Portfolio-Based Writing Assessment In The EFL/ESL Classroom

As an important component of language programs, formative evaluation aims at improving language teaching and learning through providing teachers and learners with immediate and effective feedback. Studies of the theory and practice of formative evaluation of language programs have been carried out both at home and abroad. But compared with a large number of empirical studies conducted abroad, formative evaluation of language programs is rarely reported in China. In order to promote the College English Education Reform and to implement the advanced education theories, Requirement on College English Curriculum (2004) was released by the Ministry of Education with the emphasis on reforming the teaching methods and teaching activities and on advocating scientific education assessment system. The new Requirement on College English Curriculum (ibid) suggests the application of portfolios, classroom performance records, interview and discussion etc.With the development of language learning theories, education theories and educational measurement, the constructive paradigm of evaluation is being accepted by more and more educational practitioners, and more and more formative evaluation systems and assessment methods have been proposed by different researchers. However, considering the structure, the criteria, the process and the way of reporting of the formative assessment, it is far from satisfaction to meet the requirements demanded by the RCEC. Hence, it is quite urgent for the birth of the new assessment system that both synthesized and applicable to the present situation.This study examined students'perception of their experiences with the writing portfolios in Heilongjiang University. The purpose of this research was to investigate how writing portfolios mandated as a part of high-stakes assessment have influenced university students'writing instruction and classroom experiences, changed their skills and attitudes about writing, affected their learning autonomy and their growth as writers. To this end, the study will address the following research questions and sub-questions:1. What are university EFL learners'attitudes in participating in portfolio-based writing assessment?1)What's the students'perception on portfolio as a learning tool?2)What's the students'perception on portfolio as an assessing tool?3)What are the advantages and disadvantages of portfolio assessment to enhance learning in an EFL classroom?4)Which assessment tool—portfolios or traditional pen-and-paper tests—is more effective in facilitating EFL students'learning?2. How does the combined process required of the students in their portfolios enhance the learners'learning autonomy?1)How can portfolios affect the participants'use of learning strategies to promote autonomous learning?2)How can portfolios affect the participants'learning style to promote autonomous learning?3 ) How can portfolios enhance such internal factors as motivation, anxiety, self-esteem and cooperation of the participants'to promote autonomous learning?3. What do EFL learners perceive portfolio-based writing assessment as helpful in their growth as writers?1)How does the process of creating a portfolio enhance the EFL learner's growth as writer in general progress (broad pattern)?2)How does the process of creating a portfolio enhance the EFL learner's growth as writer in specific progress (including specific pattern of progress such as writing strategies, writing skills, content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, spelling and mechanics)?3)How do the peer-,self-,teacher- assessments improve the students'growth as a writer in writing?This program had been conducted during eleven weeks of one semester, to analyze students'experiences with the writing portfolios, this study utilized three methods of data collection: 1) quantitative data was gleaned from exploratory surveys with 80 university students; 2) qualitative data was gathered through interviews with a purposeful sample of nine first year students and 3) documents that had been written by these interview subjects in their university composition courses were analyzed. Although their perceptions of the writing portfolios were sometimes as diverse as the individual writing experiences and unique personalities of the students, all three sources of data did show that these students valued process writing instruction associated with portfolio development.All the participated students concluded that the preparation of the portfolio was the most beneficial experiences and could connect learning, assessment and instruction together. Hence, they believed that the portfolios could not only represent their learning results but also could express themselves better than the traditional class. First, in the students'attitude to the portfolio as a learning tool, EFL students consistently perceived that the preparation of the portfolio was the most beneficial experience, which could fully record the students'progress and achievements in their writing and enabled the students to express themselves and demonstrate their abilities in English. Most importantly, to some of the students, portfolios also arouse them the full awareness of both the strengths and weakness in their writing. Second, when compared with their different behaviors in portfolios and in class, most of the students agreed that portfolios could express themselves better than the traditional class and they showed much more active involvement in the writing portfolios than they did in class as they accomplished a variety of tasks in portfolios. Third, when it came to the most favorite and unfavorite parts of the portfolio both as the learning and assessing tool, over 30% of the students believed teacher assessment was their most favored part of the program whereas the self-assessment took up the lowest rank. Fourth, as far as the comparison between the portfolios and the traditional tests were concerned, most of the students claimed that in addition to recording their learning process and demonstrating their outcomes in writing achievement, portfolios were considered a better assessing tool than the traditional tests for student learning.The case study reports also proved that students became more aware of the using of learning strategies systematically and effectively. First, to the strengthening of self-reflection, EFL students raised their cognitive, memory and meta-cognitive awareness greatly