A Study Of SUL Portfolio Assessment And Its Influences On Students’ Confidence In English Learning

The New National English Curriculum was issued in2011, leading the reform of elementary English education curriculums entered a new field. The main task of The New National English Curriculum for Nine-year Compulsory Education is to stimulate and cultivate students’interest and their confidence in learning the language; attach particular importance to the combination of formative assessment and summative assessment; give special attention to the development of competence. Technological advances offer new ways and approaches to teaching and learning and have affected traditional methods of student assessment. As a valuable form of formative assessment, portfolio assessment has been widely used in English teaching these years. It is a way to document a student’s progress over time and has been the subject of considerable research. Many schools have developed several techniques useful to others who doing the same work. While some problems that need urgent solutions arise.Based on the theory of education evaluation and lots of literature research, this paper aims to explore a simplified portfolio assessment model for middle school English Learners and collect evidence of students’ achievement in their learning confidence. Revolving around the New National English Curriculum, the portfolio assessment model took it shape. This model is simplified in order to make better use of the teaching period.This article focuses on analyzing the effects of portfolio assessment approach on the confidence in English learning. The research model is an experimental design with pretest-posttest control groups.94students participated in this research, with48of them in the control group and the remaining46in the test group."Confidence in English learning questionnaire" is used as data collection tool. Students answered questions from five aspects:the attitude towards English learning, confidence in listening, confidence in speaking, confidence in reading and confidence in writing. In the experiment group, portfolio assessment is conducted, while the control group is not.The result of the research shows there is significant difference between the two groups, and is in favor of the experimental group on which portfolio assessment approach is applied. Students in the experiment group are more confident than the control group, especially in listening, speaking, reading and writing. This paper arrives at a conclusion that the portfolio assessment can help students cultivate confidence in English learning, help them develop good learning habits and form effective learning strategies; enable students to master basic English language knowledge and skills so that they are competent in using the language.