Study Guide
Field 125: Bilingual Education
Sample Multiple-Choice Questions
Expand All Answers | Collapse All Answers
Subarea 1—Language, Linguistics, and Comparisons
Objective 001—Understand major concepts and principles related to the nature of language and language systems.
1. Which of the following scenarios best supports the theory of a Common Underlying Proficiency (C U P) that connects development of skills in English and the target non-English language of instruction within a bilingual education setting?
- A student with basic literacy in English is able to orally translate written classroom behavior guidelines for a new classmate from English into a shared primary language.
- A student whose primary language shares similar phonological features with English quickly exhibits nativelike pronunciation when interacting with school faculty and staff.
- A student with a high level of literacy in the primary language is able to draw inferences from an English text after receiving instruction in the literal meanings of relevant English vocabulary.
- A student whose primary language shares similar semantic features with English quickly acquires phrases for communicating with English-speaking classmates while playing games at recess.
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C.
Objective 002—Understand fundamentals of linguistics and comparative linguistics and how to apply this understanding to promote language and literacy development in English and the target non-English language of instruction.
2. A bilingual education student writes the following sentence.
My brother is more young than me, but he is more tall.
The student would primarily benefit from instruction in the use of which of the following parts of speech?
- coordinating conjunctions
- comparative adjectives
- possessive pronouns
- conjunctive adverbs
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: B.
Objective 003—Understand fundamentals of sociolinguistics and how to apply this understanding to promote language and literacy development in English and the target non-English language of instruction.
3. A third-grade bilingual education student who is at the developing level of English writing proficiency writes the following paragraph in response to the given prompt.
| Narrative Writing Excerpt—third Grade |
|---|
| Writing Prompt: Write about an experience you had this summer. Focus on one event and describe what happened. |
| Last sumer my mom and my bro's went to Grand Haven. It take us about 2 hours to go there cuz there was lots of traffic. I eated pizza a lot while I was there which is my favorite food. Yum!! One day my mom eated some fried thing. Some seaguls grab it and she freak out! L O L! The beach was awesome!!! The water was way cold but the waves was cool. |
Which of the following instructional approaches would most effectively support the student's ability to write for academic purposes?
- creating a checklist for the student to reference while editing
- modeling how to incorporate dialogue in the body of the narrative
- providing the student with explicit instruction in the writing process
- explaining the differences between formal and informal discourse styles
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D.
Subarea 2—Culture
Objective 004—Understand major concepts, principles, theories, and research related to the nature of culture.
4. Tenth-grade bilingual education students work in small groups to discuss and record on the following anchor chart similarities and differences in culturally oriented behaviors.
| Culturally Oriented Behaviors | ||
|---|---|---|
| Nonverbal Communication | Similarities | Differences |
| Eye contact | blank | blank |
| Physical greetings | blank | blank |
| Body language | blank | blank |
| Gestures | blank | blank |
| Physical space | blank | blank |
| Facial expressions | blank | blank |
This activity most effectively promotes students' ability to:
- recognize that behavioral norms vary across cultures.
- identify exceptions to behavioral norms among peers.
- categorize codes of behavior across various cultures.
- determine correct behavior to use between students.
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A.
Objective 005—Understand the role of culture in language development and academic achievement.
5. At the beginning of a school year, a middle school bilingual education teacher carefully observes various patterns of social behavior among students in a culturally diverse classroom. These observations are primarily useful in helping the teacher determine appropriate strategies for:
- monitoring students' academic progress.
- developing language and content objectives.
- facilitating positive student interactions in the class.
- choosing instructional materials to meet students' individual needs.
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C.
Subarea 4—Integration of Standards into Curriculum and Instruction
Objective 010—Understand the W I D A English Language Development (E L D) Standards and the Michigan K–12 Standards for English Language Arts (E L A) related to listening and strategies for teaching bilingual education students how to acquire and use listening skills for academic and social purposes in English and the target non-English language of instruction.
