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Invited Guest Author Post by Dolores Diosdado  Image from iStock Photos Every year in Texas, over a million students are administered TELPAS. Yet many educators, students, and caregivers are left in the dark about why TELPAS is important. TELPAS is a critical assessment that provides students, families, campuses, and districts with meaningful data to ensure equitable access to resources, professional development, and instructional support. It also holds districts accountable for supporting students’ linguistic growth.
When educators and families understand the TELPAS process from beginning to end, they are better equipped to make informed decisions and advocate for student success. TELPAS should not be viewed as just another test; instead, it should be valued as a tool that helps educators provide intentional instruction and meaningful language experiences that support long-term academic achievement. What Is TELPAS?  Personalizing Learning & ELLsAs tradition has it, at the start of a new year, many of us reflect on the year that passed and begin to set goals for the year ahead.
This serves as an ideal time for us to help our students set learning goals too! English language learners (ELLs) may feel like they have a lot on their plate. Some are learning about a new country, culture, content and language all at the same time. We can help our ELLs by setting a few language goals so they have a clear view in mind and a path to follow in order to get there. States have varying ways to help us determine the language levels of our ELLs. In Texas, where I live, we have adopted the English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) and we use Proficiency Level Descriptors (PLDs) to guide and assess instruction. Many other states have adopted the WIDA English Language Development Standards. States that use WIDA have access to CAN DO Descriptors. These are excellent for goal setting with students and really personalizing instruction.  Graphic from TexasGateway.org The courses offered include:
The ELPS Linguistic Instructional Alignment Guide or LIAG is aresource also available to educators. It is not a course but a resource that is handy for planning instruction. As a classroom teacher, the LIAG can a used to tailor listening, speaking, reading, and writing goals and instruction for each English Learner in your classroom. Sheltered Instruction videos are coming soon! So be on the look out! And share this awesome resource with your colleagues. Just wondering...for those of you who don't live in the GREAT state of Texas, does your state/country have something like this for teachers? Please comment. Enjoy! TEXAS teachers!! Have you heard about Texas Gateway???
This is an AMAZING, FREE resource library for all Texas educators and parents created by the Texas Education Agency. The courses offered are self-paced, online courses. Some even include videos and classroom support documents. As an advocate for English Learners, I truly love that the Texas Gateway offers several courses related to supporting teachers and administrators of ELs. Teachers can take the courses and receive professional development credit for them too! But BEST of all, teachers and administrators will gain valuable knowledge about how to effectively support English Learners in their classrooms and schools utilizing the English Language Proficiency Standards aligned with the TEKS. |
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