Nurturing Students With The Help Of Writing Portfolios

The need to prepare our students for a rapidly changing world has become imperative.The success and well-being of individuals and of our nation rest upon the school system to produce responsible,thoughtful adults.Portfolio,as a pedagogic strategy can help students to attain the goal.The present study attempts to explore the effects of writing portfolios on EFL(English Foreign Language) students when it becomes a routine part of instruction from the perspective of teacher.Two intact EFL classes at Zunyi Normal College were involved in the study,with one randomly identified as the experiment group(the portfolio class).The study employed both quantitative and qualitative research methods to answer the following questions:1. Would the students learn better with the help of writing portfolios? 2.What are the effects of writing portfolios on their learning? This second question includes the following specific questions:(â…°) Can students be trained to do more reflection and develop self-assessment ability by doing writing portfolios?(â…±) Can students take more responsibility for their own learning by doing writing portfolios? Quantitative data and qualitative data suggested that writing portfolios did help students learn better,did promote students' reflection,did develop students' self-assessment,and did encourage students to take more responsibility for their learning.This study also suggested that implementing writing portfolios was demanding and time-consuming.