Stephanie E.

Hilton
TSL 560
Dr. Perry
February 23, 2014
Student Assessment Project
I have been working with Yuning this year. She is an adult English language
learner from China. On my first day with her, I had no idea what to expect. I had no
indication as to her level of English knowledge. I showed up to the session with many
forms of assessment to prepare for any level learner. She was much more advanced than I
had expected. I have had the longest amount of time with her this semester and I have
been following her more closely as we progress through the semester. My background is
with Elementary education and, as such, I am familiar with many forms of assessment. In
working with an English language learner, I have come to realize that formative
assessment is incredibly important and needs to be used often. Yuning is constantly
changing and learning. One of the major challenges I have come across is keeping up
with her changes. What has helped me meet these challenges is using constant formative
assessment.

Throughout my work with Yuning, I have focused on two main assessment forms:
anecdotal notes and collecting writing samples. Anecdotal notes have always been a
favorite form of assessment for me. In my work with younger students, Ive found that
simple kid watching can give you invaluable information. With Yuning, I have learned
that taking notes on her concerns, oral miscues, and stories from her daily life gives me

more information than any traditional written assessment can. She is such an advanced
student that anecdotal notes seem to work the best because of the vast array of
information you can gather using them. I have also been collecting writing samples.
Because she is still in school, I have her send me the essays she is already working on in
her classes so she doesnt have to double up on any work. Because she is concerned with
her academic writing, I felt like this was the best way for me to gather authentic
information about her academic writing. So far it has worked well for the both of us.

So far I have been able to obtain a lot of information with these two forms of
assessment. Using anecdotal notes, I have learned that Yuning is working on scholarship
essays. She is trying to get as much school paid for as possible. She is currently at BCTC
but looking into transferring to either the University of Kentucky or Eastern Kentucky
University with the goal of eventually getting into a nursing program. She has one
daughter that is in elementary school. She moved to the US with her husband and
daughter a few years ago. She did not learn English her first year in the US and felt very
helpless and lonely. She wants to learn proficient, academic level English so that she can
make it successfully through school, get a good job, and be a good role model to her
daughter to continue her education one day. She is extremely determined and hard
working. Using writing samples, I have learned that Yuning struggles with article usage.
She doesnt always remember when its appropriate to use a comma. Comprehending
higher-level writing prompts is sometimes a challenge. When she does understand a
prompt, she sometimes has trouble formatting her response. She also has some issues

with subject-verb agreement. There are a few small issues here and there but they seem to
be simple miscues not total misunderstandings of a grammar rule.

Based on the results of the anecdotal notes I have taken thus far, I have decided to
do a mini-unit on academia since she has a few obstacles to overcome in transferring to a
new school. We will go over such subjects as transfer application, financial aid, parking
services, and navigating the University website. Preparing for academic success has
become an overall theme of our sessions. Everything we are doing can be tied back to her
goal of getting accepted into a University program. Based on the results from her writing
samples I have collected, I have created several mini-lessons that will focus on core
issues with grammar that she is struggling with. Because article usage is the most
prevalent miscue in her writing, I will be conducting my lesson on that subject first. That
way we will have more time to practice and look back at the lesson. I will also create a
lesson on comma usage and subject-verb agreement. Because structuring an answer to a
writing prompt is so important in academics, I will probably hit on that subject more
often than the others and provide tons of modeling and practice structuring responses.

These two assessments have been so reliable in giving me relevant and helpful
information about Yuning. I will most likely continue using these two forms of
assessment every week while bringing in other types of assessment as needed based on
what we are learning. We still have a long way to go this semester; therefore, I am not
opposed to bringing in more assessments that may give me more specific information on
how Yuning is doing.