Results by title

As workloads and work responsibilities continue to increase, assessment often causes teachers anxiety. Rubrics: What Every Teacher Needs to Know is a handbook that combines theory and pragmatism in clear language to help pre- and in-service teachers and teacher trainers obtain assessment information quickly and efficiently. While many teachers do not realize that creating an assignment is creating an assessment, they should go hand in hand. This book highlights both the value of rubrics and the value of assessment literacy, which is the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to create, administer, and understand the results of assessments to improve student learning.

Rubrics provides new and experienced teachers with the tools to become more transparent assessors of their students’ writing, reading, listening, speaking, grammar, and vocabulary. Deborah Crusan and Robyn Brinks Lockwood bring their expertise in assessment and English for academic purposes to address the challenges teachers face in writing clear assignments and grading them fairly. They emphasize that teachers need to think about what they want their students to be able to do, clarify their expectations to their students, and convey those expectations on a rubric/scoring guide. While transparent, step-by-step instructions are included in the book to help teachers create their own assignments and assessments, the appendix materials containing ready-made assignments and their accompanying rubrics will be sure to delight busy teachers.

Multilingual learners bring a wealth of resources to the classroom in the form of their various languages. How can teachers tap into these resources as part of the learning process? How can we intentionally embrace linguistic diversity in our classrooms through the way we design learning? Despite the proliferation of research and writing about pedagogical translanguaging, many teachers do not feel equipped to effectively implement translanguaging approaches in their teaching.

Translanguaging provides a comprehensive introduction to the what, why, and how of translanguaging. The book synthesizes the research literature for a non-specialist audience, and builds on these insights by providing practical guidance for how students can be empowered to use all their linguistic resources—not just English or the language of instruction—to learn and thrive in school or college. Whether teachers of ESL or other subjects, all teachers will benefit from the practical guidance about translanguaging in this book and will be equipped to begin rethinking and redesigning their teaching to make more space for students’ multilingualism.