Examining language proficiency of teacher candidates--a critical issue in teacher preparedness. (Language Teaching & Learning).

Abstract

Today's foreign/second language teachers need a wide range of information to facilitate successful learning in the communicative classroom of the 21st century. Teachers need a solid knowledge of the target language and culture, and they must also have the skills to reach all learners. Even with the current emphases on incorporating technology into the curriculum and meeting the diverse needs of all learners, language proficiency remains the core goal of foreign and second language classrooms. How do we ensure that students receive the highest quality instruction from models of the language? Language proficiency of teacher candidates is a critical issue in teacher preparedness and should remain an area of highest priority in foreign and second language teacher education programs. This article describes the efforts of one public university's teacher education program in identifying and assessing the oral and written language proficiency skills of its teacher candidates. This assessment process began five years ago. Preliminary results indicate that the locally-developed instrument is a helpful tool in determining the language proficiency of teacher candidates who are preparing for internships.

Introduction

The issues surrounding the study, the background of language proficiency testing in the US, and purpose of this project are described first in this article. The next section explains the research methodology, including the instrument, and the procedures for data collection and analyses used in this investigation. Finally, the authors provide a summary of results, a discussion of the findings, and a review of the implications of these outcomes.

Context

Goals 2000: Educate America (A Progress Report, 1996) elevated the status of foreign/second languages from a tangential subject to an integral component of the curriculum. The subsequent Standards movement that emerged from Goals 2000 emphasizes "Communication" as one of its five principle tenets. A rapidly changing student population, nationwide educational reform, and the development of National Standards for Foreign Language Learning are placing new demands on foreign language teachers (Peyton, 1997). The present study is based on the creation, pilot, and subsequent implementation of a contextualized proficiency assessment tool used to determine the oral and written skills of foreign/second language teacher candidates preparing to teach at the pre-K through grade 12 level.

Issues Surrounding the Study

Quite often, teacher licensure programs are at the graduate or post-baccaluareate level of study, rather being an undergraduate program housed jointly in a department of foreign languages. In these cases, teacher candidates receive a bachelor's degree in a foreign or second language at one institution of higher education and then enter another institution for teacher licensure (or certification). Admission requirements for graduate education programs do not always include assessment of written and oral language proficiency, and teacher candidates may not necessarily be required to take additional advanced coursework in the target language prior to licensure. Numerous teacher candidates find themselves placed in student teaching assignments in which they are unprepared to teach middle to upper level language classes in meaningful communicative settings. Our own institution finds itself in the described situation. Therefore, we undertook a research study whose aim was to address this situation in a purposefully meaningful way for our university. The objectives of the study were to create, design, and implement an assessment tool that would evaluate teacher candidates' foreign/second language proficiency (specifically, oral and written skills in the target language). The language assessment took place prior to student teaching to better ensure teacher candidates' language preparedness prior to internship, and subsequent university recommendation for state licensure. The assessment was designed to take place fall and spring semesters of each academic year.

Review of Literature

Proficiency assessment, a process to determine how well an individual speaks, writes, and comprehends a foreign/second language, consists of procedures that determine his/her ability to use a target language effectively for real communications in. This is an essential qualification for teachers facilitating learning in today's communicative classrooms (Lantolf & Frawley, 1985, 1988; Linnell, Washburn, & Hoejke, 1993). In a review of the forty year development of proficiency testing, it is important to note that the purpose of language rating has come full circle from its initial creation by the Foreign Service Institute where a language proficiency score played a key role in job selection, promotion, and job security (Hart-Gonzales, 1994; Douglas & Selinker, 1992; Bachman, 1991; Davies, 1990). Later, its adaptation for academic purposes by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the Educational Testing Service (ETS) led to the development of an instrument for rating oral (Stansfield, 1992) and written competence of foreign/second language students. The original purpose of the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale of oral proficiency developed at the Foreign Service Institute (Hart-Gonzales, 1994) was to gauge whether the language proficiency of federal government and diplomatic personnel was adequate for the purposes of their mission. A viable rating scale needs to evaluate "authentic" language in communicative contexts of varied description (Bachman & Savignon, 1986; Bachman, 1988; Henning, 1992; Hoejke & Linnell, 1994). The scale should also remain practical enough so that raters can learn how to conduct and rate an oral proficiency interview according to the criteria of the scale, maintaining inter-rater reliability and test validity (Bachman, 1990; Henning, 1992). Similarly, in educational settings, language proficiency assessments such as The Texas Project must do the same for teachers and teacher candidates whose mission is to facilitate foreign/second language classrooms designed for communicative experiences.

