De Blasio, Sandy Nahmias, Sharon Hollander, Lori Ramella, Raquel Sinai, Greg Romero, Roselyn Rauch, Michelle Land, B.J. Franks, Barbara Tedesco, Marcella Garavaglia, Cassy Lawrence, Howard Pomann and Tina Kern for the outstanding choices that they made. Thanks also to Marilyn Pongracz for transmitting all of the applications from the website to the scholarship readers.
The 2017 scholarship and award winners were chosen from a field of over 80 applicants. They are:
- Diana Xiao, Robertsville Elementary School, Marlboro, NJ, won the Fourth Grade English Writing Challenge for her essay on how bilingualism has helped her; she received an iPad. The ESL teacher who sponsored her is Michelle Sherman.
- Kevin Jovel, from the Maria L.Varisco-Rogers Charter School, Newark, NJ, won the Eighth Grade English Writing Challenge and received a PC tablet. The teacher who sponsored Kevin is Rosana Santos.
- Arina Nikitenko, from Colt’s Neck High School in Colts Neck, NJ, was awarded the Pedro J. Rodriquez High School Scholarship for $2000. This scholarship is given to an English learner who is enrolled in an ESL/bilingual program. Arina will use the scholarship to pursue study in an institution of higher education. The teacher that sponsored her is T. Scheffler.
- Marie Vilsaint, student at Williamston High School in Monroe Township, NJ, received NJTESOL/NJBE’s new Seal of Biliteracy Scholarship for $2000. This is awarded to an English learner who has earned the Seal of Biliteracy. Marie, originally from Haiti, wrote an essay on how the Seal of Biliteracy would benefit her in the future. The teacher who sponsored Marie is Joyce Farr.
- The Praxedes León Parent Award for $500 is given to a parent of a scholarship winner. Nancy Senescat Cajuste, mother of Marie Vilsaint, received this award.
- The Raquel Sinai Newcomer Scholarship for $1500 went to Adel Olabi from Barnegat High School in Barnegat, NJ. This award is given to a student who is currently in ESL/bilingual classes and who has been in the U.S. for less than 2 years. Adel, originally from Syria, wrote an essay about the advice he would give to a new English learner. The teacher who sponsored Adel is Monica Gonzalez.
- The Higher Education Award for $2000 is given to a student who is matriculated into a part - or full-time college or university ESL program. This year’s winner is Nguyet Pham from Middlesex County College. The teacher who sponsored her is Richard Roy.
- The Hector R. Villafane Award for $500 is given to an Hispanic high school student in an ESL or bilingual program. This year’s award was presented to Joely Miroslavia Asomoza-Barrios from Cherry Hill High School West in Cherry Hill, NJ. The teacher who sponsored Joely is Maggie Strimel.
- The winner of the Dr. Jessie Reppy Scholarship for $2500 is Alexandra Lavanco from William Paterson University. This scholarship is given to a student who is working for a Master’s Degree in the field of ESL/bilingual education. The teacher who sponsored Alexandra is Dr. Gladys Vega.
- The $500 Elizabeth Claire Teacher’s Grant is given to an ESL teacher who works under difficult circumstances. This year’s grant was awarded to Alisia Bonilla from Jersey City, NJ. The money from the grant is for supplies and services.
NJTESOL/NJBE congratulates all of the winners and thanks their teachers for encouraging them to apply for these scholarships and awards.
The 2017 NJTESOL/NJBE Advocacy Summit
On Wednesday, May 31, 2017, NJTESOL/NJBE held an advocacy summit, an informative meeting about advocating for our students and their families. It was also a celebration of our advocacy honorees and our representatives and legislators.
Panel members included Elizabeth Franks, NJTESOL/NJBE, Inc., LLAMAME, LLC; Sara Cullinane, AFTNJ; Representative Frank Pallone; Assemblywoman Marlene Caride; Stan Karp, Education Law Center; Giancarlo Tello and Jennifer Rodriguez, UndocuJersey.
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2017 NJTESOL/NJBE Spring Conference Exhibitors
Please patronize our exhibitors and supporters. Thank you.
- ABC Nana
- American Federation of Teachers/New Jersey
- American Reading Company
- Caldwell University
- Capstone
- Caslon, Inc.
