New methodologies for second language assessment : measuring and identifying profiles in migrant school contexts

In Education, the policy related to immigrant school population is of upmost importance considering the migratory history and the current scenarios of Multilingual classrooms. The research evidence in second language area is a very recent period in science, mainly regarding the assessment concerns and responsiveness. To be inclusive, school professionals needs differentiated tools to assess and place students. The diagnostic evaluation is the first step in educational scientific research, in this field. On one hand, the language assessment in second language context is still a gap in portuguese schools and at research settings; on the other hand, the international scientific research still presents contradictory frameworks regarding standardization of norms and benchmarks to develop tests and scoring. In this work new methodologies are addressed as instrument for school improvement, specifically regarding second language learners. Our research is focused in the development of a diagnostic test to assess proficiency and skills of students in Portuguese language, creating validated measuring and reliable training in this area. Literacy practitioners should be aware of profiles and needs of immigrant students, so far this was not achieved in our national system using oversampling in research studies. Particularly here we will provide an examination of the type of responses that Portuguese language learners present in such second language diagnostic tests, integrating several tasks to ensure enough observations and reliable scores, to determine profiles that inform how to score constructed-response items. This research will be able to describe the type of responses and specific language errors that would be useful as training clues (as rubrics for each content area) to define correct language and grammar to be expected to receive positive scores in the test. Teachers and students are still unfamiliar with these tests and the orientation about fulfilment and scores should be supported by research results and validated material to help to apply specific evaluation to specific responses, in real school contexts.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pisos de argamassa reforçada com particulas de bambu

Orientador : Antonio L. BeraldoDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia AgricolaMestrad

What’s on : cultural diversity and new educational approaches for specific school populations

Education policy regarding the immigrant school population is of upmost importance for current scientific research in social sciences. Digital resources and assessment instruments are challenges in education and psychology research, demanding knowledge from school community to address specific traits of learning and academic achievement. The education of future generation should be conceived based on multicultural idea of existing different cognitive profiles that have different selfregulations in learning environments as language acquisition development process. Immigrant school population is frequently neglected by school management and become emergent the development of open educational resources, validated tools and digital materials. Method: This post-doctoral research is focused in the development of open repository of paper and digital resources for school education, particularly addressing educational approaches for Portuguese second language learners. In current empirical study we are assessing a large sample of immigrant students from public schools, aged between 8 and 17 years old, learning Portuguese as second language, with heterogeneous profiles, in Lisbon district, from several levels of education. The main goal is to determine learner’s cognitive profiles in second language setting, and which common performances we can find between different home language speakers answering to 15 tests in the same circumstances. We believe that accurate evaluation tests can produce new changes in learning environments of linguistic minorities. Preliminary results will be discussed regarding three hypotheses about verbal behaviors in cognates, idiomatic utterances and verbal analogy tasks according to three variables: age, home language and exposure to second language. The variation of these predictors might have influence in cognitive and linguistic profiles. Additionally will be evaluated the reliability and difficulty of each task to provide a more psychometric sound measure than traditional other tools of assessment in national second language area. Findings will demonstrate new understanding about different speaking proficiency levels, rationales about predictive factors, and cutoffs to be considered as standards that will be adopted for the specific portuguese diagnostic test that is in validation process. Some of these new insights could be extended to the general investigation of proficiency and cognitive decoding skills in second language research, mainly for European languages context.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pruebas de lengua para estudiantes portugueses en escuelas minoritarias: Decisiones de profesores basadas en el Marco de Referencia Europea

