An Action Research On Effects Of Portfolio Self -Assessment On Junior Middle School Students' English Reading Comprehension

English reading plays a vital role in cultivating students' language skills.Hence,English reading comprehension exercises are an essential part of Chinese junior middle school students' English study.And the reading comprehension passages are an important part of students' English reading materials.For the value of reading comprehension passages in English study,this research aims to explore effects of applying portfolio self-assessment in learning reading comprehension of exercises on students' English reading strategies and reading performance.Portfolio assessment,as an important method of formative assessment,has enormous advantages in facilitating students to accumulate expressions,cultivate reading strategies and improve the ability of reading reflection.However,a relative paucity of studies investigates the application of portfolio self-assessment in reviewing the process of English reading comprehension in exercises.This research adopts the method of action research,which complements the studies of portfolio self-assessment by expanding its research scope.Therefore,based on the constructivism theory and Krashen's input hypothesis,the author plans to incorporate portfolio self-assessment into students' reading comprehension to assist students form awareness of reading reflection and cultivate reading strategies,and therefore improve reading performance.So,the author adopts action research by means of questionnaires,interviews and tests to address the following two questions:1)What effects does the application of portfolio self-assessment in English reading comprehension have on students' English reading strategies?2)What effects does the application of portfolio self-assessment in English reading comprehension have on students' English reading performance?Studying in Class 2,Grade 8,** School,Huadu District,Guangzhou,thirty-eight students participated in this research lasting for twelve weeks in all.At first,students' English reading situation was investigated by a pre-test,pre-questionnaire,and interviews.Then,the first-round action research was drafted based on the format for portfolio self-assessment.Instruments of post-test one,interviews,and logs were employed to investigate students' English reading strategies and reading performance in round one.And new adjustment was designed and implemented in round two.In the end,the author analyzed the results of post-test two,post-questionnaire,interviews,and logs in round two.The data analyzed by SPSS 24.0 in this action research indicate that the application of portfolio self-assessment in reading comprehension can promote students' English reading strategies like using context clues to better understand the reading and taking an overall view of the text before reading.Additionally,positive effects of the application of portfolio self-assessment are manifested on students' English reading performance.