Sixth International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education: Connecting Research and Practice Across Contexts

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

not language specific session

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion
Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Elementary (K-5)
Middle School/Junior High

Ever wondered how to reconcile immersion content instruction and language assessment with authentic communication? In this session, participants will learn to develop immersion assessments based on the ACTFL guidelines and practice effective teacher interview models using reliable rubrics, which focus classroom instruction on communicative competence and move students towards proficiency.

Fairfax County Public Schools has employed IPAs at the elementary and secondary levels it calls the Performance Assessment for Language Students (PALS) for almost two decades. This presentation explores the development and implementation of the immersion Jr. PALS with an eye towards sharing lessons learned and facilitating their adaptation to the participant’s immersion classroom, school or division. Emphasis will be placed on the recent work toward a uniform teacher interview format and rating rubric system which follow the model of ACTFL's MOPI. Presenters will engage the audience in key aspects of the teacher elicitation model as well as the necessary professional development tools provided to teachers, including instruments and methods of elicitation and best practices in rating. Essential elements of inter-rater reliability practices, including using data to refine methods and practices will also be discussed. 

Participants will gain an understanding of how apply the principles of the MOPI to develop or refine their immersion IPAs and will leave with example elicitation guides, rubrics and training strategies. Through a variety of group engagement strategies, participants will experience and reflect on the compelling effects of IPAs on immersion classroom instruction, practice strategies such as Academic Conversations to engage students in authentic immersion content communication tasks.  These strategies will increase the focus of immersion content lessons on building content as well as communicative competence leading to higher levels of target language proficiency.