Spanish Academic Language Standards & Assessment (SALSA)
Participants at WIDA's Spanish Language Development Standards Workshop in Santa Fe, NM, November 2010. Participants came from NM, CO, IL, WI, and Puerto Rico for the event, and included Spanish speakers from at least six different nations.
On behalf of the WIDA Consortium, the Illinois State Board of Education applied for and was awarded an enhanced assessment grant in October 2010:
- to develop and implement academic Spanish language development (SLD) standards for students in PreKindergarten through 12th grade, addressing Social & Instructional Language, the Language of Language Arts, Language of Mathematics, Language of Science, and Language of Social Studies
- to develop a technology mediated, reliable, and valid Spanish language proficiency assessment for Kindergarten and Grades 1-2* based on those standards
- to develop a screener test for obtaining baseline measurements of students' Spanish language proficiency for Grades K-2*
* WIDA is currently seeking additional funding to extend SLD assessment to grades 3-12.
Through use of these standards and assessments, educators will gain knowledge about academic Spanish language development and their students' progress, and will be able to shape instruction and develop curriculum to enable students to achieve high academic standards in Spanish. The standards and assessment will be applicable to any student receiving content area instruction in Spanish regardless of their native language.
Educators consult with WIDA Lead Developer Margo Gottlieb about writing SLD standards for 3rd graders.
The PODER (Prueba Óptima del Desarrollo del Español Realizado) assessment will be developed by the Center for Applied Linguistics on behalf of WIDA. Initial piloting and field testing of PODER will occur in multiple sites, including Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico, and Puerto Rico.
Survey Announcement
WIDA is conducting a research study called “Exploratory study of expressive language domains in academic Spanish” as part of the SALSA grant project. The general purpose of this study is to examine the typical linguistic density and complexity of academic Spanish used by beginning, intermediate, and advanced Spanish language learners in the areas of language arts and mathematics.
As part of this research, we invite all educators who are familiar with students receiving content instruction in Spanish to participate in an online survey to provide feedback on speaking and writing prompts related to the areas of language arts and mathematics. These prompts are written in Spanish and survey participants will have the option of selecting the grade levels with which they have experience.
This voluntary survey is available to all educators in the United States that meet the following criteria:
- Are bilingual (Spanish/English)
- Have Spanish literacy skills
- Have K-12 teaching experience in the U.S.
- Have experience working with Spanish language learners
Based on the survey results, the prompts will be modified as needed and administered to students participating in the study. Data collected in this study will help inform performance criteria for academic Spanish language development.
Although the study targets Spanish language learners in Kindergarten, 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 12th grades in Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, and Wisconsin, the results will impact everyone who uses the Spanish language development standards being developed.
The survey will be available until February 17, 2012. Any questions can be directed to Lorena Mancilla at lmancilla@wisc.edu.
To access the surveys, please click one of the links below:
Contact information
To volunteer as a reviewer of the draft WIDA SLD Standards or to learn more about the SALSA grant project, please contact Lorena Mancilla at lmancilla@wisc.edu.