6. A seventh-grade bilingual education teacher plans a lesson designed to promote the academic listening skills of students who are at the expanding level of English language proficiency in listening. As part of the lesson, the teacher will have students listen to an audio recording of a grade-level informational text. During the first listening, the teacher should instruct students to identify which of the following elements of the text?
- central ideas
- supporting details
- author's perspective
- organizational structure
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A.
Objective 013—Understand the W I D A E L D Standards and the Michigan K–12 Standards for E L A related to writing and strategies for teaching bilingual education students how to acquire and use writing skills for academic and social purposes in English and the target non-English language of instruction.
7. Sixth-grade English learners at the expanding level work on a learning goal of writing clear and coherent persuasive essays. As an initial step toward this learning goal, which of the following instructional strategies would be most appropriate for the bilingual education teacher to implement?
- teaching a mini-lesson on the meaning and use of appropriate transition words and phrases for persuasive writing
- asking the students to practice writing sentences using appropriate transition words and phrases for persuasive writing
- providing the students with sentence starters that contain appropriate transition words and phrases for persuasive writing
- having the students work with a peer to insert appropriate transition words and phrases for persuasive writing in their essays
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A.
Subarea 5—Assessment
Objective 015—Understand major concepts and principles related to standards-based assessment of bilingual education students.
8. A bilingual education teacher plans to conduct an assessment focused on a student’s ability to speak in a conversational setting. Which of the following assessments would be most effective for the teacher’s purpose?
- having students talk in an authentic context using a conversational rubric
- asking students to answer multiple-choice questions about conversation skills
- having students give a presentation on daily activities that include a conversational role-play
- asking students to write as many conversational words and phrases as they can in 5 minutes
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A.
Objective 0016—Understand various assessment issues and factors related to the assessment of bilingual education students.
9. A bilingual education teacher meets with the parents/guardians of a five-year-old English learner, who recently enrolled in kindergarten, to discuss the student's progress. This is the student's first enrollment in school, and the bilingual education teacher has some concerns about the student's language development in the primary language. Following is the bilingual education teacher's record of the student's information.
| Kindergarten Student Data | |
|---|---|
| W I D A-ACCESS Placement Test Screener Proficiency Data: | |
| Listening Proficiency Score: 1 | Speaking Proficiency Score: 1 |
|
Parent/Guardian Interview:
Parents/guardians are concerned that the child is developing language at a slower rate than their two other children. The child "produces 3-word phrases and simple sentences, but not descriptive or complex language." Reportedly the child was born prematurely, had chronic ear infections as a toddler, and has speech that is difficult to understand, even by household members. |
|
Given the parents'/guardians' report, which of the following steps should the bilingual education teacher take?
- reinterviewing the student's parents/guardians in three months to reassess their concern
- monitoring the student's progress in the classroom using anecdotal assessment measures
- reassuring the student's parents/guardians that the student will most likely catch up with grade-level peers
- scheduling an intervention team meeting to develop a plan to support the student's development and learning
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D.
Objective 017—Understand how to select, develop, adapt, and use various classroom assessment tools and techniques, analyze assessment results, and adjust instruction for bilingual education students based on assessment results.
10. A bilingual education teacher assesses a sixth-grade student's reading behaviors in the primary language using a skills inventory. Following is an excerpt from the student's skills inventory.
| Fountas and Pinnell Reading Assessment — Level W/X, Sixth Grade | |
|---|---|
| Behaviors to Notice, Teach, and Support | Observed |
| Inferring | |
| Infers cause and effect by reading about characters and events |  |
| Infers the main ideas or themes of a text | |
| Infers from reading about character traits, motivations, and changes in what they do or say | blank |
| Infers the meaning of symbols the writer uses to enhance meaning | |
| Infers the causes of problems or outcomes in text | blank |
Which of the following instructional strategies would most effectively promote the student's development of higher-level reading comprehension skills?
