GACE ESOL Mini Pretest

Anh is a Vietnamese student who has been in the US for over a year. She is progressing in her school work, but rarely talks to her classmates or teachers. Which of the following is the best action for the teacher to take to increase Anh's oral proficiency in English?

• The teacher should partner Anh with an English-speaking peer during oral discussion and presentations.

• The teacher should incorporate daily lesson on social interactions that include role-playing.

• The teacher should provide Anh with a list of common phrases in English for her to memorize and practice.

• The teacher should provide individual social lessons to practice speaking until she is comfortable.

A high school ESL teacher hosts a career day in which bilingual professionals attend and give presentations about how proficiency in more than on language has helped them succeed. Which of the following is a primary benegit of the presentations for ELL's?

• Identifying with members of the community who speak their language.

• Understanding the advantages of being multilingual.

• Choose best career paths that align with their goals.

• Learning which companies emphasize multilingual careers.

At the beginning of the year, an ESOL teacher has each student create an "All About Me" book. Students with a higher level of English-language proficiency write and illustrate the book independently. Those students with a lower level of English-language proficiency are allowed to create the book in their native languages. Which of the following statements best explains the primary benefit of the activity?

• The ESL students will gain a greater mastery of the usage of written English.

• The teacher will gain an understanding of the cultural background of the students.

• The ESL students will gain a greater appreciation of American culture.

• The teacher will gain a better idea of the students' organizational skills.

English learners' ability to understand the meanings of words and phrases, including their ability to engage in fast mapping (forming ideas quickly about word meanings), is associated with which of the following areas of language development?

• discourse

• phonology

• semantics

• syntax

Stephen Krashen is most noted for

• positing that schemas are important in cognitive and language development.

• positing that children possess a language acquisition device (LAD) that helps them learn language.

• positing that classroom teachers need to understand the difference between social language (BICS) and academic language acquisition (CALP).

• positing that the learner improves and progresses when he/she receives second language 'input' that is one step beyond his/her current stage of linguistic competence.

In Lau v. Nichols,

• a father stated that his daughters' rights were violated by the school district because the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act (1974) don't allow educational institutions to exclude students of educational opportunities based on sex, color, race, or national origin.

• it was found unconstitutional to deny children living in the U.S., whether legally or not, a free public elementary and secondary education.

• students of Chinese descent who did not speak English claimed that the failure to provide supplemental English classes constituted an unequal educational opportunity in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

• specific requirements were outlined for bilingual education programs in which schools must provide: three year monitoring cycles, identification of LEP students, and a language survey for students entering school and the need for exit criteria.

There are _______ stages of language acquisition.

• 5

• 4

• 3

• 2

An ESL student that has had no previous education or support in his/her native language will take about ______ years to achieve academic language proficiency while an ESL student that has had prior education or support in his/her native language can take __________ years to acquire cognitive academic language.

• 6-8 / 1-2

• 5-6 / 3-4

• 5-7 / 7-10

• 7-10 / 5-7

TPR, or total physical response, is

• a method for teaching English language learners that improves neurological function so that areas of the brain are more strongly connected and accessible for any given task.

• a method for teaching English language learners vocabulary and concepts through physical movements.

• a method for helping English language learners learn about physical fitness while learning academic content.

• a method for helping English language learners participate in classrooms in the American school system.

Entering, beginning, developing, expanding,bridging, reaching...These are the

• NCLB levels of reading proficiency.

• ESSA levels of educational proficiency.

• WIDA levels of language proficiency.

• IDEA levels of cognitive proficiency.