ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a recent attempt to solve the widely documented problem with generic standards in the form of empirically driven descriptions of achievement tailor-made for use in a particular context, that of the teaching and assessment of Asian languages in Australian schools. The Australian educational arena, serious attempts have been made to resist this tendency toward homogenization, with a strong argument made for ESL-specific standards as means of describing the developmental stages of second language learners, rather than measuring them against English literacy standards formulated for majority learners. Australia has been regarded as pioneering in its inclusion of an unusually broad range of languages within the mainstream education system, including those spoken by indigenous learners and by recent and long-term immigrants. The descriptions have been generated collaboratively with expert teachers with a view to rendering them meaningful for use in diagnosing needs, planning instruction, recognizing achievements, and reporting on learner progress.
