Posted At : February 18, 2009 11:03 AM
For the second year, Learnosity will be speaking at the Association of Test Publishers (ATP) Innovations in Testing Conference. This year the conference is being held in Palm Springs, California.
I am speaking in a session entitled Case Studies in Large Scale Technology-Assisted Oral Language Assessment, along with Jason Altman, Research Coordinator with the National Center on Edcuational Outcomes. Jason and I actually met at the ATP conference in 2008. The session outline is as follows:
English language learners (ELLs) represent one of the fastest growing segments of the k-12 student population in the United States. In the past, most assessments in education were designed for fluent English speakers. Thus, in order to help ELLs meet the academic achievement requirements of NCLB, their diverse needs must be addressed in educational reform efforts.
One such way is to use settings, techniques and technology, familiar in both instruction and assessment, including English language proficiency exams, which often include an oral language component.
This session outlines international case studies of the use of an innovative voice-based mobile phone application in the teaching and assessment of spoken language skills. With oral language fluency of the utmost importance to secondary language acquisition, this application allows students to use any phone to dial into a voice application and answer a series of voice-based questions.
It also allows students to communicate one-to-one in real time (using voice or text), allowing them to use the target language in role plays based on real-life scenarios. The session also includes the opportunity to participate in a live hands-on demonstration of the assessment tools.
In the session I will be speaking about our Irish and Australian Voice projects.
If you are at ATP, please be sure to stop by and say hello.
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