Pre-Assessment and Differentiation Planning

As an ELL teacher at an International School that makes use of the Cambridge Assessment criteria (AS / A Level) I generally make use of our pre-existing catalogue of past KET exams when pre-assessing students at the start of the school year, or during particular units in the curriculum that pertain to one of the four foundational skills of language learning: reading, writing, listening and speaking. These exams correspond to an A2 level or fairly basic competence level in English according to the CEFR rankings spanning A1-C2. Our students (middle-high school) should be proficient in this level of understanding at this point in their schooling, but as has been proven year after year, many students float along to higher grade levels while operating at much lower language levels.
I’ve found these very effective at diagnosing the various language proficiencies, say for instance listening skills. I will continue to do so in this example, but I will mention here before proceeding that another technique I’ve found very effective is the use of authentic materials such as TedEd videos and appropriate Youtube content tailored towards the curriculum. A few of these videos followed by the accompanying TedEd multiple choice questions or instructor-produced Youtube questions also do a great job of gauging listening skills and make use of a key technique in language instruction, namely use of authentic materials.
I’ll stick with the KET questions here as a matter of consistency in my approach as our students are very familiar with the Cambridge system, their parents expect this content and these tests to be utilized so they serve the dual purpose of diagnosing and preparing students for further Cambridge study.
Pre-Assessment Quiz / Diagnostic

The quizzes used are on our school Multi-share network. For convenience I’ve listed included a link to an example KET listening test in the references section and here: https://www.examenglish.com/KET/KET_listening_part3.htm
As you can see, there are different question formats from matching to multiple choice and gap fill among others. For my purposes, if it was a beginning of the year pre-assessment I would use about 25–30 questions total here, but for individual lessons or units I would design a simple 10–12 question quiz and play the audio from the school Multi-share network.
After the quiz is given with each audio prompt played twice I would instruct the students to pass their quizzes to the person on their left. I utilize peer checking quite often in class as it provides a chance for students to see how their peers are performing and facilitates students paying more attention to the answers. I always instruct students there should be two names on their papers — theirs and the person who corrected the paper. This is designated by students writing “corrected by Jenny” on the top of the quiz. After calling on students for answers and prompting students who are unsure, making note of any struggles(it’s become second nature to realize who the owner of the test is seated next to), I collect the quizzes and quickly divide these performers into three different groups:
1. The top five scores for this pre-assessment are put into the Vocab Kings.
2. The middle performing twelve students are the Wise Listeners group.
3. The third group consists of the lower five students in the aptly titled Listen Up! group.
Below is a flowchart depicting my practices for differentiation and ongoing assessment:
Vocab Kings
This group and the following will make use of a fantastic tool I’ve been using in my ELL work: Listenwise.com. Information is available at https://listenwise.com/how_it_works

Suffice it to say here that listenwise is a curated collection of NPR broadcasts that have been turned into interactive language learning audio programs. Obviously this is an example of authentic materials but there is so much more capability in this program. I can assign quizzes, track learner progress throughout the term, lower level students can slow down audio speed or make use of transcripts and performance-adjusted content and vocabulary. Use of wireless devices in class is encouraged and in many cases I simply time the pre-assessment quiz for our class’s turn in the ICT lab each week. During in-class time this group will work independently towards the rear of the room. Students are also able to log-on at home to complete work not finished in class as well as to work on the occasional flipped lesson.

Top performers in each unit will refine and expand their skills using a battery of techniques available on the listenwise.com platform, including numerous techniques for differentiated and blended learners. One such technique I use is the Language Challenge Level which conveniently enough separates listeners’ skills into one of three groups based on proficiency, complexity of vocabulary, sentence structure and language in the audio story. The particular listenwise content I am teaching is suited to ELL students of intermediate proficiency and above for grades 5–12. The Vocab Kings study in the “High” level category which employs challenging vocabulary and complex language structure. The Tiered Vocabulary feature allows me to set a higher level of content as based on the pre-assessment quiz I know the students can handle the core curriculum requirements, I can take them further by assigning content that pushes the boundaries of their comprehension, ensuring learner engagement.
Wise Listeners
This group of twelve mid-range performers exhibited a decent range of skill on the pre-assessment and they will also work on the listenwise platform on the “Medium” level of the Language Challenge scale. The NPR audio stories at this level are of average complexity and can also be scaffolded for the lower range students in this grouping.