- Center for the Collaborative Classroom
- Childcraft
- Continental Press
- Genius Plaza
- GrapeSEED
- Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt
- Imagine Learning
- Instructional Solutions
- Language Lizard, LLC
- The Latino Family Literacy Project
- The Learning Collection
- Lexia Learning
- Lectorum Publishers
- McGraw Hill Education
- National Geographic/Cengage Learning
- New Jersey Department of Education/ESL Education
- NJ Teachers Lounge
- Newmark Learning
- Okapi Educational Publishing
- Pacific Learning
- Pearson ELT
- Pro Lingua Associates
- Rutgers Graduate School/ Education
- Saddleback Education, Inc.
- Sadlier School
- Santillana USA
- Scholastic
- School Specialty
- Storytelling Arts, Inc
- Teacher Created Materials
- Townsend Press
- Tommie’s World
- Usborne Books and More
- Velasquez Press
- WIDA
- Zaner-Bloser Publishers
Poster Sessions in the Atrium Foyer
Sabrina Angelini: Course Influence on Teaching Based on the Danielson Framework
Savdeep Kaur Hothi (Carteret): Impact of iPads on English Language Learners
Esra Ileri (Bergen Community College):
The Most Confusing Tense UntangledCarmela O’Flaherty: Clear and Effective Speech Through the Use of Props
Ayla Quaglio (Washington Township Schools): Digital Resources that Promote ELL Parental Engagement
Ali Safivand (University of Rochester): Teachers’ Feedback to Students’ Motivation to Engage in the Writing Process
Melanie Tard (Trenton Public Schools): Helping ELLs Succeed through “Donors Choose”
Rosa Rivera: The Danielson Framework in Teaching Language and Culture Class
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From Trauma and Tragedy to Triumph
By Tina Kern
Today is my first day home: school’s out!
I always have bittersweet feelings as I reflect upon a just-ended school year. My question always is: Did I make a difference?
This academic year ended with a wonderful experience, a little serendipity. A few days before the end of school, two seniors from our ESL (English as a Second Language) program delivered an invitation to a party. It was hand lettered and carefully applied to a piece of yellow construction paper. The girls were smiling and said, “See you Tuesday!” These two girls were in one of my first sections of high school ESL 1.
I can recall the first day I saw them. What a day it was! (I was released from the hospital a few days before. A spider bit me and poisoned my blood causing a plethora of side effects; I always hated spiders and now I had good reason.) Administration transferred me from a program with a majority of transitioning elementary ELLs (English language learners) to a high school filled with newly arrived immigrants with interrupted education and who had experienced unbelievable trauma. I vividly remember that first day. It was November and 28 serious, almost angry-looking, students entered my class and stared at me. After I introduced myself, one student shouted out in Spanish, “How long are you going to last? We have already gone through 6 teachers! Will you be here tomorrow?”
I remember my answer: “I’ll be here tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that, and every day.”
“We’ll see,” was the retort.
And so every day I showed up at that class and every class as our adventure together unfolded. Every day they asked me, “Will you be here tomorrow?” They made me cry and they made me laugh. We took two steps forward and one step back. They began to trust me and so they began to retell the horrors they had experienced and the nightmares they lived with day and night. Every day, we relived the dance of students trying to trust a teacher, a teacher from another culture and another existence. I remember the days that were good and the days that made me question the impact I was making.
I have written in Voices about our experiences, the journeys we took together. We cheered the successes and cried for the battles we lost, as some students succumbed to the lure of outside influences.
Seeing these two seniors now in front of me brought it all back. The memories were becoming visions as I saw them as they were. They were scared, and rebellious, and hurting. But, years later, they survived and thrived. As the teachers and counselors entered the room where our graduating ELLs had set up the party, we were escorted to seats and served food that they cooked themselves. They planned and paid for everything, these students whose appreciation for what we did overcame everything. They sang and danced for us and with us. It was a moment that we will never forget. It was a first but not a last. We hugged and wished them luck in the world we built from trauma and tragedy to triumph.
As I wished each of them luck, I flashed back to each story:
Juan who was shunned at first by the students in the group but now is graduating with honors, even though he went to school full- time with us and worked full- time to support himself and his brother;
Sara, who wouldn’t talk at all but hugged her American backpack, as she tried to blend into the wall; we celebrated when she spoke her first English words;
Daniel, who found his solace with a group of students that led him astray and away from us; and
Carlos, who glared at me, and entered the room each day, trying to build his cocoon of protection, and who rejected help until slowly his barriers started to erode.
