FW: [Bestplus] Things that may come up in trainings

[Fischer, Janet]

Hi Jane and fellow BP colleagues!! It was good to see so many of you
last week at the BEST Plus refresher!

 

Jane, you may recall that many of us were very surprised about one of
the examples Cindy used (an examinee's response was "I buy el comida a
el mercado" - please forgive my Spanish - or lack of Spanish here! It
was something that the examinee started off in English with "I buy" and
then switched to Spanish for the rest of the response.).  Many of us
scored that a zero but Cindy said she scored it based on the English
that the examinee produced, even if s/he had switched to Spanish.

 

I went back to my emails from last year, and came upon this email
exchange, back in June 2004. I think based on this, I (and many others)
thought that CAL was saying that anything in another language should get
a zero for communication, even if a part of it was understood by the
administrator. This raises more questions for me. 

 

I think we do need to check again with CAL on this point because it
really is the difference between zeroing someone out and giving them a
partial score for communication. Specifically, I think we need to know:

 

a.    What happens if someone has a partial response in English but then
code-switches back to their L1 or native language? Do we score it a
zero? Do we score only the portions that we understood in English? If,
in the above example, the "I buy" was perfectly clear but the examinee
switched to Spanish, does that score a 3 for communication, or a 2, or a
1?

b.    I would also like further clarification about the zeroing out - I
know that if an administrator scores zero for Listening Comprehension,
it zeros out all 3 scores. But what do you do if you give a score of a 1
or 2 in Listening Comp - is there ever a situation you would give a zero
in Language Complexity and/or Communication following a 1 or a 2 in
Comprehension? Cindy said something like, "I know that they're (the
zeros in the complexity and communication) there, but it's wrong to give
a score in comprehension and then a zero in one or both of the other
two." Is there ever a case that someone could get a score for
comprehension but can only respond in their native language??

 

Perhaps I should send this directly to Breana for clarification. Let me
know what you think!

 

Regards, Janet

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Schwerdtfeger, Jane [mailto:JaneS at doe.mass.edu] 
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2004 11:58 AM
To: Fischer, Janet; Bestplus at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: RE: [Bestplus] Things that may come up in trainings

 

Hi, all--I would think since this is on CAL's website it is fine to
mention

in trainings, and I agree with Janet, that it is important to emphasize
to

make sure trainees understand it.  Thanks for thinking of that, Janet--

 

Jane

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Fischer, Janet [mailto:jfischer at necc.mass.edu]

Sent: Monday, June 07, 2004 5:37 PM

To: Bestplus at lists.literacytent.org

Subject: [Bestplus] Things that may come up in trainings

 

 

 

Hi everyone! It's so exciting that we are all getting to feel so
comfortable

and competent in our trainings!

 

 

 

One thing that I believe has come up - or rather, has not yet come up -
is

the question of what to do if an examinee responds to a question in a

language other than English. (We all saw this in our IRR videotapes.).

Unfortunately, Lynda did not address this in our ToT training back in
March.

 

 

 

 

Carey has referred us to the CAL BEST Plus FAQ's (

http://www.cal.org/bestplus/faq.html
<http://www.cal.org/bestplus/faq.html>

) . On the last part of the FAQ's, CAL has the following posting:

 

 

 

 

Scoring Questions

 

 

s1If an examinee answers the question correctly in a language other than

English, what score do I give him or her?

 

A response in any language other than English receives a zero for
Listening

Comprehension, Language Complexity, and Communication, even if you

understand the response. 

 

This seems to be a pretty important point for trainees. I wonder if we

should be sure to mention it in trainings, and if so, do we need to
check

with CAL first?

 

Janet

 

 

 

Janet S. Fischer

 

Associate Coordinator

 

Northeast SABES (System for Adult Basic Education Support)

 

Northern Essex Community College

 

45 Franklin Street, Lawrence, MA 01840

 

Tel: (978) 738-7307,  Fax: (978) 738-7115

 

jfischer at necc.mass.edu <mailto:jfischer at necc.mass.edu>  

 

 

 

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