Although the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview provided a tested procedure that met the needs for student oral evaluation, there was no assessment available for rating teachers or teacher candidates (Bachman & Savignon, 1986). In the US, legislation recommended proficiency-based foreign/second language curriculum. As a result of legislation at the state level, there was an expressed need for specific language proficiency requirements for teachers already in the classroom. During the last decade, there has been considerable emphasis placed on the importance of assessing foreign/second language proficiency for teachers and teacher candidates seeking certification and job placement (Peyton, 1997).

The Present Study: Purpose and Justification

The purpose of this research study is to investigate the language proficiency of teacher licensure candidates in the foreign/second language teacher education program at George Mason University to determine this aspect of preparedness for student teaching. Assessing foreign/second language teacher candidates is a challenge for any teacher education program. While teacher candidates often cannot, and perhaps should not, be expected to evidence "native" proficiency in the target language, certainly a high level of language proficiency should be mandatory. Mistakes and errors in language usage may be immediately apparent during the internship and can result in poor teacher performance. Teacher candidates should only begin the teaching experience when they are confident that their language skills are of advanced proficiency. Having such an assessment at the beginning of their teacher education program allows students the opportunity to improve skills or re-examine their options prior to the internship. The researchers decided to develop an assessment instrument to meet the specific needs at this university. Three considerations provided impetus for the decision for in-house assessment: 1) a university centered proficiency rating system would provide the foreign/second language program an additional opportunity to remain closely aligned with the Graduate School of Education's mission and goals, 2) a university created proficiency rating would enable the program to be more teacher and school division oriented by engaging master teachers from the local school divisions as raters, and 3) an internal system would provide opportunities for cross departmental articulation between the Graduate School of Education and the professors from the Department of Modern and Classical Languages.

The George Mason University Language Proficiency Assessment

The George Mason University Language Proficiency Assessment (GMU-LPA) is designed to measure how well a foreign/second language teacher candidate speaks and writes in the target language. Composed of two sections, the speaking section consists of an oral interview in the target language. The written section asks the candidate to respond in writing to one of two broad-based questions. These questions seek open-ended responses and contextual language usage through creative responses and expression of opinions. Evaluation is based on a candidate's ability to: 1) be comprehensible to educated native speakers of the target language, 2) organize ideas effectively and logically, 3) use a level of language appropriate to the task and/or audience, and 4) communicate with a broad range of vocabulary and advanced expression without patterned grammatical errors. (See Language Proficiency Rubric and Scoring Guide, Appendix A) This instrument is currently in its sixth year of implementation. Both quantitative and qualitative data continue to be collected.

Methodologies

Prior to implementation two years ago, the researchers collected pilot data for four semesters. Students enrolled during the fall semester of 1996 in the foreign language methods course (n=22) were the first group to be assessed. Live interviews were tape recorded for subsequent evaluation by no less than two additional trained raters. Interview questions were standardized and ranged from novice use of the target language to a more advanced level of language skill. The raters were comprised of university professors from the Graduate School of Education, the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, and foreign/second language teachers from local school districts. Additional pilots were conducted in the fall semester of 1998 and spring semester of 1999.

The investigation considered the levels of oral and written proficiency based on a scale of 1-4 (4 = native or near native proficient and 1 = non-proficient) (see Appendix A). Triangulation of language performance data served to validate findings and interpretations, as university supervisors and cooperating teachers provided validation of language proficiency in the following ways: 1) observations during the student teaching internship semester, which provided concrete evidence of an intern's language performance and of the proficiency scores earned; 2) teacher candidate video tapes of teaching practice in the target language; 3) observation reports written by both the university supervisors and the cooperating teachers; and 4) teacher candidate and cooperating teacher reflective journals maintained during the 15-week internship.

During the four pilots, data were collected to determine validity and reliability of the instrument. The GMU-LPA is now an integral part of the teacher candidate licensure process. Students must obtain a score of three or more on both the oral and written components in order to be considered "proficient." Specific recommendations are included in the reports to the students. If a student fails to pass either segment of the assessment, recommendations may include a semester or summer abroad, a program of residence in the target language, or advanced written or conversation courses at our university or elsewhere. Upon completion of recommended work, students may request another assessment.

