Alignment of DynEd Courseware to
WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards

Framework for Large-scale and Classroom Instruction Assessment

Executive Summary of DynEd's Alignment to WIDA ELP Standards for Large-scale Classroom Instruction and Assessment

DynEd International, Inc., Burlingame, CA
January 2006

At DynEd, we find the WIDA ELP Standards to be among the most interesting and most reasonable set of ELP standards we have seen. The WIDA Consortium's response to the enormous challenge to arrange standards by type, domain, and grade level provides participating states with a rational way of measuring proficiency gains in English.

Like WIDA, DynEd is not interested in developing legions of English speaking tourists in the Unites States or around the world. At DynEd we are committed to preparing English Language Learners of all ages and all proficiency levels for academic success, not only in English, but in all subject areas as well as for the rest of their lives. English language proficiency is the enabling skill that facilitates: class participation in all subject areas, socialization among students, and literacy.

Assumptions about DynEd / WIDA Alignment Project:

• In analyzing each of the grade-level WIDA ELP Standard matrices for this project, we asked ourselves one important question: Does the appropriate unit/level of the corresponding DynEd course give students the language proficiency they need to meet the WIDA ELP standard at each proficiency level? The alignment project at all grade level clusters was guided by one key statement from the "WIDA ELP Standards Overview" document which reads:
  
  "The performance definitions provide a global overview of the language acquisition process. They serve as a summary and synthesis of the model performance indicators for each language proficiency level."
  
  
• As in DynEd's exemplary installations around the world, when utilized to maximum efficiency, DynEd courseware is being used in a blend with classroom support, following the 4 Skills path of Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. We have supporting video examples from around the world to show this process.
  
  
• DynEd's approach to effective, long-term English language acquisition is based on a blended model of instruction. In order for DynEd courseware to work, we need: a well-trained teacher, a classroom, other students, regular and consistent access to working computers equipped with multimedia headsets, and, perhaps most importantly, someone on-site to whom the qualitative analysis of students' study data using DynEd matters.
  
  
• In a student practice session, for example, a student will hear and say "a book." In the classroom, a teacher may dictate "a book." Or, a teacher might ask, "What is the first letter in the word, book?" DynEd's approach integrates the four skills, but in a sequence beginning with listening and speaking followed by reading and writing. Another example of personalization and extension might be if a teacher were to say "Ginger's mother (from DynEd's K-2 program) is a teacher. What does your mother do?" Again, DynEd has video examples of this application from China.
  
  
• Oral English skills are the key enabling skills upon which everything else in school is built: reading, writing, and all other subjects areas as well as socialization with other students.
  
  
• Non-native speakers are fundamentally different from native speakers (from an appropriate language-rich environment) in that they do not possess fundamental listening and speaking skills in English.
  
  
• Additionally, DynEd has evidence that DynEd students have better test scores in both listening and writing assessments than in control groups of students who had no access to DynEd.

WIDA Correlations

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