School-to-School International has assessed learners in nearly 20 languages. We conduct most assessments with learners who speak a language at home that is different than their language of instruction. In commemoration of International Mother Language Day on February 21, we are drawing on our deep experience to share some best practices to guide the design and administration of assessments in multilingual contexts and the interpretation and communication of their results.
First, experts from learners’ linguistic communities should lead each step in the assessment process. Without input from linguistic experts in the home language and language of instruction, it is nearly impossible to ensure the reliability of the assessment or the validity of the results. Localizing the design and administration of assessments—particularly using multilingual test enumerators—and the interpretation and communication of results within the linguistic community is an overarching best practice of multilingual assessment.
When designing assessments for multilingual learners, all their language skills should be considered as resources, and their entire linguistic repertoires should be captured. Assessment in multilingual contexts is often described as challenging. Richard Ruíz developed the framework of language as a problem, right, and resource to understand national language policies.1 this framework also serves the purpose of conceptualizing learner assessments. Including assessments in both learners’ home language and the language of instruction and gathering information on their vocabulary in both languages is essential when assessing multilingual learners.
Conducting assessments for multilingual learners necessarily requires flexibility and accommodation in administration. Assessments should be administered such that the learners’ language does not hinder their demonstration of content knowledge (e.g., mathematics or socioemotional learning). With this in mind, learners may benefit from receiving oral instructions for assessment tasks in their mother language. Likewise, allowing learners to respond to questions in the language they speak at home—what Garcia has called the translanguaging approach in assessment2—could help to capture their actual content knowledge, rather than merely capturing their skills in the language of instruction.
Taking an explicitly multilingual lens to the interpretation of assessment data is also a best practice. Learning assessment results should be interpreted in conjunction with linguistic characteristics. For example, learners who are tested in phonological awareness—a foundational literacy skill—may perform better if there are similar sounds in the language they speak at home and the language of instruction. In a test of mathematics fluency, learners may add figures more rapidly in the language in which they first learned addition.
Communicating assessment results to multilingual populations should adhere to the Universal Design Approach, ensuring that audiences with complex linguistic portfolios can comprehend and speak to assessment results. Data should be presented simply and clearly, in a language that the audience speaks and understands, and with visual support. Utilizing presenters who speak and understand the language of the audience will ensure greater understanding and aligns with the goal of localization.3
Lastly, human and financial resources are challenging factors in following some or all these best practices of multilingual assessment. However, researchers must consider the potential risks to the reliability of the assessment and the validity of results if these best practices are not followed. Moreover, designing assessments through the lens of language as a resource reflects the growing understanding that, as UNESCO states, “multilingual education is a pillar of learning.”4
Today’s post was authored by Carol da Silva, STS’s Senior Director of Impact & Learning.