Recent research on cognitive and academic performance assessment of immigrant students evidences inconsistencies in teachers’ practice regarding performance assessment of L2 students. We aim to verify whether students classified by schools as having different proficiency levels in accordance to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR, 2001) perform differently in tests on vocabulary and verbal reasoning. The study included 23 learners of Portuguese as L2 aged 9-18, divided into three groups according to their proficiency level (A1, A2, B1). Assessment tools included four tasks - verbal analogies, semantic associations, picture naming and morphological extraction. Our expectations are that A1 students perform more poorly in all tasks than A2 students and that these perform more poorly than students classified as having a B1 level in Portuguese language. Results show that, on the one hand, there are performance differences among proficiency groups and, on the other hand, there is inconsistency in the expected order of performance differences in the tasks (from the beginner to the most advanced level). Results suggest inconsistencies in teachers’ practice regarding testing of the performance of minority groups with implications in the academic success of the identified students.Investigaciones recientes sobre la evaluación del rendimiento cognitivo y académico de los estudiantes extranjeros ponen en evidencia las incoherencias de la práctica de los docentes en relación a la evaluación del desempeño de los estudiantes de L2. Nuestro objetivo es verificar si los estudiantes clasificados por las escuelas, que tienen diferentes niveles de competencia de acuerdo con el Marco Común Europeo de Referencia para las Lenguas (MCER, 2001), actúan de forma diferente en las pruebas de vocabulario y razonamiento verbal. En el estudio participaron 23 estudiantes de portugués como L2 9 -18 años, dividido en tres grupos según su nivel de competencia (A1, A2, B1). Las herramientas de evaluación incluyen cuatro tareas - analogías verbales, asociaciones semánticas, reconocimiento de imágenes y extracción morfológica. Nuestras expectativas son que los estudiantes A1 tienen un rendimiento peor que los estudiantes A2 en todas las tareas y que éstos realizan aún peor que los estudiantes clasificados con un nivel B1 en lengua portuguesa. Los resultados muestran que, por una parte, hay diferentes capacidades de rendimiento entre los grupos de competencia y, por otro lado, hay inconsistencia en las capacidades esperadas en cada uno de los diferentes grupos (desde el principiante hasta el nivel más avanzado). Los resultados sugieren inconsistencias en la práctica de los docentes respecto a las pruebas de la actuación de los grupos minoritarios con implicaciones en el éxito académico de los estudiantes identificados

Simulações computacionais no ensino do equilíbrio químico

Mestrado em Ensino de Física e de Química no 3º Ciclo do Ensino Básico e no Ensino SecundárioA utilização de recursos digitais no processo ensino-aprendizagem é cada vez mais uma realidade. No entanto, é necessário que os diferentes interlocutores no processo estejam receptivos e despertos para a sua utilização em sala de aula. A tomada de consciência das potencialidades da utilização de simulações no processo ensino-aprendizagem poderá permitir desbloquear muitos dos entraves, nomeadamente na classe docente, que a sua aplicação suscita. Neste trabalho procurou-se analisar a simulação computacional «Le Châtelier’s Principle» que incide sobre os factores que afectam o equilíbrio químico e simultaneamente avaliar a percepção professores e alunos fase à sua utilização, de acordo com um conjunto de critérios e indicadores pré-definidos. Este estudo envolveu a análise descritiva de natureza quantitativa de dois questionários administrados a um grupo de alunos do 11º ano de escolaridade e a professores do ensino secundário do grupo 510 (Ciências físico-químicas). Os resultados deste estudo apontam para uma boa receptividade dos intervenientes na utilização da simulação em contexto educativo e o reconhecimento das suas potencialidades. É ainda proposto um roteiro de exploração desta simulação para minimizar dificuldades e potenciar a aquisição de competências.The use of digital resources in the teaching/learning process is growing. However, it is required that the different actors involved in the process are open to its use in the classroom. The awareness of the use potential of computational simulations in the teaching/learning process may allow to overturn several obstacles raised by their application, namely those experienced by teachers. In this study the computer simulation "Le Châtelier's Principle", which focuses on the factors affecting chemical equilibrium, was analyzed and the perception of teachers and students pertaining to its use was assessed, according to a pre-defined set of criteria and indicators. This study involved the quantitative descriptive analysis of two questionnaires addressed to a group of 11th grade secondary school students’ as well as secondary school teachers of chemistry (group 510 -physics and chemistry). The results of this study show that the use of the computational simulation in educational context was successful and that all participants involved recognized its potential. Finally, a set of guidelines on how to take advantage of the simulation has been suggested, so as to minimize problems and enhance students’ skills

Dentro e fora da caixa: ONG e escolas juntas na educação para a cidadania – caminhos e inspirações

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

What’s on: Cultural diversity and new educational approaches for specific school populations