- requesting that the student generate questions about the text while listening to an audiobook
- asking the student to orally summarize the main idea of the text for a peer who has read the same passage
- assigning the student to a small discussion group to engage in a teacher-guided conversation about the text
- giving the student a chapter test with open-ended response questions after the student reads the text independently
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C.
Subarea 6—Professionalism
Objective 018—Understand the legal and historical foundations of bilingual education.
11. A school has a large population of students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Students mostly attend mainstream classes in which content and language instruction are integrated. Which of the following program models has the school primarily adopted to address the diversity of its student population?
- sheltered immersion
- two-way language immersion
- transitional bilingual education
- maintenance bilingual education
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A.
Objective 019—Understand the bilingual education teacher's role as a professional within a discipline.
12. A principal in a K–3 elementary school asks a bilingual education teacher to lead a professional development workshop on strategies to promote students' linguistic development during content instruction. Which of the following topics would be most appropriate for the bilingual education teacher to address in the workshop?
- creating relevant language learning objectives
- implementing error correction strategies
- modifying group learning activities
- integrating grammar instruction
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A.
Multiple-Subarea Passages
Use the information provided to answer the two questions that follow.
A third-grade bilingual education teacher engages students in a whole-group discussion to assess their pre-existing knowledge of folktales. During the discussion, the students complete the following concept map and comparison chart.
| Folktales | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Elements: Fables Legend Fairy tales Found in all cultures Fiction Themes Author unknown No time or place Myths Oral stories Right vs. wrong Happily ever after |
||
| Type of Folktale | Description | Examples We Have Read |
| Myths |
|
|
| Legends |
|
|
| Fables |
|
|
| Fairy Tales |
|
|
Objective 006—Understand how to create a culturally inclusive learning environment that supports individual students' language development and academic achievement.
13. After the group discussion, which of the following activities would most effectively promote students' ability to make sociocultural connections to familiar folktales?
- working in small groups to generate a list of folktales they have read and then identifying cultural features of each folktale
- identifying similarities and differences in well-known folktales and organizing these characteristics using a Venn diagram
- explaining to a partner how a folktale relates to their lives and then sharing their reflections in a small-group discussion
- writing their own fictional narratives to share with the whole group based on folktales they have read or researched
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C.
Objective 020—Understand how to serve as a resource and advocate for bilingual education students and how to build effective partnerships with bilingual education students' families and communities to support students' language development and academic achievement.
14. Which of the following teacher strategies would most meaningfully engage students' household members in the content of the lesson?
- inviting household members into the classroom to share folktales with students during a classroom activity
- creating a flyer to send home with students encouraging household members to share folktales with their child
- making student portfolios with folktale-related work samples for household members to review and discuss with their child
- compiling a list of folktales available at the public library for household members to browse while getting acquainted with library resources
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A.
Use the information provided to answer the two questions that follow.
A bilingual education teacher explicitly teaches narrative structure to second-grade students who are at the emerging and developing levels of literacy. As part of the lesson, students listen to a literary text read aloud and identify the story grammar elements as a whole group. The following story grammar map was completed by the students during the lesson.
| Story Grammar | |
|---|---|
| Story: Lotus and Feather Author: Ji-li Jiang |
|
| Setting: The story takes place in a village by a lake. | Character Plan: Lotus takes Feather to her Grandfather who has helped many animals. |
| Characters: The characters are Lotus, Grandfather, Feather, school childen, and the hunter. | Attempt: Lotus holds Feather and rubs his head while he is getting better. |
| Initiating Event: Lotus finds Feather, who has been hurt by a hunter. | Consequence: Feather gets better and becomes Lotus's best friend. |
| Character Internal Reaction: Lotus is scared and worried. | Resolution: Lotus is happy that Feather is healthy again but sad that he must leave. |
Objective 007—Understand second language acquisition theories and research and how to apply this understanding to facilitate bilingual education students' language and literacy development.
15. This activity most effectively supports students' reading comprehension by:
- using oral language skills to develop the students' awareness of text structure.
