L2/Ln Sign Language Tests and Assessment Procedures and Evaluation

Abstract

The purpose of this review is to investigate sign language assessments in use as a tool for evaluating the linguistic abilities for job related requirements for bilingual professionals. Each corresponding sign language assessment will be discussed in terms of its original purpose, content, how it is used today, followed by a discussion of its psychometric properties via strengths and weaknesses. In some cases, when available, a discussion of the background in regards to test development will be given. Psychometrically sound assessments will allow a more consistent evaluation of the professionals who support the Deaf community. In terms of research, having normed measures will lead to an increase in research to improve pedagogical practices and the delivery of educational services.

American sign language level 1 assessment: What is out there?

“…Research on this topic is necessary because of the limited understanding of the experiences of Deaf instructors with subjugated identities in the field of ASL education. consistent with those challenges reported by several studies (Landa & Clark, 2019;Paludneviciene et al, 2012;Pirone et al, 2023;Quinto-Pozos, 2011;Rosen, 2010). Previous studies on ASL assessments have done little to investigate L2/Ln students in secondary and postsecondary or discuss classroom-based and formative assessments in ASL courses.…”

“…However, because ASL is a visual‐gestural language, traditional spoken language assessments cannot monitor students' skill development in ASL. Landa and Clark (2019) reviewed sign language assessments that evaluate the linguistic abilities of these future bilingual professionals who will work with Deaf clients, finding few effective assessments. Moreover, most of today's ASL assessments evaluate Deaf children and their primary language acquisition (L1; see Sign Language Assessment, n.d.).…”

Avaliação da Consciência Querológica de Crianças Surdas Portuguesas: o Iacq-Lgp

“…Por meio da aplicação do instrumento, os educadores poderão compreender (se e) quais as características linguísticas querológicas que estão desajustadas e intervir de uma forma mais concreta e eficaz. Esse objetivo fundamenta-se na necessidade da aplicação de instrumentos válidos e elaborados para o efeito (Landa & Clark, 2019).…”

“…Para além da nova concetualização sobre as pessoas surdas (Pratas et al, no prelo), a educação das crianças, em Portugal, bem como em outros países, tem conhecido um interesse crescente e com alterações significativas, com a introdução da LGP em contexto escolar e em uma aprendizagem bilíngue (Carmo et al, 2007), em detrimento do processo educativo exclusivamente baseado na linguagem oral. A avaliação desses processos deve ser feita com instrumentos válidos e fiáveis (Landa & Clark, 2019), fundamentando a pertinência deste estudo, dada a escassez de instrumentos validados e a tendência para a análise qualitativa apenas centrada no número de acertos (Costa, 2012;Cruz & Lamprecht, 2008;Rodrigues, 2017).…”

The sentence repetition task as a measure of sign language proficiency

“…Psychometrically sound sign language proficiency assessments have been developed for different signed languages for first language learners (see Enns et al, 2016;Paludnevičience et al, 2012 for a review) and second language learners (see Landa & Clark, 2019;Schönström et al, in press for a review). developed ASL-SRT, for American Sign Language (ASL), based on an English oral repetition test (Hammill et al, 1994) that required participants to listen to English sentences of increasing length and morphosyntactic complexity and immediately repeat them correctly with 100% accuracy.…”