Testing
At the time that Kola was undergoing psychological testing last spring, he also took an English language proficiency test at school. The latter instrument is designed for ESL students (English as a Second Language) to measure their acquisition of English.Kola was rated on five aspects of language acquisition:
Listening
Speaking
Reading
Writing
Comprehension (Listening and Reading)
He scored completely normal in speaking ability, and it's true that few people who meet him realize that he spoke only Ukrainian just two years ago. He scored high in his listening abilities, having reached grade level in listening both to social and academic language. Reading and writing scores were much lower, which is not uncommon for ESL students.
So when the psychological testing mentions problems with reading and writing, it's difficult at this time to determine how much of the issue is ESL versus his innate learning style. That's one of the things that I'm trying to sort out from the documents we received this week.
posted by Stahlkes @ 4:33 PM
2 Comments:
I'm curious...does the school also test his ability to read and write in Ukrainian? Or did he not get much of a chance to learn to do that in his native tongue? I have a friend who developed her doctoral dissertation on teaching young (6-12 yrs old)ESL learners how to master their own native tongue, before teaching them English. She worked with mostly Russian and Serbian students. I find it quite fascinating. But maybe, in Kola's case, it's a mute point. Just thinking...and so appreciate your sharing the news with us.
Love ya,
Your Colorado Cuz
Thanks for the info--I'll respond more later.
Post a Comment
<< Home