For Margarita Villareal, the pictures that hang on her office walls conjure
up the past and serve as a bridge to the future.
They show her with students of an elementary class that she taught for
many years after she moved from Sacramento, California, to Fresno, California,
in the early 1970s.
But this was not a traditional class. It was part of an ongoing program
for students with limited English language skills. It allows them to use their
native language alongside English in classrooms.
The idea behind allowing another language of instruction is to help students
with their studies while helping them ease into an English-speaking environment.
This program has been a prominent object in the social landscape of multiracial
California, where it is easy to survive without knowing a single word of English.
The class prepared Villareal for her current career as a language assessor.
It began when her principal noticed her skills in recognizing the language
needs of her students. So he encouraged her to formalize her training in language
assessment and in its administration.
"I finally made the decision to do that because it is difficult leaving
a class of students," says Villareal. Last year, she became the program manager
of the language assessment center run by her school district. "Now, I have
some of my former students bringing their children to our center for assessment."
And when they come, Villareal likes to point up to the pictures on the
walls and tell them funny stories about their mothers and fathers when they
were young.
Those pictures are not just sources of nostalgia, though. They help Villareal
break the ice. Language assessors often use common objects to help them find
out more about their clients and their language needs during the interview
part of an assessment.
Villareal and her staff also use play when they work with children who
are shy. "Sometimes, you will see a child using a puppet to respond because
they are so quiet themselves," she says.
A language assessment also includes a more formal written part. It is often
done over a computer. But technology can only go so far, says Wes Schroeder.
He is the manager of an ESL (English as a second language) service.
Yes, computers have made the assessment process easier. "But you still
need the assessor to witness and to interact [with the client] to form and
evaluate the questions," he says. And not everybody can use a computer right
away, he adds.
More importantly, a computer cannot fully appreciate and understand the
struggles that are part of living in a new country and trying to learn its
language. Only another human being can. The best language assessors can easily
empathize and sympathize with their clients. Language assessors must also
respect their clients and everything about them.
Schroeder says the worst thing an assessor can do is to belittle the intelligence
or background of clients. "Just because somebody cannot properly read or write
English does not mean that they are not intelligent," he says.
Adriana Parau is the coordinator of a language assessment center. She remembers
a man from the former Yugoslavia who came to her center for an assessment
a few years ago.
Trained as an engineer, he spoke little English. On the assessment test,
he ranked a level two. That's a very low ranking when you consider there are
eight different levels of English proficiency.
"So he was referred to a school, and two [or] three months later, he had
moved to a level six," Parau says. "At that point, we could refer him to a
pre-employment program, and he found employment. It is our conviction that
we shortened his search for all these things by probably at least half a year."
Like so many language assessors who work in North America, Parau is a new
arrival. A former English literature teacher and media translator, Parau left
Romania in 1993 to continue her teaching career.
Her strong English made the transition into her new life easier. But she
too had to overcome obstacles. And they gave her a sense of what others who
do not have the same language skills experience when they come to a new country.
"It is...really frightening because you don't know anything. You just don't
know where to start from, and just finding that little direction that can
take you to the right place is amazing." It was this realization that inspired
Parau's current career choice.
"When I got here, I was aware that teaching was somewhere down the road,"
she says. "Language assessment seemed like the next best thing, and now it
is the first best thing."
Villareal, meanwhile, has worked with new language learners for 26 years
now. And she is far from finished.
In one year alone, she and her staff assessed and referred some 5,000 students
to English language programs. There will not be a shortage of work. Some 100
different languages are spoken in her area.
The pay is meager. "But I think you go into education for the love of what
you are going to do, not for the money," says Villareal.