Building The Writing Portfolio: An Effective Way To Improve The Students' English Writing

English writing is still one of the weakest points during the students' English learning.s for today's English examinations, the proportion of English writing is becoming more and more. Writing is regarded as one of the basic skills as well as an aspect of communicative competence. It is a part of the language output. In the writing process, students have the their opportunity to use language points and consolidate their knowledge of the structure of grammar, idioms and vocabulary which have been taught by their teachers. Although writing has aroused the teachers' attention, there are so many researches and books on how to improve the students' writing ability, such as the Wang Changming's " Length method of writing ", Ouyang Huhua's "Writing to learn", Liu Miao's " Composition Psychology ", as well as "Product Approach " and "Process Approach" in English writing instruction, but these books and researches are facing college students and serving the students for their English compositions in the examinations.By means of questionnaires, this study has found there exist some problems and disadvantages in the writing instruction from some students and teachers. Many teachers spend lots of time and energy in responding to their students' writing but it still seems that their hard work didn't bring much effect. The students are lack of writing interests and techniques. In order to change this situation, the author spent about a year together with the students establishing the English writing portfolios.Since portfolios have been used in the world of education. It is developed as a teaching means to collect information of the students' compositions and it emphasizes the students' independent study and self-appraisal more so that students and teachers can organize and analyze the students' learning life inside and outside school. The portfolio assessment is one of the multi-assessments. It helps achieve the students' overall development in English learning and has had a positive impact on the students' interests and writing habits. This paper first reviews the limitations of the traditional assessment and gives a brief introduction to portfolio and the essential elements, theoretical base and types of portfolio assessment, the differences between portfolio assessment and traditional assessment and its benefits and then introduces the definition of writing,the importance and requirements of writing and the current problems of teaching and learning writing. After that it illustrates the strategies in establishing writing portfolio as well as the procedures of implementation. Of course, it also points out that the portfolio assessment has its inherent limitations. However, the development of writing portfolio has a prosperous future. From the collection of the students' comments is not difficult to see that building students' writing portfolio are greatly encouraged to participate in writing activities and interests and thus it facilitates the development of the students' abilities to write in English.