ST. GEORGE — Lina Figueiredo could have opted for the easier route, to not fix what wasn’t broken. Not doing so has improved her students skills and garnered statewide attention.

Figueiredo, a language educator at Majestic Fields Elementary School in St. George, created an oral assessment tool that was so effective it earned her the “Best of Utah” award at the Utah Foreign Language Association conference.

The conference is an annual event where teachers present best practices and classroom successes.

Figueiredo, who has 16 years of experience in education, told St. George News that the tool she presented at the conference and uses daily, helps students and parents understand progress and shows areas for improvement, making language learning “more transparent and effective.” She described the tool as a questionnaire or interview form where students respond to real-life scenario questions. The proficiency of their responses helps educators identify areas needing reinforcement.

Students are evaluated one-on-one three times a year for up to 10 minutes, where they answer a series of progressively complex questions within 30 seconds each. A teacher then scores the answers using a rubric that is generally based on complexity and familiarity with language used. Their results are graphed, students then observe the findings and set future goals.

Because of the success of the tool, she has garnered further attention. Figueiredo has been invited to give her presentation at the Southwest Conference on Language Teaching next January in Chandler, Arizona — an all-expenses-paid trip.

“The reason why I created this assessment is because we have big departments within the school district for everything else — reading, math and science — but language is still something that’s growing,” she said.

That gave her a desire to create something that gave parents a clearer understanding of their children’s progress in learning a new language that they likely don’t speak themselves, making tracking that progress difficult.

She said she is proud her students in the classroom and some parents weren’t fully aware of just how exceptional their students were in learning one of three languages, Spanish, Chinese or Portuguese, taught in the Washington County School District.

“Utah is exceptional statewide in terms of language teaching within the U.S.,” she said. “And we in Southern Utah are one of the areas with the best language programs.”

She compared Utah’s extensive language program to those of states like Florida and California. The dual immersion language program at Majestic Fields Elementary School involves students spending half their day with an English-speaking teacher and the other half with a “target language” teacher.

Figueiredo said research shows bilingual students outperform non-bilingual kids. That gap has only widened since implementing her tool.

“Since we started using the OA, our results have gone through the roof,” she said. “We have 96% of students in the class at or above grade level.”

The tool provides parents with visual graphs showing their children’s progress, which she felt was lacking in the existing system. She implemented the tool in her Portuguese classes and saw immediate success.

“It’s very reassuring to those parents because now they know how to help their kids,” Figueiredo said.

Her success with the tool led to interest from other local educators.

“Some schools and districts started reaching out to me, wanting to know more about it,” she said.

Figueiredo’s journey from Brazil to Utah has been marked by what she calls a passion for language education and data-driven teaching.

“I was fascinated by the idea of transforming classroom knowledge into data that can be visualized and improved,” she said.

She came to the United States six years ago. The more she learned, the more she said she wanted to keep digging and find a way to show that, even those without a background in education can understand what the students are capable of.

This approach may seem clinical given that the students she teaches are only elementary students, but her background in teaching prep school gives her knowledge of a wider context.

“In Brazil, I was helping students prepare for medical school and engineering school,” she said. “It was quite a shift to come to Southern Utah and teach second graders.”

The tool has already shown results in national assessments, with students scoring as high as 98 percent on certain tests.

“We have kids in our district that are three, four levels higher than national,” she said. “And that should be celebrated.”

Figueiredo emphasized that students and parents knowing both strengths and weaknesses is crucial for improvement.

“These students are dreaming of becoming CEOs,” she said. “They are developing skills that go beyond language learning. They are setting goals and advocating for their own knowledge.”

She also highlighted how the tool aligns with modern feedback methods. She compared it to smartphone games, which are rich with information that is digestible at a glance.

“We live in the feedback era,” she said. “When you’re playing a game on your phone, you know exactly how many lives you still have. You know if you’re winning or losing.”

The results of the teaching tool provide similar immediate feedback, which she said encourages students.

“It helps with intrinsic motivation, and I am fascinated by that,” she said.

As she prepares to present at conferences next year, she remains focused on her students’ achievements.

“It’s all about the kids who are exceeding expectations,” she said. “They should feel confident and proud of their accomplishments.”

In addition to her teaching at Majestic Elementary, Figueiredo is excited about the broader implications of her work.

I believe I’ve found something here. My administrators know I want to do something with it and parents are feeling more confident because they have a visual. They understand where we’re going.

Her students are not just doing lots of paperwork; they’re setting and achieving their own goals with graphs to show their parents.

“These kids are going to be excellent professionals one day, venturing into many areas of knowledge and business,” she said. “I just get to be a small part of that — I feel honored.”

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