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- New methodologies for second language assessment : measuring and identifying profiles in migrant school contextsPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, Carlos FernandesIn Education, the policy related to immigrant school population is of upmost importance considering the migratory history and the current scenarios of Multilingual classrooms. The research evidence in second language area is a very recent period in science, mainly regarding the assessment concerns and responsiveness. To be inclusive, school professionals needs differentiated tools to assess and place students. The diagnostic evaluation is the first step in educational scientific research, in this field. On one hand, the language assessment in second language context is still a gap in portuguese schools and at research settings; on the other hand, the international scientific research still presents contradictory frameworks regarding standardization of norms and benchmarks to develop tests and scoring. In this work new methodologies are addressed as instrument for school improvement, specifically regarding second language learners. Our research is focused in the development of a diagnostic test to assess proficiency and skills of students in Portuguese language, creating validated measuring and reliable training in this area. Literacy practitioners should be aware of profiles and needs of immigrant students, so far this was not achieved in our national system using oversampling in research studies. Particularly here we will provide an examination of the type of responses that Portuguese language learners present in such second language diagnostic tests, integrating several tasks to ensure enough observations and reliable scores, to determine profiles that inform how to score constructed-response items. This research will be able to describe the type of responses and specific language errors that would be useful as training clues (as rubrics for each content area) to define correct language and grammar to be expected to receive positive scores in the test. Teachers and students are still unfamiliar with these tests and the orientation about fulfilment and scores should be supported by research results and validated material to help to apply specific evaluation to specific responses, in real school contexts.
- Avaliação diagnóstica em contextos migrantes : medidas e formatos de instrumentos nas escolas portuguesasPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, Carlos FernandesA investigação na área de língua segunda determinou a necessidade de procedimentos de medição sobre a proficiência e competência. Na primeira fase deste projeto científico, pretende-se aplicar e validar provas selecionadas do corpus de testes internacionais, em alunos locutores de Português Língua não Materna do 1.º, 2.º e 3.º Ciclos, de Lisboa e Aveiro. As provas adaptadas apresentam uma proposta alternativa e complementar aos dispositivos do Ministério da Educação, focando na emergência de instrumentos validados. Algumas provas serão discutidas no sentido da complexidade e singularidade da estrutura de diagnóstico em contexto de avaliação de alunos com experiência migratória.
- Assessment effectiveness for second language learners: predictors, reliability and discriminant profilesPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, Carlos FernandesThe main concerns that enhance the empirical studies in assessment of second language learners is to identify the prevalence of second language deficits, the validity of a new test, and to determine specificities and predictors of speakers’ profiles, among other variables (age, home language formal instruction, exposure to second language, first years of schooling, nationality, parent’s profiles). Hypotheses: different language speakers will perform differently in specific tasks in portuguese language, so age, home language, and first language instruction would be main predictors? Strong discriminant achievements could be identified in percentiles 25 and 75? In this post-doctoral research the main goal is to assess new immigrant students from several Portuguese schools to determine cognitive and linguistic profiles. Through new diagnostic test in second language area will be analyzed distinct verbal behaviors and determined cut-offs. Additionally will be evaluated the difficulty and reliability of each task. Method: the instrument was developed with 15 tasks based on international assessment sources such Alberta, TOEFL, DELNA and WMLSR. There is no knowledge of other validated tools to test portuguese immigrant students. Approximately 110 individuals were assessed, with ages between 7 and 17 years old, speakers of romance, indo-aryan, afro-asiatic, slavic, and mandarin languages, and at this phase we are conducting inferential tests (SPSS) to measure profiles and reliability coefficients. The collection of sample is still ongoing. Findings: in one hand, this paper reports preliminary data gathered from a large-scale district study that is examining language proficiency and cognitive performance of immigrants in Portuguese schools. Different language speakers and age groups, with different amounts of instruction in home language, from basic and high schools, will be analyzed regarding lowest and highest performances in picture-naming (1) and semantic relations tasks (2), particularly focusing the vocabulary decoding skills. Findings demonstrate reliable tasks and different student’s profiles, being crucial over proficiency levels identification. In the other hand, prior findings in this area will be expected to be confirmed such as the influence of age and mother tongue. Part of our hypotheses will be rejected considering the youngest learner’s low scores and the creoles language speakers with deficits in specific vocabulary domain. Particular assumptions of literature in this area will be discussed regarding divergent data observed and new insights. Older learners, with instruction in first language, speakers of slavic, mandarin and romance languages presented more positive results and expected greater cognitive profile in second language specific traits. But, other variables should be considered with further examination and with the conclusion of the empirical study. Also implications of results and test feasibility will be discussed for general educational policies and assessment in second language field.
