TESOL 2016 Electronic Village, April 6, 2016 (11 AM)

Pre-Arrival Assessment and Placement of ELLs using Synchronous and Asynchronous Online ToolsCandice J. Marshall, M.A., Earlham CollegeEmail: quinoca@earlham.edu

In Short: Working at a small, but very diverse, liberal arts college in the Midwest with an ESL instruction staff of 1 ½, with a growing number of international admissions, we found that simply relying on post-arrival COMPASS testing to place students in classes was leading to increasingly difficulties and student dissatisfaction with first year students. To mitigate this, we devised a pre-screening and placement process to help alleviate the frenzy of New Student Orientation and post-arrival placement testing anxiety by setting up a way to screen for potential ELL’s and then to subsequently interview and place them into the appropriate courses pre-arrival.

Screening for the Pre-Arrival InterviewThe admissions office sends all accepted international student applicant folders to the International Programs Office(IPO) once they have confirmed they will be attending.From there, the IPO office reviews their file, checks for submitted test scores (TOEFL, SAT, ACT), and determines whether they should be interviewed based on the criteria previously agreed upon for incoming student scores (i.e. under a 94 TOEFL should be screened). If no scores were submitted, the student is automatically flagged for pre-screening of language skills.

Setting up the Interview:The list of students who have been “flagged” for pre-screening then goes to the English instructors, who, in turn, contact the students to set up a time for a video interview. Doodle (doodle.com) was used as the scheduling tool. The email to the students included information regarding time zone differences and the type of program to be used to conduct the interview (Skype or Firefox Hello).

Conducting the Interview:Once the time was arranged, a confirmation email would be sent and any further information needed would be provided/requested (i.e. Skype user name or link to Firefox Hello Chat)(Firefox Hello had a lot of bugs, Skype was preferred).

For the interview itself, a Google Form was created as a method of recording the student’s responses. In most cases, students were on a computer and were able to pull up the form and follow along as the interviewer asked the questions. Then after talking about the question, the student would mark their answer or type their response. The interviewer also took notes manually during the discussion. Some students did not have access to Google (i.e. in China) and so for them, the interviewer transcribed their responses into the form. The last item required writing sample, which required a bit more time, but the students were permitted to complete the writing sample off camera if they preferred (to reduce anxiety). For students without access to the form, they were asked to respond via email. Upon completion, the student was asked to submit the form, and the interviewer could check to make sure it was received. The form is available at: http://goo.gl/forms/mFPC80ifW6

Placement:Based on their fluency and responses and the courses available, the instructor determined whether ESL courses would be necessary, and made the appropriate recommendations to the IPO, Admissions, and Registrar’s Office.Results: After the1st semester, most students’ placements were deemed accurate.