A Study Of Portfolio-based Writing Assessment In College English

In recent years, a deep reform of College English Education has taken place in China, and it is guided by Constructivism, Humanism and Multiple Intelligence. One important aspect of this reform is the promotion of change in teaching evaluation, pointing out that the evaluation of students'learning should consist of formative assessment and summative assessment. Formative assessment puts its emphasis on learning process. Writing portfolios can offer both the teacher and the students valuable information about learning process, so it can be considered as the best tool for formative assessment.Portfolio in this research acts not only as a tool to collect writing products of the students, but also as a method to stimulate reflection. Contents of student portfolio are self-assessment form, peer-assessment form, teacher comment and students'self-reflection letter in addition to writing products. The importance of formative assessment has been well acknowledged in the educational field, and great achievements have been made in this field theoretically. However, empirical studies that put formative assessment into teaching practice are rare, especially those conducted at college level.This thesis tries to study on whether the combination of self-assessment, peer-assessment and teacher assessment is effective to promote college English writing. Two intact classes from Jincheng College participated in the research, and they were divided into experimental group and control group. Pretest results show that they are nearly at the same English writing level.After experiment of one semester, by analyzing data collected through two tests and questionnaires, together with statements gathered through interview, some fruits are born as follows: First, portfolio-based writing assessment can facilitate writing ability of college students; Second, the specific influence of this assessing model on college students is revealed in three aspects: improve students' ability of self-correction, promote their reflection and enhance consciousness and behaviour of autonomous learning; Third, it benefits low-achievers more than high-achievers.Some limitations exist in this study like small size of subjects and short time of implementation. So, several suggestions are made for future researches, such as the use of e-portfolio to improve efficiency and the adoption of certain software to reduce subjectivity of essay rating.