- Exploring SL Writing and SL Sensitivity during Writing Tasks : poor and advanced writing in a context of second language other than EnglishPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, C.; Simões, C.This study integrates a larger research empirical project that examines second language (SL) learners’ profiles and valid procedures to perform complete and diagnostic assessment in schools. 102 learners of Portuguese as a SL aged 7 and 17 years speakers of distinct home languages were assessed in several linguistic tasks. In this article, we focused on writing performance in the specific task of narrative essay composition. The written outputs were measured using the score in six components adapted from an English SL assessment context (Alberta Education): linguistic vocabulary, grammar, syntax, strategy, socio-linguistic, and discourse. The writing processes and strategies in Portuguese language used by different immigrant students were analysed to determine features and diversity of deficits on authentic texts performed by SL writers. Differentiated performance was based on the diversity of the following variables: grades, previous schooling, home language, instruction in first language, and exposure to Portuguese as Second Language. Indo-Aryan languages speakers showed low writing scores compared to their peers and the type of language and respective cognitive mapping (such as Mandarin and Arabic) was the predictor, not linguistic distance. Home language instruction should also be prominently considered in further research to understand specificities of cognitive academic profile in a Romance languages learning context. Additionally, this study also examined the teachers representations that will be here addressed to understand educational implications of second language teaching in psychological distress of different minorities in schools of specific host countries.
- Pressuposto científico revisitado: aprendizagem diferenciada de acordo com o tipo de escolas e não de acordo com as minorias linguísticasPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, Carlos FernandesO fator ‘escola’ é analisado pela literatura científica como crucial na conjuntura da explicação do desempenho cognitivo e linguístico dos alunos com origem na imigração e dos alunos em contexto de aprendizagem de Língua Estrangeira (LE). Porém, existe ainda uma importante lacuna quanto às especificidades dos efeitos que as escolas provocam em termos de desempenho e áreas de desempenho desses alunos, assim como sobre o modo como a escola pode moderar o efeito (no desempenho dos alunos) de outras variáveis paralelas tais como a língua materna e o nível socioeconómico. Também as dimensões do fator escola, como por exemplo os recursos e professores, não foram ainda claramente exploradas. O presente estudo tem como objetivo examinar essas relações de efeito e a predominância de variáveis que expliquem o desempenho e a diferenciação de performance entre grupos de minorias linguísticas que se encontram em condição de aquisição do Português como Língua Segunda (L2). É esperado verificar-se diferenças de desempenho, considerando quatro escolas portuguesas diferenciadas por tipo e qualidade de recursos (com foco no recurso ‘avaliação de proficiência’ dentro das escolas) percebidos pelos professores (i); é esperado que quando o efeito do tipo de escola é controlado, se verifique o aumento da relação de diferença estatisticamente significativa no desempenho entre os grupos não nativos (em várias tarefas de Português como Língua Segunda) dependendo da Língua Materna dos alunos (ii), da nacionalidade dos alunos (iii), e do nível socioeconómico dos alunos (iv). Os resultados obtidos esclarecem sobre a necessidade de diferenciação pedagógica nas escolas com maior recurso a testes de proficiência e a materiais multimédia. O corpus de resultados desta investigação será divulgado em formato de repositório eletrónico nacional com instrumentos e guiões para apoio aos docentes e outros profissionais quanto à construção de metodologias e à verificação de recursos e tarefas validadas nas escolas e respetivas salas de aula
- Learning Portuguese as a second languagePublication . Figueiredo, SandraThis volume examines the specific effects that schools have on the performance of immigrant students and linguistic minority groups. Especially in the European context this study fills a gap in examining the effects that schools have on these students’ performance and performance differentiation, taking into account school related factors such as resources and teachers, and the influence of other variables like mother tongue and socioeconomic status. This report on an ongoing research project in Portugal examines state schools within the same district, in the same tests over the same assessment period. The study is based on the following set of relationships: between schools that administer proficiency tests to their non-native students; schools that do not use such tests; and schools with verifiable support programs (including physical and digital materials); and between the effect of the school and the predictive values of the nationality, mother tongue and socioeconomic status variables on the performance of non-native students of Portuguese