in learning. Second, to the enhancing usage of composing strategies, the portfolio-developing process also produced an impact on the learners'usage of composing strategies, particularly ranked in the following categories of meta-cognitive, cognitive, affective, memory, compensation and social strategy. Third, with the respect to the learning style, in the interaction both with the teachers and the peers, the students had more channels to communicate with the teachers and sometimes received feedback posted in the portfolio. Thus, in doing portfolios, they not only boosted their creativity but also had much more final say on how to select entries, what to include in the portfolios and how to identify and correct the flaws and virtues in the composition. Therefore, they tended to positively perceive the role of portfolios as learning and assessing tool in transferring their learning styles from teacher-directed to self-directed ones. Finally, at the same time, this study also showed that in developing portfolios, students had been motivated for their English learning and made their self-esteem strengthened in terms of decision-making, self-study. Furthermore, the data also showed that the students studied English harder than before—many did free assignment and were willing to spend more time after class. Hence, this program made the students thought highly of themselves, achieved a high self-esteem and great confidence about themselves and enhanced their learning motivation and cooperation and improved their learning autonomy.According to the participants, besides audience feedback, which including teacher comments and peer feedback, self-analysis/reflection is all important ingredients of effective writing instruction in cultivating their growth as writers. First, teacher comments on their content helped the students understand their writing strengths and weaknesses, gave them much-needed directions on how to improve their writing, helped them tackle subsequent writing assignments with more confidence and enabled them to make their writing more interesting. Second, students appreciated comments and corrections on surface issues, which made them pay attention, to varying degrees, to comments on their grammar, punctuation, form and usage. Third, positive feedback boosted the students'confidence, inspired them to put more effort into their papers and helped them select effective aspects of their writing to reproduce in future papers. Finally, the students'mixed perceptions of negative comments—some students strongly objected to them, some welcomed them and some pointed out the benefits and drawbacks of them.However, the participants also articulated a few challenges and concerns, such as 1) portfolios were being time-consuming, 2) the uncertainty and self-perceived insufficient English proficiency while carrying out self- and peer-assessment, 3) minimal teacher and peer feedback and 4) portfolio grading procedures.Based on the results of the study, the researcher also offered some recommendations for portfolio development and research. First, further research could employ quantitative approaches to explore the relationships between ESL learners'attitudes towards writing portfolios and various aspects of their backgrounds. Second, further study should investigate a larger number of students'experiences with writing portfolios over longer period of time. Third, future research could explore both EFL teachers'beliefs and competence about using portfolios as an assessment tool in their classes and investigate how they use portfolios to facilitate their assessment. Finally, future studies could include the evaluation of listening and speaking skills and content-based classrooms.The limitations of the study lie in the followings: First, the findings revealed contextualized meaning in a specific context, but could not necessarily be generalized to all Chinese EFL learners who would participate in the portfolio assessment project. Furthermore, This study only recorded the stories that students chose to tell in their interviews, reflective letters and learning journals that were something of subjective, what we lacked was to investigate students'actual written texts that might be impacted by the use of writing portfolios.On the basis of both the theoretical foundations and the empirical study, the researcher not only reviewed the relevant literature on the definition, the characteristics, the content, the different attitude to the portfolio but also on the affect of portfolios on the change of learning strategies, learning styles, learner's motivations and the improvement of the students'writing competence as well. Finally, based on the CRADLE suggested by Gottlieb in 1995, by designating six attributes of portfolio development—collecting, reflecting, assessing, documenting, linking, and evaluating, the researcher came up with a system for the execution of the portfolio, which not only included the theoretical framework, the experiment goal but also laid down the experiment contents and standards. Further more, the researcher also designed the formative assessment tools and provided the feedback of the experiment as well.To sum up, the most important contribution of the present study was the proposal and application of the portfolio as a formative assessment, which suited the present situation of the university English writing classroom. In addition to the establishment of the theoretical and applicable model of the portfolio, the development of the meta-evaluation system was also a special value to the implementation of formative evaluation of foreign language programs in China because at present, few domestic and foreign language programs have incorporated the study of portfolio's influence on the English learners in the above three dimension—learners'perception, learners'autonomy and learners'growth with both the quantitative and qualitative tools. Some of the studies focused either on one dimension or on one of the quantitative and qualitative tools. It was also particularly valuable for this study to highlight the affect of portfolios on the learners'change in the using of learning strategies and leaning style with both quantitative and qualitative tools, which becomes the most contributing component of the thesis. Therefore, the study not only raised the awareness of the importance of such kind of evaluation on the part of program designers and teachers but also equipped them with a useful and practical framework.