Australia is a multilingual multicultural country with an impressive record of educational provision for students from language other than English (LOTE) backgrounds. The recent widespread development of common standards and benchmarks in English language and literacy in schools can be seen as a valuable component of this provision. However, care needs to be taken to avoid projecting a false picture of linguistic homogeneity by ignoring variation between English-speaking background (ESB) and English as a Second Language (ESL) learner groups. This paper demonstrates how the recent introduction of national Literacy Benchmarks, unlike the earlier development of curriculum and standards frameworks, has dis-counted ESL achievement by failing to take sufficient account of learner variation. Problems have also occurred in balancing the conflicting motivations for benchmarking: assessment, accountability and education, which result in different “standards” for standard-setting being assumed by the various stakeholders. The paper concludes that real accountability and progress in ESL learning and teaching can only be shown effectively through the use of a complementary but distinctive set of standards or benchmarks for ESL learners at different stages of schooling.
2017. The effects of discourses in regional contexts on the development of curriculum‐based literacy standards for adolescents in schooling: a comparative study of South Australia and Ontario. The Curriculum Journal 28:2 ► pp. 231 ff.
Creagh, Susan
2016. ‘Language Background Other Than English’: a problem NAPLaN test category for Australian students of refugee background. Race Ethnicity and Education 19:2 ► pp. 252 ff.
Creagh, Sue
2014. A critical analysis of problems with the LBOTE category on the NAPLaN test. The Australian Educational Researcher 41:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Kibler, Amanda, Guadalupe Valdés & Aída Walqui
2014. What Does Standards‐based Educational Reform Mean for English Language Learner Populations in Primary and Secondary Schools?. TESOL Quarterly 48:3 ► pp. 433 ff.
Lingard, Bob, Sue Creagh & Greg Vass
2012. Education policy as numbers: data categories and two Australian cases of misrecognition. Journal of Education Policy 27:3 ► pp. 315 ff.
Cross, Russell
2009. Literacy for All: quality language education for few. Language and Education 23:6 ► pp. 509 ff.
McKay, Penny
2005. RESEARCH INTO THE ASSESSMENT OF SCHOOL-AGE LANGUAGE LEARNERS. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 25 ► pp. 243 ff.
Davison, Chris
2004. The contradictory culture of teacher-based assessment: ESL teacher assessment practices in Australian and Hong Kong secondary schools. Language Testing 21:3 ► pp. 305 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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