What English Language Learners Have to Say about NCLB Testing

Abstract

This study is a phenomenological study that examines the No Child Left Behind testing experience of middle school English language learners (ELLs) through their journal writing. Thirteen students in a seventh/ eighth-grade self-contained Chinese bilingual classroom wrote journal entries in response to a prompt asking their opinion of standardized testing; students responded in either Chinese or English. The author found that students had many incisive critiques of testing and test preparation, articulated reasons for not performing well, expressed their psychological or emotional reactions, and offered recommendations for improving the experience. Some students used their knowledge of the Chinese educational system to compare and contrast their testing experiences. The students’ overall negative experience was due to overtesting, the ineffectiveness of remedial computer programs, “luck” as an unpredictable factor in multiple-choice tests, or their status as second language learners. Reactions of anxiety and fear of doing poorly also mattered. The author relates the concept of “student voice” to counter-narratives, identity construction, and resistance to dominant discourses about immigrant ELL students. She discusses how these “student voices” disrupt essentialized views of ELLs and recent immigrant students and urges educators to make the voices of immigrant and ELL students more prominent in classrooms.