English as a Second Language (MTTC 126)
Domain: English as a Second Language. MTTC 126 tests one integrated domain: how language works, how a second language is acquired, how to shelter grade-level content, how to assess fairly, and how Michigan policy shapes services for multilingual learners.
Language systems and acquisition
Name the language level in any grammar or error item: phonology (sound system), morphology (word parts, inflection), syntax (sentence structure), semantics (meaning), pragmatics (social use). Errors are evidence of rule-building, not carelessness. Contrastive analysis predicts L1-driven trouble; error analysis shows what the interlanguage is actually doing. Krashen's input hypothesis holds that acquisition follows comprehensible input (i + 1) with a low affective filter; Cummins separates BICS (conversational fluency, 1–3 years) from CALP (academic language, 5–7 years).
Michigan identification, standards, and instruction
Michigan is a WIDA Consortium state. A home language survey flags possible ELs; the WIDA Screener confirms eligibility and proficiency level 1–6 (Entering, Emerging, Developing, Expanding, Bridging, Reaching). Instruction should pair a content objective with a language objective, supply comprehensible input (visuals, realia), and scaffold output with sentence frames, word banks, and peer talk. The legal spine: Lau v. Nichols (1974) requires meaningful access; Castañeda v. Pickard (1981) supplies a three-part test - sound program, implemented, evaluated.
Worked example
A fifth grader retells a playground story in fluent past tense but writes a science paragraph of fragments with no academic vocabulary. Reasoning: the spoken sample shows BICS; the writing is context-reduced CALP, still Expanding. The teacher keeps the content objective (explain evaporation) and adds a language objective (state cause with because), supplies a labeled diagram, and gives the frame Evaporation happens because ____. Assessment is the diagram plus two framed sentences - both content and language evidenced.
Traps that cost marks
Equating playground fluency with academic readiness; treating L1 influence as the only error source; simplifying content instead of language; confusing accommodations (read aloud, extended time, glossary - access without changing what is measured) with modifications (reduced expectations); assuming services end at a fixed date rather than by exit criteria; and forgetting that an assessment must be valid for the language it claims to measure.