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Sara Beaudrie
Ph.D. Candidate
Second Language Acquisition and Teaching GIDP
CALICO: Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium
University of Hawaii, Manoa, Oahu, Hawaii
May 16 – 20, 2006
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“Spanish Heritage Language Placement Exams: An introduction and model for implementation"
ABSTRACT
This presentation addresses both the development and implementation of a new, computer Spanish heritage language (SHL) placement exam implemented at the University of Arizona in the Summer of 2005 designed by the presenters. This is one of the first tests of its kind designed for SHL populations; in fact, there are no current studies addressing the practicality and usefulness of such exams for the SHL population. Considering the distinct needs of the SHL population, and their predominantly oral exposure to the language, the designers of the exam attempted to use informal questions to assess the proficiency level and literacy level of incoming SHL students. We will elucidate the process of transforming the older, written version of the exam into a valid, 25 question multiple choice exam that proved to be highly reliable in the placement of SHL students at both the intermediate and advanced levels. In addition to outlining what steps were taken to transform the exam into a computer adaptive, multiple-choice exam, we will also discuss the results of an item-reliability analysis. These results confirm our suspicion that the exam was not successful at placing the beginning level SHL students, but was highly successful at placing both intermediate and advanced SHL learners. We will propose new questions to accommodate the beginning level learners, and will also discuss the on-line survey that was used to sort out SHL students from Spanish foreign language students, and thus direct them to the placement exam which best suits their needs. It is our contention that an exam of this nature would be highly useful as a model for other colleges and universities with SHL populations, and could easily be adapted to suit the needs of other academic institutions.
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