ESL Learning Standards - Higher Ed - New York State Education ...

tions on a wide range of familiar and unfamiliar topics in a number of modalities.
Transitional students apply their linguistic skills and knowledge, including vocabulary,
idioms, and complex grammatical structures, to content area learning. These
students are able to use paralinguistic features of the language, such as stress, intonation,
pace, and rhythm, to understand spoken language. Transitional level students
still benefit from aural support in the academic content areas through techniques
such as use of visuals, paraphrasing, and comprehension checks.
Speaking: Students at the transitional stage can engage in most social communicative
situations with confidence and mastery of complex language structures.
Speaking in the academic content areas is characterized by fluency and accuracy
in language production, with some circumlocution regarding technical content area
vocabulary and some language forms.
Reading: Students at the transitional stage understand and obtain meaning from a
wide range of texts available to native English speakers. They have mastered the
strategies of reading comparable to native English-speaking students at their grade
level and are approaching grade-level mastery of the language structures and
vocabulary that are characteristic of texts in the academic content areas.
Writing: Students at this stage are approaching fluency in writing in the content
areas, using the language structures and technical vocabulary of each area with
some circumlocutions. They begin to use alternative and nuanced meanings of
words in their written communications. They demonstrate an increasing ability to
successfully employ the subtleties of written language for different audiences and
purposes.
The New York State ESL
Learning Standards:
• Align the NYS ELA standards
with the TESOL
standards
• Develop language and
academic skills for content
area learning
• Recognize and build on
the cultural diversity of
the population
• Provide a framework for
ESL learning experiences,
classroom practices, and
curriculum development
• Set the parameters for
ESL assessment
DEVELOPMENT OF THE NYS ESL LEARNING STANDARDS
The NYS ESL learning standards are based on an alignment between the New York
State English language arts (ELA) learning standards and the ESL standards developed
by the national association of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other
Languages (TESOL). The NYS ESL standards reflect the standards-based curriculum
and assessment initiatives promulgated by New York State Education Department.
In addition, they incorporate ideas, information, and concepts gleaned from ESL
standards from other states, cities, and organizations, the languages other than
English (LOTE) standards in New York State, and The Teaching of Language Arts to
Limited English Proficient/English Language Learners: A Resource Guide for All
Teachers, published by the NYSED Office of Bilingual Education. Cross-referencing
these sources produced a document that provides consistency in goal and mission
in New York, and one that is unique to the specific discipline of ESL.
In the spring of 2000, NYSED identified a task force of educators of New York
State’s LEP/ELLs to advise on the development of a statewide ESL achievement test.
The task force participated in the development of a conceptual framework for the
achievement test, a set of language and learning objectives that represent high levels
of achievement for all LEP/ELLs throughout the State. From these initial discussions
the New York State ESL learning standards were created.
With the assistance of the Center for Applied Linguistics, the ESL Standards
Committee aligned the TESOL standards with the ELA standards for each grade
level cluster, and developed new performance indicators as needed.
Simultaneously, teams of teachers around the State identified and developed sample
classroom tasks that addressed the standards and performance indicators and
that illustrated standards-based ESL instruction.
6 Learning Standards for ESL