We’ve introduced the Bell Assessment Framework to monitor the progress of our EAL learners. Here are some early reflections on the framework and tracking tool, including some challenges arising from its implementation.

Why Bell?

Adri Szlapak and I are working together as EAL leads across Elementary and High School respectively. We are keen to ensure some consistency in our approach across the school. One way we can do this is to choose assessment/monitoring tools which are familiar across key stages. Adri had used Bell in her previous context, I’d used WIDA. We weighed up the pros and cons of both and felt Bell seemed more rigorous, comprehensive, and usable.

Why were we so keen on consistency?

Here are some reasons:

⁃ We were both establishing a department. This made for a great opportunity to aim at a truly whole-school approach. Similar assessment practices would help that.

⁃ Familiarity for parents. Some parents will have kids in our EAL programme across key stages, so it helps to share a consistent message.

⁃ Familiarity for learners transitioning between our schools. It’s daunting enough for learners moving between Elem and High School: there are major changes to timetabling, expected levels of independence, and so on. We can ease that by making sure learners already understand EAL-related processes of learning and assessment.

Etc.

What’s the Bell Assessment Framework like?

The framework outlines can-do descriptors across four skills (Speaking, Listening, Reading and Viewing, Writing) at five proficiency levels. These levels are roughly…

⁃ New to English

⁃ Early Acquisition

⁃ Developing Proficiency

⁃ Competency

⁃ Proficiency/Fluency

There are 10 can-do descriptors per level, with each focusing on curriculum-integrated targets for language development. View the full descriptors here.

Our EAL specialists observe learners in mainstream classes and during EAL support sessions. They record progress/suggest targets based on the framework descriptors. Bell provide a handy tracking tool to record these observations.

Early gains

Integrating content and language

With all four staff in our department being new to the school, and the dept itself being new, clear guidance for monitoring and assessment was essential. The Bell Framework certainly provided that. It’s a clear hook for planning EAL support too. I’ve found it useful to keep the can-do descriptors in mind when creating schemes of work for the department, as it ensures there are always content AND language targets covered in our provision – both relating directly to our curriculum.

Relevance to the curriculum

Having descriptors that are so connected to learning within the curriculum is really useful. In my previous context, we used WIDA at primary level and, similar to Bell, you could see the connection between the assessment framework and mainstream learning. However, in secondary, the EAL lead referred more to targets from the CEFR. While this was familiar to everyone working in our dept at the time, the CEFR was too general as a set of targets in an EAL context. The CEFR doesn’t really do enough to capture the ‘jagged profile’ of many EAL learners I’ve worked with, or provide clear enough targets for learners regarding academic language and skills development.

Detail

The amount of evidence we gather on our learners using the Bell Assessment tracking tool is far more than I’ve been used to. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that our evidence-gathering is robust – there are still subjective judgements involved and we could do with some kind of moderation process. Even so, the range of descriptors means there’s always something for us to assess in a planned or spontaneous way, and clear targets to set for each learner.

Ease

The tracking tool itself is very easy to use. Drop-down selection for can-do statements with auto-fill makes tracking appear quite detailed quite quickly! In our setting where there are around 80 or so EAL learners in Key Stage 3, assessment using individual trackers for each learner is manageable (with four staff).

Challenges so far

A tool for EAL specialists only?

Ideally, classroom teachers AND language specialists would be recording observations using the Bell tracking tools / adding info, analysing needs, setting targets, etc. Could we achieve that? Well, firstly we need to make sure that EAL specialists themselves know how to use the assessment framework and trackers effectively – we are the ones who will guide subject teachers in using the tool. Teachers themselves would need to find time to record observations. I can see how, for busy teachers, the Bell Assessment Framework (however useful) adds further tasks to an already heavy workload. We wouldn’t want it to feel burdensome, hence become tickboxy. Anyhow, we aren’t really at the stage of getting subject teachers to invest time in this assessment process – first we need to mediate by explaining how we are assessing, sharing targets, and suggesting strategies for classroom practice based on established learner needs.

What about the learners?

