My first experience with Assessing an ESL student with the W-APT

             Being a private school teacher, I have not had the opportunity to witness or apply a placement test with any of our ESL students.The process of testing my student with the placement assessment, or W-APT, was an interesting adventure into uncharted waters for me. This was my first time testing a student with this test and I learned a lot about the assessment, as well as, information on how to administer the assessment to an ESL student who hasn’t taken a test of this nature. Since this was my first time working with this material, I made sure I went through every page of every section to ensure I had the correct instructions and I knew what to expect before I worked with my student.

      In my opinion, this test was very informative and helpful in understanding the ability level of my student and what she needs more help on in the classroom. Having this opportunity has been a life changing experience because up until this time it has been a guessing game and I have had to try to understand what everyone has been discussing in class on what test giving has been like. Through the assessment scores, I was able to find out what her CAN DO descriptors were right on track with her abilities, and understand her level of ability through a description and explanation given through the WIDA standards.

            I believe this is the area that private schools can improve for their students. If we start testing

 our students and start using the resources that we have to help the education of our ESL students,

then I think we can see our students excel. The guessing game for placing these students into classes

needs to stop and we need to advocate for these students that can benefit greatly from a little extra

help. I think we, as a school, could be more appealing to incoming families and students if they knew

that we had a program like the one I hope we strive to achieve.