ESL stands for “English as a Second Language” and several classes are geared towards students who are ESL, and need need further assistance. On January 24 and 25, 2018 students at Malden High took the ESL test in the morning and classes started after at 11:15.
Lynn Rosedale is a teacher at Malden High School and teaches environmental science and biology. Rosedale is one of the staff members that took part in helping the test take place throughout the school. The testing helps teachers and other educators measure what level students’ are in English. In total there were 276 students who tested, which is why so many teachers proctored, and non-ESL students were not in the building.
On January 24, some students took a state standardized tests called the WIDA access test. WIDA was widely used this year. According to Rosedale, 47 states in the US has used the same test. The WIDA access test is a “large-scale English language proficiency assessment.” ELL is more compatible with the WIDA test, it stands for “English Language Learners” and is similar to ESL. Tests for ESL and/or ELL are mostly to see the level of what classes a student needs to take.
On Thursday, students who took the test took it for the listening and reading sections. On Friday, students took the writing and speaking portion of the test. The test is scaled from 1 to 6 and this score reflects whether a student should be placed out of an ESL class, or what class they should be placed in, within the ESL department.