So back to the original question: Did I make a difference? If you asked me that question two weeks ago, I would have said, “I hope so… with some… maybe…” I would have added that this is why I teach. I teach for those that I helped. Now, seeing the differences we made, the differences in 12 lives dancing in front of us, smiling, happy, relieved of their burdens if just for a minute, and telling each of us in halting speeches interspersed with tears, “ I appreciate you. I appreciate your support. I appreciate your patience. “
I can now answer the question with a resounding, “YES!” because we were lucky enough to see the results. We did experience the failures, too, as many times we left school frustrated and unable to voice our unsettled feelings. But today we experienced the success, and we cried with happy tears, for the journey that begins again with their graduation on Thursday.
I hope you enjoyed the NJTESOL/NJBE Spring Conference 2017. I also hope that you visited our exhibitors in the search to enrich your classrooms with outstanding material. I know I enjoy visualizing my classroom stocked with all the technology and books they bring. If they reach out to you, or send you samples, please let them know how much we appreciate the time they gave us for three days, standing at the booths, acknowledging our quest for the best.
Once again the workshops were varied and outstanding. Sharing methods and experiences is always a highlight of the conference. I enjoyed giving my workshop on using technology in the classroom via blended learning and Playlists. I am convinced that as we embrace technology, we can better support our students individually at every level and grade. Playlists are just a group of lesson activities that you group together under a theme or objective and present so that students proceed at their own pace through the various grouped lessons. In my large classes, it is a method that allows me some time with the students as others proceed through their Playlist of activities. I presented to high school teachers on Friday but any teacher can integrate this when they need time with small groups.
I am sharing some of my workshop information via an email list. Contact me if you want me to send you some of this information about playlists in blended learning: tkern@njtesol-njbe.org.
And, mark your calendars for next year’s conference: May 30, 31, and June 1, 2018. I can’t wait.
Tina Kern, NJTESOL/NJBE Liaison. Feel free to contact me at tkern@njtesol-njbe.org
Reflections on the Immigrant Narrative
By Joyce Farr
(The following is an edited version of a speech given by the author at the 2017 Spring Conference Advocacy Summit.)
Advocacy is not for the faint of heart. In my work in the “trenches”, as a classroom practitioner and advocate for English language learners, I started to suspect this early on when I became awakened to the needs and gaps in the education of this vulnerable population. However, my passion and my will to change the world, or at least to change the face of education in this country through my own dogged determination, drowned out the voice of reality. I soon realized that sustained change doesn’t happen overnight. Nonetheless, the undertaking is worth every breath, every drop of sweat, every tear shed, and every ounce of labor. Why? That’s the million dollar question. Because when I look into the faces of the children and youths in my classroom, the import of that question is fortified each day by the socio-political happenings around us, very often beyond the walls of our classroom and beyond our local concerns.
An immigrant myself, I come wearing a different set of lenses. I experienced discrimination in a different context, and I am someone who witnessed the oppression of minority groups in a nation with a religious-majority and privileged class, whilst co-existing with friends and neighbors from different ethnic backgrounds and religious faiths. Raised against this backdrop, I witnessed how language, race, and religion could be, and has been, weaponized by political agendas to oppress, subjugate, and denigrate minority groups and consequently divide a nation.
As a nation, we must recognize that all lives matter. To co-opt John F. Kennedy’s landmark address, the rights of all Americans are diminished if the rights of any minority group are threatened. We have this at the foreground of our practice and advocacy efforts - the collective responsibility to strengthen the capacity to use the principles of human rights, civil rights, and social justice to combat entrenched poverty, discrimination, and injustice within our institutions. We cannot remain blind to biased curricular content in our education system that very often lacks inclusive language and contexts, nor to the systemic discriminatory practices, inflammatory propaganda, and deep-seated insularity that permeates what should be safe havens for our children, youth, and colleagues. We need educators, advocates, legislators, and allies to step up and acknowledge the need to frame social justice, immigrant justice, and education rights issues as human rights issues.
Not every one of my students shares the success story that is Marie’s. Marie Vilsaint, the honoree of the Seal of Biliteracy Scholarship, galvanizes my commitment to education and advocacy. While she may have been one of the best students I’ve had the privilege to mentor in my teaching career, Marie was strikingly abashed and nervous when she first arrived in this new country from impoverished and earthquake-ravished Haiti. Torn from the familiarity of a home and caring family, like a frail bird, Marie needed to find her wings. Instead, in the first week of school, so many years ago, I took her under mine. I could only sense her trepidation at the disquieting prospect of finding her place in a new home, in a foreign land, having to live with a new family, learning a new language, and having to attend what, to her, must have been an alarmingly large school. As her teacher, I realized here was potential that needed to be nurtured, developed, and released into the world. Her determination, strong work ethic, and industry has seen her through adversity.
