ESL Instruction and Assessment
Methods in sequence
Know the arc: Grammar-Translation (rules and translation), the Direct Method (target language only), Audiolingualism (mimicry, drills, habit formation, behaviorist roots), then the communicative turn - Total Physical Response (commands and movement, strong for pre-production learners), the Natural Approach (comprehensible input, low anxiety), and Communicative Language Teaching (authentic tasks, fluency before accuracy).
Sheltered instruction is the practical core
The SIOP model's eight components are lesson preparation, building background, comprehensible input, strategies, interaction, practice/application, lesson delivery, and review/assessment. In Texas, every lesson for ELs pairs a content objective with a language objective drawn from the ELPS, which are organized by the same four domains TELPAS assesses: listening, speaking, reading, writing.
Assessment precision
Formative assessment happens during learning and informs instruction; summative happens after and reports mastery. Norm-referenced compares students to each other; criterion-referenced compares to a standard. Reliability is consistency; validity is measuring what is claimed. TELPAS reports four proficiency levels - Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced, Advanced High - per domain, and the LPAC uses those results with other data to make placement, exit, and reclassification decisions. Accommodations change access, not the standard.
Worked example
"Students will describe the water cycle using sequence words (first, next, finally)" is a language objective; "students will explain evaporation and condensation" is the content objective. An item offering only one of the two is incomplete.
Trap
Oral fluency does not imply grade-level reading, and a quiet newcomer is not refusing to learn.