Texas English Language Proficiency Standards (TELPAS)

In order for ELL students to be properly assessed in the classroom by teachers, they need to be measured on the different levels of writing, reading, listening, and speaking they are at, in order to assess the correct curriculum in ongoing classroom instruction. School districts, have a close connection between the Texas English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) and the Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS). By doing this, it reinforces the benefits of using the ELPS to teach and assess English Language Learners (ELLs) effectively throughout the school year. How ELL students are identified for TELPAS is that, these students have to take a survey. Two question in particular, that the surveys ask are; what language

The Texas English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS), are used in foundation and enrichment instruction for K–12 ELL students and TELPAS assesses K–12 ELL students. The ELPS and TELPAS encompasses four language domains consisting of; writing, reading, listening, and speaking, with four composite ratings that are; beginning, intermediate, advanced, and advanced high. All ELL students in grades K–12; including those whose parents decline bilingual/ESL program services, are assessed annually. Under certain circumstances or extremely rare cases, any ELL student under special education, may not be required to participate in one or more TELPAS language domains by the ARD committee, in conjunction with the Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC). The process for TELPAS in the State of Texas is as follows; the district coordinators are trained by the state, then the district coordinators train their campus coordinator(s); which are Assistant Principals (AP’s), then these coordinators (AP’s) train their campus teachers. Every school, in the TELPAS process, has to have raters. Raters are, teachers selected by their campus coordinator to rate ELL

This training is a practice mode for raters to rate ELL students in each one of the domains, and it provides instruction for raters on how to use the PLD rubrics. For each domain (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), TELPAS answers the following question: How well is the student currently able to understand and use English during grade-level instruction? Are they at the beginning, intermediate, advanced or advanced high level? TELPAS uses an online multiple-choice test to assess grade levels 2–12 in reading and TELPAS uses a holistic rating process and classroom performance to assess grade levels K–12 in listening, speaking, and writing, and grade levels K–1in reading. The assessment approach to this, helps teachers to determine the English proficiency levels, by observing students in the classroom. Teachers watch how their ELL students are interacting informally with them and their peers, how they understand and use English when instruction is being given and how they are completing their daily assignments during cooperative learning activities. Not all domains for assessment of ELL students for teachers is done online; only reading grades 2-12. The other language domains, writing, listening, and speaking, are grades K-12 and are done in the classroom; basically, TELPAS reading is done online for the students, and the writing,