An accommodation changes how information and concepts are presented or practiced ensuring that each student has the opportunities and support needed to learn. Accommodations do not reduce the learning expectations and should be chosen based on the student’s individual needs and not applied arbitrarily to all MLs. Accommodations are not to be viewed as an advantage to the student; accommodations provide access to the content for the student.

Accommodations:

• Provide access to grade-level curriculum;
• Alter the environment, not the curriculum;
• Do not change the learning outcomes;
• Happen in the content-area classroom; and 
• Should not impact grading, though how learning is assessed may change.

Description

Alternative response options allow students to demonstrate their learning by completing instructional assignments or assessments through ways other than typical verbal or written responses. It employs strategies that ask students to show what they can do.

Examples:

Oral Presentations or Performances

1. Role-plays: students write a play and perform
2. Interviews: Have students pick from a pile of pictures, and ask questions to elicit responses from them. You can assess the student based on vocabulary used or comparing concepts.
3. Orally describe, explain, retell, paraphrase, summarize texts

Non-verbal Assessments

1. Charades: Give a student vocabulary words you’ve taught, and have them act it out to see if they understand what the word or concept is.
2. Pictures: You can ask students to draw or collect pictures to show their knowledge on a topic.
3. Thumbs up/Thumbs down
4. Templates (e.g., format to write a friendly letter, guide to write a five-paragraph essay)

Technology

1. Speech-to-text (or voice-recognition) software for writing assignments

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It is important to note that this accommodation can also be considered a modification, especially if a completely different assignment or assessment needs to be administered while still assessing the content standard(s). Temporary modifications can be appropriate for a SLIFE and newcomer MLs: “Districts may use a curriculum that temporarily emphasizes English language acquisition over other subjects, but any interim academic deficits in other subjects must be remedied within a reasonable length of time” (EL Toolkit, Chapter 4). However, long-term modifications are not allowable for students seeking a South Carolina high school diploma.

	Teacher	Student
	The teacher creates alternative response options for assignments and assessments.	The student will participate in alternative response options for assignments and assessments.

	Teacher	Student
	“Look at the picture in this magazine. What is happening?" “We're going to write a paragraph about the story. You can use your microphone to record what you'd like to write.”	"I can show what I know with this picture." "May I use the text-to-speech device to write my paragraph?"

Recommended Domain(s)	Recommended Level(s)
Speaking, Writing	Entering (1) through Emerging (2)

Scaffolding

When should the accommodation be removed?

The Allow Alternative Assessment accommodation may be removed when the student can complete the assignment with alternative support. For example, if a student can write an essay using sentence starters or paragraph frames then they would not need an alternative response. Most MLs do not require alternative assessments beyond the Entering level (1), but some students occasionally require this accommodation through the Emerging level (2). If you have questions, or feel your ML requires a change in their ILAP regarding this accommodation, please reach out to the Multilingual Learner Program Specialist (MLPS) in your building to discuss the student's needs.