What’s New in the 2012 Amplification of the ELD Standards?

In my last post, I pointed out the elements of the 2012 Amplification that are remaining the same.  If you haven’t done so already, check out that post and label the pages I mentioned.  It will make it easier to find what I am mentioning in this post.  Speaking of which, let’s take a look at some of what has changed or been made explicit in the 2012 amplification of the ELD Standards.  

• The Standards are now English Language Development Standards (not Proficiency) 
•  Level 2 is now called Emerging, not Beginning
• The strands of Model Performance Indicators (MPIs) are now listed for individual grade levels not grade level clusters.
• The Features of Academic Language (page 7) connect the performance criteria with the discourse, sentence and word/ phrase levels.  (Our veteran consortium members might recall that these had been called linguistic complexity, language control and vocabulary usage in the earlier documents.) Check out this great video clip on academic language – its posted on the WIDA website here. 
• The 2012 Performance Definitions (pages 8-9) still cover K-12 grades but they have been fleshed out more.  Now you will find a separate page for the receptive language domains (listening and reading) and for the productive language domains (speaking and writing). 
• The sociocultural context for language use is also now clearly stated on the Features of Academic Language and on the Performance Definitions. 

And WIDA didn’t stop there.  There are several new elements in the strands of MPIs. 

• Connection (to content standards)
• Example Context for Language Use
• Cognitive Function
• Topic-Related Language

In fact, based on input from Consortium members they even created additional types of strands:

1. Expanded strands - One strand for each grade level with concrete examples of language features at discourse, sentence and word/phrase levels
2. Complementary strands - Strands for music and performing arts, humanities, visual arts, health and PE, tech, and engineering
3. Integrated strands - Components of ELD standards (grade levels, language domains, and standards) combined in different configurations

In the future I’ll take a closer look at some of these features.  In the meantime, register for a 2012 Standards Debut event. I went to the first one in Madison and learned a great deal. 

Written by: Tammy King
 

Switch Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

2012 Amplification Cover: WIDA Consortium