After admission to school an early assessment of a pupil's English language competence will be helpful to decide what support the pupil needs to learn English and begin to access the National Curriculum.  Wherever possible assessments should be carried out by a staff member who is bilingual in the pupil’s language as this will enhance the quality of the information and programme planning. Where an assessor speaks the learner’s first language, responses from the learner in L1 will provide a picture of the child’s level of fluency and  literacy in their home language. A simple assessment pack can be downloaded here as an Adobe document. This assessment can also be used by a monolingual English assessor. 

Some schools use the QCA ‘steps’ to record the English language competence of early stage learners of English. These include two pre-Level 1 National Curriculum English stages (Step 1 and Step 2) and two Level 1 stages (Threshold and Secure). Although the steps may be useful in describing very early stage learners of English, many EAL teachers find them inadequate, particularly as they do not cover the EAL related needs of any pupil working beyond Level 1 of the English National Curriculum. The QCA 'Pathways to learning for new arrivals' website provides further information and guidance on assessment. 

Curriculum related assessments will also be required in order to inform planning and programme. For these to be effective they will obviously need to be carried out bilingually. Some subject assessment materials are available from language services or schools may prefer to use adapted curricular test materials.

Curriculum, EAL or first language assessments carried out soon after arrival may be inaccurate as the pupils true performance may be masked by anxiety and difficulties associated with the new situation.  If assessments are carried out soon after arrival, it is very important that the pupil is reassessed after a designated period.  In any case, it is important that teachers continue to monitor the curriculum, EAL and first language progress of learners regularly. 

The EAL assessment activities and materials

cover 5 key areas: speaking, listening, reading, writing and mathematical language. The materials are designed to be used by monolingual English speaking teachers. Teachers should be sensitive and shorten the assessment if a learner is at the very earliest stages of learning English but it is useful to undertake some of the assessment activities for each area, as learners may have quite different competencies in different skill areas. 

The assessment activities and materials can be adapted or substituted with material more appropriate to the individual learner and the circumstances. 

Assessments should be carried out in a situation which is familiar to the learner.  Teachers should use their professional judgement regarding the assessment procedure and should ensure that the assessment does not cause distress or discomfort to the learner. An English language assessment carried out very soon after arrival in the school is unlikely to give an accurate picture of the learner’s level of English and a reassessment after a short period of acculturation is recommended.

Wherever possible an EAL assessment should be carried out by a staff member who is bilingual in the pupil’s language as this will enhance the quality of the information and programme planning. Where an assessor speaks the learner’s first language, responses from the learner in L1 will provide a picture of the child’s level of fluency and  literacy in their home language and L1 responses can be included in the recording form for the assessment.