- developing content-specific vocabulary through discussions about the text.
- encouraging the students to make predictions while listening to the text.
- increasing the students' ability to think critically about text features.
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A.
Objective 008—Understand individual learner variables in the second language acquisition process and how to apply this understanding to facilitate bilingual education students' language and literacy development.
16. Which of the following student factors would be most important for the teacher to consider when developing this activity?
- reading accuracy and rate
- production of causal conjunctions
- familiarity with culture specific narratives
- motivation to participate in literacy activities
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C.
Use the information provided to answer the two questions that follow.
A bilingual education teacher engages seventh-grade students who are at the developing level of oral language in a lesson on word knowledge. Following is an excerpt from a word matrix that a student developed as part of the lesson.
| How Many Words Can You Find? | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| un | employ |
s ed ing er |
|
| under | ment | able | |
| Student Work Sample: | |||
|
|||
Objective 009—Understand research-based best practices related to planning and implementing bilingual education instruction, including how to select, adapt, and use instructional resources.
17. Which of the following extension activities would most effectively promote students' awareness of how morphology influences syntax?
- contrasting the grammatical function of a base word with variable affixes across sentences
- writing sentences using words that are in accordance with a specific syntactic function
- identifying verbs, nouns, and adjectives in phrases following a grammar mini-lesson
- constructing words using several common root words and prefixes and suffixes
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A.
Objective 012—Understand the W I D A E L D Standards and the Michigan K–12 Standards for E L A related to reading and strategies for teaching bilingual education students how to acquire and use reading skills for academic and social purposes in English and the target non-English language of instruction.
18. The teacher's approach most effectively promotes students' development of which of the following language concepts?
- correspondence between root word and spelling pattern
- oral pronunciation based on orthographic recognition
- relationship between word structures and meaning
- word meaning as related to etymological markers
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C.
Use the information provided to answer the two questions that follow.
Ninth-grade students who are at the developing and expanding levels of oral language have read an article about the impact of human activity on the environment. The bilingual education teacher engages the students in a whole-group discussion about the article. Following is a transcript of the dialogue between the teacher and the students.
Teacher: Based on what you have read and experienced, what are some of the ways that humans impact the environment?
Student #1: People cause pollution.
Teacher: Humans cause a lot of pollution, right? Let's think of some other examples.
Student #2: Lots of ways … like … pollution, too many people, and using fossil fuels.
Student #3: Oh! And cutting trees down in the rainforest and everywhere to make room for the cows and houses.
Teacher: Right! Pollution, overpopulation, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation are all ways that humans impact the environment. How have these changes impacted ecosystems?
Student #4: Ecosystems are changing … because of the weather.
Student #5: And oceans are changing because of pollution and C O 2.
Teacher: Those are all good points. Human activity negatively affects ecosystems, including marine ecosystems. Let's talk in small groups to consider the effects of carbon dioxide on the environment.
Objective 011—Understand the W I D A E L D Standards and the Michigan K–12 Standards for E L A related to speaking and strategies for teaching bilingual education students how to acquire and use speaking skills for academic and social purposes in English and the target non-English language of instruction.
19. Given the evidence presented in the dialogue, which of the following strategies is the teacher primarily applying to promote students' participation in the classroom discussion?
- using an indirect prompting approach to support student inquiry
- following a question-answer format to increase students' turn-taking
- encouraging students to elaborate on the responses of other students
- validating students' responses while providing academic language scaffolds
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D.
Objective 014—Understand the W I D A E L D Standards and the Michigan Academic Standards and strategies for promoting bilingual education students' successful access to grade-level academic language and content.
20. As part of this lesson, the implementation of whole- and small-group academic discussion is most appropriate for which of the following purposes?
- providing students with collaborative opportunities to construct content knowledge
- encouraging students to model language for classmates in structured exchanges
- establishing an expectation that students participate equally in conversations
- allowing time for students to engage in social discourse with classmates
- Answer. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A.