Students are working at a lower level of sentence structure and operating in a lower Tier Vocab setting, but they are expected to work independently as well and to complete the same types of comprehension quizzes as the Vocab Kings it’s just that they’re doing so at a somewhat lower level of complexity. Again, I can track progress for each individual student, thereby differentiating my differentiation, allowing a virtually one-to-one relationship between student and teacher when it comes to assigning new material, assigning review material or moving on to more challenging content.
Listen Up!
The final group of my five learners showed the most limited capability in their listening comprehension and I will work in-class with this group to tackle their individual struggles including specific sections of the pre-assessment recording they struggled with, re-teaching some vocabulary and preparing them for an eventual transition into listenwise at the “Lower” level of the Language Challenge.

First, however, during this in-person work time I reinforce their comprehension during the in-class period. The expectation is by the end of the class period the majority of the students have gained a better grasp of the prior listening assignment.
Ongoing Assessments
Listenwise
As mentioned previously, listenwise allows for ongoing assessment and constantly allows time for formative assessments throughout the term at all three levels of my differentiated learning base. These include autoscored listening comprehension quizzes embedded right in the listening lessons, tracking of each individual student’s performance including separate assessments of eight different listening skills such as Main Point, Inferencing and Vocabulary, and a Tiered Vocabulary feature that allows me to further assess and differentiate as we proceed through the term. I can easily assign with or without listening supports or scaffolding.
In addition to this array of tools online I also make use of other traditional formative assessments.
Thumbs Up, Side, Down — WITH EYES CLOSED

One well-known formative assessment is this tried and true method of casually gauging students comprehension of that day’s lesson. My twist on it is anonymity to help students be more honest about their level of understanding. If I play a recording in class and then turn and tell the students “eyes closed, thumbs up if you got all of it, thumbs to the side if you understood some or thumbs down if it was pretty messy”, I usually get pretty honest feedback as students expect to be called on if they indicated a good level of understanding. I’ve found this technique to be quite effective with higher level learners in particular as we can move fairly quickly through content and the re-teach phase is usually brief.
Bump in the Road
Another nice ongoing assessment that makes use of some peer to peer learning is Bump in the Road. At the end of the lesson, or sometimes in the middle if I sense the need I will have student write one confusing issue, vocab word, or piece of content they struggled with onto a piece of paper. The students are then required to get from three to five other classmates to write their suggestions or answers on the other side of the paper and initial it. The paper is then returned to its original owner.

I then move around the room asking for a few different students to read their question and their classmates answers aloud, along with that classmate’s name. While is can sometimes put a lower performing student on the spot, the class learns to hold themselves accountable for their own learning and to give their best effort at an explanation. “I don’t know” is not helpful. An attempt should be made in good faith to help answer the student’s question. Middle level learners respond quite well to this technique as it’s a small group activity and there is some relative safety in the numbers when asked to tackle confusing issues.
Learning / Response Logs
These are two techniques closely related and are great for all levels of learners, but time and again I’ve gotten great responses and subsequent improvement when I ask my lower level learners to complete this formative assessment.
Learner Logs are a type of journal often used by scientists and engineers in which they record the process they go through when learning something new, any doubts or questions that arise from this new learning and importantly it allows students, at their own pace, to make connections to what they have learned, what they need work on and helps the students become more profound thinkers about their own learning process and the goals they may have. I can then deliver effective, differentiated feedback to these students upon reading their journals and guide them in the learning process.

Response Logs are similar and are used to examine student thinking about the content they have just heard. They offer students a more personal space to express questions, to reflect and also to simply record vocab or other problem areas that they want to work on. The act of writing helps a student compose their thoughts and as ELL learners obviously it’s great writing practice as well.
References
Educational Leadership. (2014). Differentiation: It starts with pre-assessment. Retrieved on September 7, 2018 from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/dec13/vol71/num04/Differentiation@_It_Starts_with_Pre-Assessment.aspx
Examenglish. (2014). Cambridge key KET listening test. Retrieved on September 7, 2018 from https://www.examenglish.com/KET/KET_listening_part2.htm
Listenwise.com. (2018). Differentiated features. Retrieved on September 8, 2018 from https://listenwise.com/how_it_works
Olemiss.edu. (2018). Differentiated assessment strategies: Pre-assessment, formative, summative and digital. Retrieved on September 7, 2018 from http://celi.olemiss.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/03/Differentiated-Assessment-Strategies-Preassessment-Formative-Summative-and-Digital.pdf