Subtest II - English Language Development
Subtest II: English Language Development tests how to teach and assess ELD using California's ELD Standards, proficiency levels, lesson design, strategies, materials, and assessment of English learners' language and literacy. Expect items that ask you to align an objective, scaffold, and assessment to a standard and proficiency level.
Standards and levels
California's ELD Standards (2012) align with the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy. They are organized into Part I: Interacting in Meaningful Ways (A. Collaborative, B. Interpretive, C. Productive), Part II: Learning About How English Works (A. Structuring Cohesive Texts, B. Expanding and Enriching Ideas, C. Connecting and Condensing Ideas), and Part III: Using Foundational Literacy Skills. The three proficiency levels are Emerging, Expanding, and Bridging; each describes what students can do with support along a continuum. Designated ELD is protected time for explicit language instruction; integrated ELD is the use of ELD standards during content instruction.
Instruction and assessment
Lesson design should include both content and language objectives, comprehensible input, structured interaction, opportunities for oral and written output, and formative checks. Strategies include sentence frames, graphic organizers, visuals, modeled reading and writing, cooperative learning, close reading with text-dependent questions, and academic vocabulary instruction. Materials should be grade-level complex texts with scaffolds, not permanently simplified texts. Assessment includes formative observation, rubrics, portfolios, performance tasks, and the ELPAC, whose overall levels are Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced. Reclassification uses multiple measures, not one test score.
Worked example
A fourth-grade Expanding-level ELD lesson targets standard ELD.PI.4.1: participating in collaborative discussions. The language objective is: 'Students will state an opinion and support it with one piece of evidence from the text using the frame I think ___ because ___.' The teacher pre-teaches two vocabulary words, models the frame, provides an anchor chart, and has partners practice before a small-group discussion. Assessment is an observation checklist plus an exit ticket. Reasoning: the standard names interaction; the Expanding level calls for increased independence but continued scaffolding; the frame and model are supports, not the objective; the checklist measures the stated language.
Traps
Do not confuse designated ELD with integrated ELD. Do not reduce ELD to grammar drills. Do not use only below-grade-level texts. Do not let a content-heavy test stand in for language assessment. Do not treat proficiency level as grade level. Do not scaffold so heavily that students avoid thinking.