An Action Research On Applying EPortfolio To Process Approach

Nowadays, the English writing teaching in large quantities of high schools is trapped in a predicament—the teachers often spend a large amount of time correcting students' spelling and obvious collocation mistakes and pay little attention to the content, the soul of writing, while most students are still passive receivers with considerably low writing motivation and dissatisfying writing proficiency. How to divert the teaching of writing in the high school from the plight so as to meet the writing objectives set in the Ordinary Senior High School English Curriculum Standards is one of the urgencies waiting to be dealt with during the new curriculum reform. A review of the literature on writing teaching brought the newly developed ePortfolio and the well-received Process Approach into the view of the author. Theoretically, the fresh augmented functions of the ePortfolio, such as automatic revision, hypertext links, easy storage, etc., may offer unmatched qualities for the Process Approach to focus on the writing process, to emphasize the exploration of the writing content, and to stress the dramatic role of revisions in writing. So the author proposes an innovative assumption of integrating the ePortfolio with the Process Approach to create writing ePortfolios in the high school writing teaching. To test the validity of the new approach, a one-year action research is carried out in an ordinary high school, adopting the methodology of literature survey, questionnaire survey, interview, observation, testing and so on. The results of the experiment, which have been verified through quantitative tests and qualitative assessment, show there are significant differences in the writing attitude and writing competence of the subjects in both the experimental class and the control class. Besides, the students' comprehensive language proficiency and ability of searching and managing information are enhanced, while the teacher's workload can be reduced. Furthermore, the method provides valuable implications for both writing teaching and writing assessment. Therefore, applying the ePortfolio to the Process Approach is effective, and it boasts a prosperous future.