After just one half-term of using Bell, I genuinely feel like we’re making great progress. Arguably the most important next step is to involve our learners more in the process – help them to understand the framework, the purpose, and their targets. However, there’s a danger that learners will come to see the descriptors as a means to an end – criteria to achieve in order exit the EAL programme.

We are looking for proof that their language skills and academic independence are developing. We don’t want that reduced to isolated examples of them being able to demonstrate targets when expected to perform. Holding back some details regarding what and how we are assessing learners would hopefully make our observations more accurate. That said, we still need learners to be aware of what progress looks like – and we need that explained in learner-friendly ways too.

Getting parents onboard

Okay. So. Bell have not made life easy when it comes to getting parents onboard with their framework. How (not) so?

The Bell Tracker is so detailed, and the reports in produces are valuable. However, the whole framework takes some explaining! Busy parents may well be ‘tell it to me straight, in grades or scores’, for which the Bell Framework by its nature (or second language acquisition in general for that matter!) is not compatible.

Translating the descriptors might help, and I’m working on that, although I’m sure translated versions of the descriptors must exist somewhere. Even if they do, some parents won’t value the descriptors – they’ll want a grade.

Let’s say that ‘grading’ learners using the Bell Framework was doable. I mean, it technically is given that the can-do descriptors are arranged in bands of proficiency. It would be fine to say ‘your kid is working at Band C, their targets are at D. Once all targets are at D, we will start to consider their exit from the EAL programme…’ whoa whoa whoa hold up. Going from C to D? Huh?

Someone at Bell decided that their bands would range from A (New to English) to E (Proficient). This was to align with a ‘Proficiency of English’ scale outlined by the Department of Education in 2016. Whoever devised that scale was clearly far removed from the contexts in which their framework would likely to be implemented – i.e. bloody obvious ones in which most people work *towards* an A, not away from it.

At a school like ours, where common assessments are graded from A (Excellent) to around E (not so excellent), reversing that grading system for EAL (only) is just confusing. The colour-coding for the Bell bands doesn’t help, as they instill panic. Learners at Band B (Early Acquisition) would have a tracker covered in red. RED. A learner at Band A on the other hand would have a tracker that looks quite positive – lots of greens. Although don’t give them Band B targets as things will start to look disheartening. This might seem trivial, but both the colours and the grading could have a big impact on how performance is perceived by learners and teachers in my context.

It’s still not enough

The WIDA model included periodic assessments to track learner progress. I haven’t found these for Bell. Maybe they exist. I didn’t much like the WIDA ones anyway as they were rather general. That said, some thought had gone into medium/long-term assessment with the WIDA tool.

The Bell Framework is all about assessing skills development within a mainstream learning context. This ongoing assessment is great, but I still feel there’s a need to assess general language development as some kind of benchmark in our context. That’s because we offer the IGCSE English as a Second Language pathway at Year 10.

The higher grades for the IG ESL course roughly align to CEFR-level B2, and the content of the course is … more ‘general-academic’ in an IELTS-type guise (more like general training for the writing bit). Despite my criticisms of CEFR in an int school context, we still need a ‘this Year 9 student is roughly working at B1 level’ in order to make informed decisions about whether they could follow a fast-track ESL pathway in Year 10. Bell is great, but it doesn’t ease every process…

Decisions, decisions

I’m committed to giving the Bell Assessment Framework a fair go. I already see the benefits – I know far more about my learners and their current skills set by using this tool.

However, we still need to adapt the Bell Framework in our context to make it valuable for all stakeholders (blergh – horrible word). It’s not suitable as the sole form of assessment for our EAL learners, it’s likely to be ambiguous/inconsistent for parents, and it’s hard work for teachers.

We are still ironing out the creases in our own approach – it’s very early days! One task for me during the next half-term is to work out how best to communicate learner progress in our end-of-term reports. Established practices at the school, stakeholder expectations, and time constraints will all provide obstacles. Still, the answer is in there somewhere!

Categories: General, reflections

Tags: assessment, Bell Assessment Framework, cpd, eal, elt, international school, reflections