Transcript

Well this is obviously a dilemma for teachers. How do I know what progress my students are making? I don't speak the language that she does and they are not able to tell me what they know already. 

There are a couple things to keep in mind. One is that by observing students' progress over time, we can tell a lot. If we're experienced with teaching English language learners then we know approximately what kinds of progress they might be expected to make and we can look at the individual students in relation to those norms that we have in our head. 

One important aspect to keep in minds is that what students know in their first language is relevant to their progress in the second language. We know from a lot research carried out in many parts of the world that students who come in with well-developed first language academic skills tend to make faster progress and better progress ultimately in terms of their acquisition of English academic skills. And so, having dual language books or books in a variety of first languages is relevant; we can ask the students if they can read the book. For the students it gives them familiarity in terms of scene, stuff in their own language that they can relate to and we can observe to what extent they are able to read fluently or they are stumbling over words. And so we can get a sense of what they know in their first language. 

Also, by talking to the parents we can get a sense of what the students' education background might be. It's very different situation for a student who is highly literate in their first language as compared to students who may have missed several years of schooling and those students will need a lot more support than students who are coming in with strong first language literacy skills.