The Implementation Of Portfolio Assessment In English Writing Of High School

Assessment is generally classified into formative assessment and summative assessment. Formative assessment is used in the process of students’development and summative assessment is usually used at the end of the educational process for a final result. Portfolio assessment is a form of formative assessment, and it is based on the theories of constructivism, multiple intelligences, and humanism. Portfolio collects kinds of information of students and makes a comprehensive evaluation of students. Portfolio assessment can stimulate students’ interest and initiative on learning, promote the communication among students, teachers and parents and be helpful for students to reflect on their learning and for teachers to reflect on their teachings. Portfolio assessment has been intensively explored and extensively employed in western countries. Portfolio assessment, though known by most Chinese teachers, is in need of research on its implementation and awaits popularization, especially, in the field of foreign language teaching. High School English Curriculum Standards (experimental)(Ministry of Education,2003) requires that the formation of comprehensive language ability should be based on the integrated development of language skill, language knowledge, emotion and attitude, learning strategy and cultural awareness. Writing is an effective way to show students’ comprehensive language ability. It has different requirements to the students in different stages.This research took students of Class15(the control class) and Class16(the experimental class) of Hejing High School Grade1as the subjects of the experiment. In the process of experiment, portfolio assessment was applied in the experimental class while the traditional assessment was used in the control class. Through the comparison of the data collected before and after the experiment from the questionnaires and tests of the two classes, we get the conclusion that portfolio assessment approach can effectively improve students’motivation, attitude, learning strategies and proficiency in their English writing.