The four levels on the criteria sheet (the first column) relate to the pathways of the Victorian Curriculum F-10 EAL, as shown in the right-hand column. This indicates the levels of written performance of the task that might be expected of students at the relevant level. The criteria dot points provide a view of student accomplishment contextualised to that particular task, but which also relate directly to the Victorian Curriculum F-10 EAL.
Deciding where students are within a pathway of the EAL curriculum gives a finer grained assessment of their progress. The Victorian Curriculum F-10 EAL descriptions define student development at the end of the pathway. The DET Reporting Resource provides additional proficiency levels which describe EAL learners’ progress towards – as well as at – the Victorian Curriculum F-10 EAL achievement standards.
Points of achievement are numbered, for example:
- 1 Beginning
- 2 Consolidating
- 3 Achieved
Combining information from the common assessment tasks with other formal and informal assessments and observations gathered over time is likely to indicate that your student is falling within a particular level. Once you have enough information about your student, you can begin the process of assigning a DET Reporting Resource level of development, validating or realigning your assessment and deciding where your student is using the additional proficiency levels, for example, C2.2, B3.1
To do this, follow the steps below:
- As you gather information on the criteria sheets on a specific student, and relate it to the stages in the right-hand column, you will notice whether the student seems to be showing development that is early in the stage or later in the stage, or perhaps crossing over into the next stage.
- Decide on an ‘on-balance’ stage of development from this information, and then read the Reporting Resource descriptions at that stage, relating them back to dot points from the criteria sheets.
- Read indicators below the level if the criteria sheets are indicating the student may be early in the stage
- Read the indicators from higher levels if the criteria sheets are indicating the student may be later in the stage.
- Highlight the descriptions when you feel that they describe what your student is consistently able to do.
- Taking into account everything else you have observed about what your student can do, come to an on-balance decision about which level your student is at.
- Refine and modify this assessment over time.
- Assessment against the Victorian Curriculum F-10 EAL can be used for acknowledging and talking about student progress, and for reporting to parents and other teachers.
The completion of further tasks and ongoing assessment and monitoring of students over time will help you to notice:
- aspects of written language in which the student is improving, compared to earlier assessments
- aspects of written language where the student is not making expected progress, and which may need some focused attention or intervention.
