Fall 2026 GSE Faculty Exchange Program
Join us for the Fall 2026 GSE Faculty Exchange Program!
“We don’t have an actual proficiency assessment.”: Teachers’ perceptions of the lack of partner language assessments in dual language education with Dr. Michele Goldin, Associate Professor, Bilingual Education and TESOL
The U.S. has seen a significant rise in two-way immersion dual language (DL) programs across the country that teach the curriculum in English and a partner language. However, DL programs have come under scrutiny for privileging the interests of affluent native English speakers over those of minoritized groups. The priority given to assessing English language development and the lack of corresponding assessments of partner language proficiency are a case in point. Using
thematic analysis, my study makes a preliminary investigation into the current landscape of Spanish partner language assessments used in DL programs nationwide. We discuss implications of these findings for the effectiveness of partner language instruction across the content areas in DL programs, and we argue that addressing this gap can help schools better uphold the foundational values of social justice, access, and opportunity that DL programs are meant to promote. This research was funded by the Touro Presidential Research Development Grant.
About the presenter
Dr. Michele Goldin is Associate Professor of Bilingual Education and TESOL in the Graduate School of Education at Touro University where her research broadly focuses on bilingual language development in children. She is specifically interested in exploring the factors that contribute to language acquisition in multilingual learners in Latin@ communities, and how our schools can foster bilingualism and support heritage language maintenance. As a heritage speaker of Spanish herself, she believes that increasing our understanding of bilingual development has direct implications for successful academic outcomes, language policy and pedagogy, as well as bilingual, multicultural, and dual language education. Goldin is the recipient of various research grants including the GAANN Fellowship from the US Department of Education, the P.E.O. Scholar Award, the ACLS Emerging Voices Research Award and most recently the Touro University Presidential Research Development Grant. Before earning her PhD in Bilingualism and Second Language Acquisition at Rutgers University, she earned her BA from George Mason University and her MA from New York University.
This program is prepared and sponsored by the Lander Center for Educational Research