Education policy regarding the immigrant school population is of upmost importance for current scientific research in social sciences. Digital resources and assessment instruments are challenges in education and psychology research, demanding knowledge from school community to address specific traits of learning and academic achievement. The education of future generation should be conceived based on multicultural idea of existing different cognitive profiles that have different selfregulations in learning environments as language acquisition development process. Immigrant school population is frequently neglected by school management and become emergent the development of open educational resources, validated tools and digital materials. Method: This post-doctoral research is focused in the development of open repository of paper and digital resources for school education, particularly addressing educational approaches for Portuguese second language learners. In current empirical study we are assessing a large sample of immigrant students from public schools, aged between 8 and 17 years old, learning Portuguese as second language, with heterogeneous profiles, in Lisbon district, from several levels of education. The main goal is to determine learner’s cognitive profiles in second language setting, and which common performances we can find between different home language speakers answering to 15 tests in the same circumstances. We believe that accurate evaluation tests can produce new changes in learning environments of linguistic minorities. Preliminary results will be discussed regarding three hypotheses about verbal behaviors in cognates, idiomatic utterances and verbal analogy tasks according to three variables: age, home language and exposure to second language. The variation of these predictors might have influence in cognitive and linguistic profiles. Additionally will be evaluated the reliability and difficulty of each task to provide a more psychometric sound measure than traditional other tools of assessment in national second language area. Findings will demonstrate new understanding about different speaking proficiency levels, rationales about predictive factors, and cutoffs to be considered as standards that will be adopted for the specific portuguese diagnostic test that is in validation process. Some of these new insights could be extended to the general investigation of proficiency and cognitive decoding skills in second language research, mainly for European languages context

Psychological Distress of Immigrant Population in Host School Systems and the Critical Period for Second Language Development: A Review.

Immigrant students attending schools in the host country have different cognitive, cultural and linguistic backgrounds that might influence their inclusion process. This process is enhanced by success attained in academic context and by psychological adaptation. Academic difficulties and limited proficiency could motivate psychological distress and anxiety levels that constraint development and learning of newer immigrants’ generation. Maladaptive behaviours might occur with different severity among non-native school children attending to their ethnic differences, cultural traits, length of residence and age. Also the maturational characteristics that interfere with the achievement of native children are probably different from the cognitive maturation that explain the performance of immigrant students, in the same schooling years. In this critical review two main concerns are explored as research based evidence and also as theoretical hypotheses: how distinct immigrant groups differ in psychological distress according to pre-migration and post-migration experiences, and how immigration may change the cognitive processing abilities and the brain development

Second language education context and home language effect: language dissimilarities and variation in immigrant students’ outcomes.

Heritage language speakers struggle in European classrooms with insufficient material provided for second language (SL) learning and assessment. Considering the amount of instruments and pertinent studies in English SL, immigrant students are better prepared than their peers in Romance language settings. This study investigates how factors such as age and home language can be used in the teaching environment to predict and examine the development outcomes of SL students in verbal reasoning and vocabulary tasks. Hundred and six Portuguese participants, SL learners, between 8 and 17 years old, were assessed in vocabulary frequency, verbal analogies and morphological extraction tasks. In alphabetic languages (Romance languages), immigrant students (in a SL learning situation) with a strong linguistic distance (a home language with a very different orthographic foundation) are expected to struggle in language learning in spite of being aware of strategies that can improve their skills. The storage and combination of morphemes can be a demanding task for individual speakers at different levels. Cognitive mapping is strongly based on linguistic features of L1 development. Results show that home language, not age, was a significant predictor of variation in student’s outcomes. Speakers of alphasyllabary languages (Indo-Aryan languages as L1) were the poorest performers, the ‘linguistic distance’ of their languages explaining the performance’ result

Avaliação diagnóstica em contextos migrantes : medidas e formatos de instrumentos nas escolas portuguesas

A investigação na área de língua segunda determinou a necessidade de procedimentos de medição sobre a proficiência e competência. Na primeira fase deste projeto científico, pretende-se aplicar e validar provas selecionadas do corpus de testes internacionais, em alunos locutores de Português Língua não Materna do 1.º, 2.º e 3.º Ciclos, de Lisboa e Aveiro. As provas adaptadas apresentam uma proposta alternativa e complementar aos dispositivos do Ministério da Educação, focando na emergência de instrumentos validados. Algumas provas serão discutidas no sentido da complexidade e singularidade da estrutura de diagnóstico em contexto de avaliação de alunos com experiência migratória.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio