What if multilingual learners had the freedom to interact in more than one language with their peers during classroom assessment? What if multilingual learners and their teachers in dual language settings had opportunities to use assessment data in multiple languages to make decisions? Just imagine the rich linguistic, academic, and cultural reservoirs we could tap as we determine what our multilingual learners know and can do.
Thankfully, Margo Gottlieb is here to provide concrete and actionable guidance on how to create assessment systems that enable understanding of the whole student, not just that fraction of the student who is only visible as an English learner. With Classroom Assessment in Multiple Languages as your guide, you'll:
- Better understand the rationale for and evidence on the value and advantages of classroom assessment in multiple languages
- Add to your toolkit of classroom assessment practices in one or multiple languages
- Be more precise and effective in your assessment of multilingual learners by embedding assessment as, for, and of learning into your instructional repertoire
- Recognize how social-emotional, content, and language learning are all tied to classroom assessment
- Guide multilingual learners in having voice and choice in the assessment process
Despite the urgent need, assessment for multilingual learners is generally tucked into a remote chapter, if touched upon at all in a book; the number of resources narrows even more when multiple languages are brought into play. Here at last is that single resource on how educators and multilingual learners can mutually value languages and cultures in instruction and assessment throughout the school day and over time. We encourage you to get started right away.
"Margo Gottlieb has demonstrated why the field, particularly the field as it involves the teaching of multilingual learners, needs another assessment book, particularly a book like this. . . . Classroom Assessment in Multiple Languages quite likely could serve as a catalyst toward the beginning of an enlightened discourse around assessment that will benefit multilingual learners."
Kathy Escamilla
Margo Gottlieb, Ph.D., is Co-founder and Lead Developer for WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin- Madison, having also served as Director, Assessment and Evaluation, for the Illinois Resource Center. She has contributed to the crafting of language proficiency/ development standards for American Samoa, Guam, TESOL, and WIDA and has designed assessments, curricular frameworks, and instructional assessment systems for language learners. Her professional experiences span from being an inner city language teacher to working with thousands of educators across states, school districts, publishing companies, governments, universities, and educational organizations.
Highlights of Margo's career include being a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Chile and being appointed to the U.S. Department of Education's Inaugural National Technical Advisory Council. In 2016 Margo was honored by TESOL International Association′s 50@50 "as an individual who has made a significant contribution to the TESOL profession within the past 50 years." She has had opportunities to travel extensively and has presented in American Samoa, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Denmark, Finland, Guam, Italy, Jakarta, Mexico, Panama, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom as well as close to home across the United States.
Margo′s publications include over 70 articles, technical reports, monographs, chapters, and encyclopedia entries. Additionally she has authored, co-authored, and co-edited 11 books this past decade: Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Educational Equity (2nd Ed., 2016), Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms: Definitions and Contexts (with G. Ernst-Slavit, 2014), a foundational book for the series Promoting Content and Language Learning (a compendium of three mathematics and three English language arts volumes co-edited with G. Ernst-Slavit, 2014, 2013), Common Language Assessment for English Learners (2012), Paper to Practice: Using the TESOL′s English Language Proficiency Standards in PreK-12 Classrooms (with A. Katz & G. Ernst-Slavit, 2009); and Assessment and Accountability in Language Education Programs: A Guide for Administrators and Teachers (with D. Nguyen, 2007).
