Brown chapter 23 and 24

Assessment is one of important aspects of teachings. Assessment is for the students to see the results of students’ success. In chapter 23 and 24 of Brown, he talked about different kinds of assessments. In chapter 23, it talked about the issues of large scale proficiency test. Personally, I don’t think standardized test for ELL students is beneficial for students. I feel like standardized test is making teachers to teach what the state wants students to learn instead fulfilling students’ needs. I went to observe in 3^rd grade bilingual class. The teacher told me that she was trying to teach that relate to standardized test because many of her students did poorly on the standardized test. It seems like schools or districts believe that assessment is the only way to see the students’ achievement. One of the reasons why I think standardize testing is not beneficial for students is that its reliability. Many ELL students get nervous when they take standardized testing. I remember I had to take standardized testing and I was so nervous and everything went blank. I never had to take a test like standardized testing and it made be very nervous.  Also, standardized testing can mislead the teachers’ lesson because they might focus too much on getting a good grade on standardizing test.

Brown chapter 24 talked about different assessments as well. It talked about alternative assessment. I personally like alternative assessment because I can see students’ progress and things that they learned. I remember I had to do lots of journals when I was in ESL. Doing journals is one of things that I hate. I didn’t understand why I had to do journals. However, after I am taking all these classes, I realized the importance of journals, portfolios and others.  

As more I read these chapters, I realized that I need to use different kinds of assessment. I have to be careful to not stick with one assessment and use variety of assessments for students. Also, I have to teach students to be comfortable to take tests because many ELL students get nervous when they take tests. What can I do as teacher to develop more assessment for students? How do we know if some particular assessment works or not?