Large monitoring studies have repeatedly highlighted the disparities between the performance of pupils with a migration background and that of their monolingual peers across Europe (Schnepf 2007). Frequent explanations for this gap identify the lack of age appropriate proficiency in the language of instruction as one of the central aspects leading to educational disparities. Since the first PISA results, a large amount of programmes and projects has started with the aim of promoting language support of pupils with a migration background. Thus, measuring language proficiency of both children and second language learners is a complex but also rather educationally relevant task. There are several analytical methods for the assessment of so-called interlanguages (Dyson 2010) with different pedagogical implications. Research on school quality in multi-ethnic constellations has shown that an explicit focus on language skills and language learning correlates with other indicators for higher school quality -  Gogolin (2009), Helmke and Klieme (2008), Helmke, Goebel et al. (2003), Prenzel and Allolio-Näcke (2006). So it is an important role of educational institutions to be able to identify and describe linguistic proficiency levels and to adjust to the needs of additional language learners (Duarte 2011).
Although there is a growing number of language assessment instruments that can be used in multilingual teaching settings (i.e. available in different language versions, for example) and account for some of the phenomena of multilingual speakers (Döll and Dirim 2010), very few allow an assessment of the academic language skills essential to obtain higher school outcomes. The German federal program FörMig – Support for Pupils with a Migration background – developed between 2004 and 2009 three language assessment instruments for the languages German, Turkish and Russian with a focus on different language skills (Gantefort and Roth 2010). However, the growing demand from educational institutions, as well as from research on language development, make it reasonable to integrate computer-based automated analysis of natural language into evaluated assessment systems. The aim is to present the CALSy software which is able to parse oral and written language of second language learners.
 CALSy is being developed and tested within the LiMA – Linguistic Management in Urban Areas – research cluster at the University of Hamburg. The LiMA cluster focuses on the investigation of migration-induced multilingualism as found in urban centers worldwide and in what way it can be translated into advantages for individuals and society and into benefits for the cultural and economic development of urban centers.
The presentation will provide background information on language assessment in multilingual school settings and include practical examples to illustrate the particularities of the CALSy-Tool.

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