Introduction

          Questions about forms of assessment are common amongst teachers and students alike in any training institution. Generally, students will get the scores from any test as a reflection of the progress they have make over a certain period of time. The assessment ‘test’ can be conducted in the middle or at the end of the course. Students complete the test in a timed exam. This kind of assessment seems to be a conventional type of evaluation and it is considered a reliable method. However, sometimes the result does not really reflect the continuous progress of the students. They depend too much on the scores on the final test in order to prove whether they are successful or not. In relation to this situation, the concept of portfolio assessment may become one of the alternatives to displace the former type of evaluation. The concept behind using portfolio is to promote students’ involvement during the course and to increase the awareness of their own capabilities in the learning process as well.

          According to Trotman (2004) the portfolio assessment in the English Language Teaching began in the 1980s. He says there are some good points as well as some potential limitations from using this kind of assessment.

What is a Portfolio?

A Portfolio is a selection of work that documents a student’s educational performance and accomplishments over time. Typically, it includes a range of works (report, photographs, etc.) assigned by teachers and selected by the students (Washington University, Portfolio, glossary: 2004). Portfolios may be used for a variety of purposes including increasing students learning opportunities. A portfolio also helps students demonstrate a wide variety of skills as well as assist them in recognizing their own academic progress. In addition, it teaches them to take greater responsibility for their own learning and development.

Why a Portfolio ?

          According to Rea (2001,2) students collect their best work in their portfolio which will document both their progress  (as measured by their personal feelings and the amount of efforts they have put into the course) and achievement. He believes that students will gain more confidence and proficiency from the process of developing their best work.

          Compared with Rea, Trotman (2004,62) states that because portfolio consists of collection, reflection and selection, students may include in their portfolio whatever they believe to be significant and useful for their learning process. Students are selective in terms of their importance not just being the best work. The collection could be essays, revisions, tests, worksheets, summaries, draft of assignment, individual tasks and group tasks. And also, it can include pictures, magazine and newspaper  articles  that have special meaning for the students. Nunes (2004, 327) acknowledges that using portfolio, teachers do not only diagnose the students’ skills and competencies but also become aware of their preferences, styles, dispositions and learning strategies. Then, with this situation teachers are able to adopt a more-centered practiced.

          Having learned from this, the methodology of using portfolio to teach English as foreign language encourages students to be more independent and confident about their own progress. This approach tries to arouse students’ motivation to learn more not only from teachers but also from their own findings.  Students are given responsibilities to seek what they want or need. They can experience success in learning through their own capacities. Furthermore, they become aware of what areas they need to improve. Relating to this condition, Nunes (2004, 334) cites:

“When the students accurately identify weaknesses in their learning,   they can more promptly and accurately self-monitor their learning process and consider what action to take to overcome those shortcomings”

How do portfolios benefit students and teachers?

          Using portfolio as a means to promote autonomous learning will be challenging for students. This approach will stimulate their motivation and involvement. However, some students may find this approach either challenging or demanding tasks.  Students with high motivation will utilize the opportunity to exploit their capabilities and reflect this in to their collection with various selected materials. Similarly, teachers could find these portfolio collections as outstanding evidence of the students’ overall performance.

          On the other hands, this sort of task may initiate frustration from “less motivated and innovative” students. Even though they are in the same level of proficiency “on paper”, they probably have different interests in the way they learn something.  These students are used to depending on the course books or teacher to teach   them.

          Trotman (2004, 62) suggests that by portfolio teachers can get much clearer picture of students’ abilities. Students reflect their competency through real world writing in which they express their thoughts based on the real situation and try to write them in an essay or other types of writing. Together with this opinion, a portfolio assignment will be able to empower students to build better understanding and enhance their awareness of the process involved in writing, problem solving, research, or analysis.  The output can be one aspects of evidence from students’ portfolios. Along with this, Crocket in Nunes (2004, 327) mentions five categories of portfolio: 1) found samples, which refer to pieces done to fulfill, the class assignments, 2) processed samples, students’ analysis and graded by the teacher, 3) revision, 4) reflection, showing strength and weaknesses and 5) portfolio project which reveals a specific interest or challenge to overcome.

          So, instead of considering students’ writing as products, those can be extended into a process according to the context and design of its development. At the beginning, students might not be able to see the purpose of this task but they somehow learn from their active involvement in diagnosing their weaknesses and strength.  The process of writing encourages students to look at their own writing critically (Rea 2001, 1). Students will be able to keep up their learning process and experience it. Besides, having known their strength and weaknesses, students will be much more prepared to take future action. It is expected that both students and teachers would gain more practical values from this approach.

In short, there would need more dedication from the teachers especially to have more workload to deal with this type of assessment. It will be necessary to have training among teachers in implementing portfolio assessment and the system of marking.  After all, despite the standard marking of progress,  it quite necessary to let students give more appreciation on their own learning process to see the achievement   

Reference:

Rea, Simon. 2001. Portfolios and Process Writing: A Practical Approach. TESL Journal, Vol. VII. No. 6, June htt://teslj.org/  downloaded March,12 2005

Nunes, Alexandra. 2004. Portfolios in the EFL Classroom: Disclosing an Informed Practiced. ELT Journal, Vo. 58, No. 4, October. downloaded March 20,2005

Trotman, Wayne. 2004. Portfolio Assessment: Advantages, drawbacks and implementation. Modern English Teacher. Vol. 13, no. 4, October. downloaded March 20, 2005

http://catalyst.washington.edu/how-to/portfolio/about.html. downloaded April,13 2005