It’s that time of year at Wildcat Spanish… testing. Yuck! 🙂
Since 2014, Illinois has offered a two-tiered State Seal of Biliteracy program. The lower tier, the State Commendation toward Biliteracy, is awarded to any student who demonstrates Intermediate Low + level of proficiency in all 4 skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening). The higher tier, the State Seal of Biliteracy, is awarded to any student who demonstrates Intermediate High + level of proficiency in all 4 skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening).
In addition, the Global Seal of Biliteracy offers a THREE tiered approach with awards at Intermediate Mid (Functional Fluency), Advanced Low (Working Fluency), and Advanced High (Professional Fluency).
For years, we did a Spanish Club fundraiser in the fall so we could pay the $5 toward our students’ AAPPL reading/listening test and offer them the option of completing the test for $15. Every year, I was so disappointed by the inconsistencies in the scoring of speaking and writing. A student who clearly deserved a Novice High would receive an Intermediate High and a student that clearly deserved an Intermediate High would receive an Intermediate Low. One time, I had an entire CLASS PERIOD rated Intermediate Low on writing whether they wrote a couple of sentences or 5 paragraphs. It was maddening. SO MANY RETAKES.
This year, we sold PopTarts in my classroom for the entire first semester. Once it caught on, we couldn’t keep the flavors in stock… and the money rolled in. This year, I was able to purchase the entire STAMP test for every student in Spanish 3 and 4! The scores aren’t all in, but they’re 75% back and they are dead on what I know the students’ performance is in class. I am so glad we made the switch. As an added bonus, AAPPL only tests to Advanced Low and STAMP to Advanced Mid on writing and speaking, Advanced High on reading and listening so kids can really get some off the charts scores if they’re high flyers.
I love being able to give them these micro-credentials to carry on to the university level or to the workforce. It’s such an encouragement to them to know where they are and where they’re headed next! But keep in mind, not everyone is a strong test taker! The scores may ebb and flow based on who you have in class. My son graduated high school with a 4.0 because he is great in classwork, but got a very mediocre SAT score because he doesn’t test well… your worth, your class’s worth is not in the number of awards you give!
I can’t wait to see the rest of our scores come in (plus there are a few who are really motivated by their overall scores and would like to retake one section just to try to level up their credential level). STAMP didn’t let us down… and it even lets our dual credit students who earn the State Seal of Biliteracy go from 8 semester hours of credit to 12 for their proficiency!! Let us know if you have any questions about our testing program!
Thank you for sharing this! I too used the AAPPL test last year and am looking forward to using the STAMP test this year for my students as well. We are also the Wildcats and are a small rural school! We will begin our testing process in the next week or two. I look forward to my students being able to see where their proficiency lies after hearing me talk about proficiency for three or four years!
We are taking the STAMP for the first time this year! I am very excited! Did you do anything special before testing that you think really helped prep your students for the format of the test?
I didn’t do STAMP specific prep work, but we do a lot of reading/listening/writing/speaking and as we do them, we refer back to the proficiency levels so they know HOW to achieve the target score they’re after. I did share the resources STAMP provides them (pointers on how to score well at each level, practice test format). It was a really smooth transition from AAPPL and I’m so glad we did it.
I have also experienced inconsistency in the AAPPL scores for speaking and writing. How does the format of the STAMP test differ from the AAPPL? And how does the time to administer it compare?
Great question! Proctoring was basically the same, but took a little less time…
They take the listening and reading first because those sections’ scores determine the level of prompts they receive on the writing and speaking. The GREAT thing about that is that on AAPPL, they had like 8-9 speaking prompts and at least 6 writing prompts… so by the time they got to the higher proficiency prompts, they were getting tired of writing… On STAMP they get 3 and 3. The speaking skips the novice prompts if they have had intermediate performance on the listening and skips higher intermediate if they were novice on the listening! It really was so much better! And as I look at the scores, I do not see ANY that are wildly over or under rated.
I just stumbled upon this post after the fact! I will look into the STAMP next year for sure! Thank you very much.
We truly liked the format better! I hope you do as well!