When I first met Juan (not his real name) in his counselor’s office, Juan was distant and wary of my attempt to schedule him for services after screening made him eligible. What I later realized, under the guise of his defiance and apparent apathy was a deep-seated distrust of the system or the teacher that he felt might betray the secret he hid. The secret he later revealed was that his parents were undocumented migrant farmers and that he and his siblings were all US-born. Juan, in his personal narrative, shared his memories of homecoming, referring to his parents’ homeland when they made that trek several years ago. That journey marked the beginning of years of separation for the family members that remained in, or had to return to, the U.S. Juan himself had to work 40-hour weeks just to make a living and help make the rent. Some days, he’d be ready to learn; others, he is too tired in my first period class. Some days, I get the cold shoulder, the sullen mood, and the quiet resistance. On good days, he trusts me enough as a confidante. On those rare days, I thought I might have reached him with stories of how Jose Hernandez, a migrant farmer, realized his dream to become an astronaut. Esau, Castro and Arnoldo all wrote, during our writing workshop, of horrific journeys across land and air, evoking scenes from “narco” movies across miles and miles of desert, rivers, winding roads, detention centers, and freezing spaces, experiences that I found shocking for such young people. I could not believe the words that were spilling out of the pages. Their immigrant narratives speak of how much we as educators need to advocate and provide a voice for those in our classrooms and to provide a space for the voices to be heard.
We need to re-educate from the grassroots up, from the schoolhouse, to the courthouse, to the State House, and to the White House, the meaning of equality for all. I, too, have a dream. I believe in the dream where the color of justice runs deeper than skin color, national origins, and immigration status.
Joyce Farr, Representative-at-Large, jfarr@njtesol-njbe.org
WIDA Assessments
By Maggie Churchill
WIDA assessments are changing and New Jersey educators need to be prepared. The following clarification will help us to be ready for the new 2017-2018 school year.
Program Entry – Choose one
1) WIDA Screener (for use in grades 1-12, not kindergarten)
The WIDA Screener will replace the W-APT, no longer available for grades 1-12 after August 31, 2017; it will eventually be taken “off the shelf” as a WIDA assessment. The WIDA Screener will serve as a multiple measure for identification, as required under the proposed ESSA plan. It is aligned to the new scale score charts used in the 2017 ACCESS 2.0. Online delivery of the test is through WIDA-AMS (DRC) platform, so students will need to be entered into WIDA-AMS.
It is similar in look and feel to ACCESS 2.0 and has the same grade clusters. Listening and reading sections are completed first and scored by the computer; then speaking and writing are administered and scored locally, so test administrators must be certified to score. Students in grades 1-3 will handwrite their written responses in a test booklet (locally printed) just as in ACCESS 2.0. Administrators need to have printed the test booklets in advance.
Grades 4-12 are entirely online. Administrators login to WIDA-AMS to enter speaking and writing scores and receive a score calculation after two hours in just three areas: overall, oral, and literacy. Scores are reported as integers or with .5 decimals only. Reports can be viewed and downloaded. Total administration time is approximately 65-70 minutes.
All test administrators need to view the WIDA Screener Online Webinar, the test administrator manual, and complete the training course before taking the quiz. The tile should appear on your dashboard at www.wida.us once you login to your personal account.
2) W-APT (for grades 1-12) will continue to be allowed until 2018.
3) WIDA MODEL (K-12)
The MODEL will continue to be used in kindergarten, but still needs to be aligned to the new scale score chart, and revision is anticipated. Whole-scale revision of the test is in the initial stages. Teachers can continue to use the MODEL as an Student Growth Objective (SGO) assessment, or as an annual district test required under multiple measures for exiting.
Many have asked: Do I need to administer both assessments at entry?
The WIDA Screener will determine program entry and provide a selected score (as compared to the ACCESS 2.0), but still reports a proficiency. It is an abbreviated test with only two speaking and one writing task. The WIDA Screener has only two paths for test items: low and high.
Additional testing, as required in the annual Fall-Spring Student Growth Objective (SGO), will provide additional information regarding a child’s English language proficiency.
Maggie Churchill, WIDA Specialist to NJTESOL/NJBE, Inc., mchurchill@njtesol-njbe.org