TL Performance Top
Translanguaging(TL) performance top was developed as a tool to assess students' linguistic performance for learning. It helps teachers to understand how well each student can perform for a given learning task both when using each single language that students know (static top) and when using all of their language resources (spinning top).
Teachers design their TL unit plan based on this TL performance top. It is recommended to draw the TL performance top at the beginning of each semester for each student. This top is handed over to the teachers who teach at next higher grade level for their information.
How to draw and interpret translanguaging performance top
1. Draw 5 different-sized circles that show students' performance level using either one language (static top performance) or all of the languages (spinning top performance) of students. Each circle line represents a different level of performance, such as entering, emerging, developing, expanding, and commanding as represented in the order from the smallest circle to the largest. The teacher needs to evaluate the performance level of each student in relation to the extent of achievement of language objectives of the TL unit plan.
2. Draw plain lines to indicate the boundaries between the languages used by students, but do so carefully to show how much each language is used by the student. Each angle of the circle represents the amount of language use for each language.
Assign different colors to represent different languages and keep this color-language relationship throughout the school year.
3. Draw arrow lines using each assigned color to indicate the progression of performance in each language and divide language use into oracy and literacy. The two divided angles by an arrow line within a bigger angle of each language represent the amount of language use for each oracy and literacy.
4. Fill each angle using the assigned color by drawing horizontal lines for oracy and vertical lines for literacy in each language. Fill the angles to the extent of students' performance levels. Now the top shows static top performance for oracy and literacy in each language.
5. Once the teacher spins the students' top, that is, once the students use their whole linguistic resources, the general linguistic performance level becomes higher than their performance level when using home language alone as shown in the last slide.