Survey: Spanish Academic Language Standards & Assessment

From http://wida.us/standards/salsa.aspx#survey

World-class Instructional Design and Assessment is conducting a research study called “Exploratory study of expressive language domains in academic Spanish” as part of the SALSA grant project. The general purpose of this study is to examine the typical linguistic density and complexity of academic Spanish used by beginning, intermediate, and advanced Spanish language learners in the areas of language arts and mathematics.

As part of this research, WIDA invites all educators who are familiar with students receiving content instruction in Spanish to participate in an online survey to provide feedback on speaking and writing prompts related to the areas of language arts and mathematics. These prompts are written in Spanish and survey participants will have the option of selecting the grade levels with which they have experience. This voluntary survey is available to all educators in the United States that meet the following criteria:

Are bilingual (Spanish/English)
Have Spanish literacy skills
Have K-12 teaching experience in the U.S.
Have experience working with Spanish language learners

Based on the survey results, the prompts will be modified as needed and administered to students participating in the study. Data collected in this study will help inform performance criteria for academic Spanish language development.

Although the study targets Spanish language learners in Kindergarten, 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 12th grades in Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, and Wisconsin, the results will impact everyone who uses the Spanish language development standards being developed.

The survey will be available until February 17, 2012.

Learn more about the SALSA project and take the survey at http://wida.us/standards/salsa.aspx#survey