Findings

Analyses of the data suggest that the instrument is a good indicator of language proficiency of teacher candidates. In addition, the assessment appears to be consistent with other measures of evaluating language proficiency. Compared with week1 reflective journals maintained by cooperating teachers and teacher candidates, the proficiency assessment data indicated similar areas of strengths and weaknesses. These findings should be considered preliminary rather than conclusive because the population samples were quite small, and random selection and assignment were not possible.

For this study, 34 teacher licensure candidates at this university were assessed at four different points in time. The sample sizes range from 16 participants in the first pilot to 6 in the second, to 4 in the third, and 5 in the fourth pilot. The numbers vary, depending on how many teacher licensure candidates at GMU are ready to be assessed each year. Data in Table 1 display the average scores for the oral and written assessments. The mean score for all candidates on the oral section is 3.35 with a standard deviation of .92. The mean score for all candidates on the written section is 3.26 with a standard deviation of .71. In general, these candidates were slightly more proficient in oral communication than in written communication. With the exception of the pilot in year 3, LPA scores fell in the low-3 range. Just over half of the candidates reached level 4 for oral proficiency, and less than half reached level 4 for written language skills. See issue's website <http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/fallp.htm>.

Those students who achieved a rating of 4 or high 3 were successful in their student teaching experiences. During the pilot semesters, those who scored a low 1 to low 3, experienced difficulty in student teaching even at the lower levels of foreign/second language classes. One candidate who did poorly on the LPA postponed her student teaching and spent time in France to improve her language proficiency. Two other candidates who received ratings lower than expected chose to spend time in a country where the target language was spoken. This proved to be advantageous and increased their proficiency for the student teaching internship. Initially, some students complained that this was just another hurdle which slowed their progress in the teacher licensure program. However, they later commented on the value of this experience for rasing their level of awareness of their own language skills.

Additional research and data collection are necessary to confirm the validity of this assessment. Preliminary findings do suggest that this approach for determining teacher preparedness for the internship experience may be viable and reliable because it helps to ensure that only those candidates who are sufficiently prepared will begin their school-based internships.

Implications and Conclusion

There are some important implications of these results. First, this kind of language proficiency assessment should be a critical component of the foreign/second language teacher preparation program at the university level. Furthermore, such an assessment should be conducted early on in a teacher candidate's program and definitely prior to the student teaching internship. Secondly, this process is also beneficial for teacher candidates because it gives them an accurate assessment of their own language proficiency. This gives them the opportunity to further develop their language skills or to consider other career options. Third, further research is needed to investigate at the correlation between the LPA of teacher candidates and the actual classroom performance of the practicing foreign/second language teachers.

Today's world requires that our educational systems produce multilingual students. This can only be accomplished under the direction of proficient foreign/second language teachers. Universities and teacher education programs are remiss in their responsibilities if they continue to "pass" pre-service teachers along and out into school systems without first making certain that they are adequately trained and proficient in their discipline.

America's classrooms need a teaching force with proficiency in multiple languages so that teachers can understand and help meet the needs of all learners (Phillips & Lafayette, 1996, Hall Haley, 2000). The challenge for the foreign/second language teaching profession is to focus its efforts on building a teaching force of proficient, caring, talented, and respectful teachers who possess the necessary skills for meeting the language acquisition and development needs of their students. These teachers must be well trained and proficient in the target language.

The development of the George Mason University Language Proficiency Assessment included four careful pilot studies. The instrument has been modified and is presently being used to determine language proficiency for all foreign/second language pre-service teacher candidates at GMU. The researchers believe that this instrument has provided a valuable service to the teacher candidates by allowing them an opportunity to demonstrate their proficiency and reinforcing their commitment to becoming effective foreign/second language teachers.

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Marjorie Hall Haley, George Mason University, VA Rebecca K. Fox, George Mason University, VA

Marjorie, Ph.D., is associate professor of education in the Center for Multilingual/Multicultural Education in the Graduate School of Education. She is coordinator for Foreign/Second Education licensure and master's degrees. Rebecca, Ph.D., is assistant professor of education in the Center for Multilingual/Multicultural Education in the Graduate School of Education.