Session Information
09 SES 03 B, Assessing Spelling and Written Composition
Paper Session
Contribution
The United Arab Emirates is an emerging nation with a vision of continuing improvement of the educational outcomes of students and the development of a world-class education system. The government has a strong appetite for quality data to inform decision-making and policy initiatives. In positioning itself in a global economy the UAE has developed a curriculum that includes Arabic and English as literacy skills that are seen as imperatives in the development of the national workforce.
The UAE has engaged in a number of large scale testing programmes to monitor progress towards the national educational goals articulated in the national agenda “Vision 2020”. In the international arena the UAE has participated in PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS. The national program that aims to monitor student progress against curriculum outcomes is the UAE National Assessment Program (UAENAP).
This paper proposes to report an investigation of the main study data acquired over the past three years in the domains of Arabic Spelling and English Spelling and to investigate the language acquisition in Spelling skills of students and their learning in each domain by reviewing the results of matched student results for both domains over time.
The UAENAP is a cohort assessment program that is administered annually to students of Grade 3, 5, 7 and 9 in seven of the northern Emirates of the nation. The first iteration of the program was administered in 2011 with subsequent administrations in 2012 and 2013. This model allows not only for the within year comparison of student performances and response patterns but also to observe the improvement in the skills in and between each domain across a two year period.
In the administration of the past two iterations of the program the delivery of the dictation has been standardised by the development of professionally produced CDs. This method was introduced to ensure that all students interact with the same pronunciation of each Arabic and English word, and their contexts, in each assessment. This methodology was introduced to reduce the environmental noise and unintended bias in the test administration due to the accents of school teachers who come from a variety of backgrounds.
The aim of the study is not only to compare the relative performance of students in each subject but also to investigate student response patterns in an attempt to understand what factors may impact upon language acquisition in each subject and also to observe the rate of growth in ability within each subject.
The research seeks to investigate the relationship between Spelling acquisition in two languages (one native and one foreign) and to provide insight into the question “is a good speller in Arabic a good speller in English?” Further, the research will seek to understand the factors that impact on skills acquisition and demonstrated ability in the second language in instances where anomalies are observed in student response and performance patterns.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
• Kohnen, S et al. (2009). Assessing Spelling Skills and Strategies Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties .Vol 14, 1, 2009. Special Issue. Assessment for Effective Literacy Instruction with Low-Progress Students • Allaith. Z.A. (2009). Analysis of Spelling Performance in English among students whose first language is Arabic http://www.researchgate.net/publication/45289841 • Abu-rabia.S and Taha.H (2004) Reading and Spelling Error Analysis of Native Arabic Dyslexic Readers. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, v17 n7-8 p651-690 Nov 2004 • El_Dakhs.D and Mitchell.A (2004) Spelling Errors among EFL High-School Graduates. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, v17 n7-8 p651-690 Nov 2004 • Wu, M. L., Adams, R. J., Wilson, M. R., Haldane, S.A. (2007). ACER ConQuest Version 2: Generalised item response modelling software [computer program]. Camberwell: Australian Council for Educational Research.
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