Sofía González-Otero | Assessing Inferential Reading Skills in English Language Learners...
Channel: CSET at Stanford
Date: 12/05/2022

Recorded 06/10/2021. Assessing Inferential Reading Skills in English Language Learners Using Comparable Tests in Spanish and English

Cultural and linguistic diversity is considered a universal and persistent phenomenon. High population heterogeneity due to migration movements has resulted in more and more countries facing the critical challenge of effective bilingual education. In this context of diversity, it is necessary to establish commitments to strengthen education quality, understanding bilingualism in terms of a continuum process. In recent years, many advances have been made in research on how to teach children a second language. However, existing approaches to treat diversity are limited because they lack adequate support of current language and culture theories. Information about the language competence of students learning a second language is usually fragmented and imprecise, and the instruments used to classify students vary between different regions. Populations of English language learners (ELLs) are complex and heterogeneous, and their linguistic skills are commonly underestimated. My talk aims to present new alternatives to achieve equitable treatment of linguistic diversity. I will also explore how the performance of ELL students varies across languages when they are tested in English and their first language, evaluating reading comprehension (literacy) in different types of inferential questions related to various short narrative texts.