Dem’yanova
Yulia, Bakhum Yana
Zaporizhzhya
Teachers’ Training College
In this work we describe our experience of the use of portfolios for
integrated skills self-assessment in a young learners’ classroom.
The concept of a foreign language proficiency self-assessment was first
developed by the Swiss. The Council of Europe supported the initiative. And
yet, it took ten years for the Portfolio idea to strike root in the minds of
Europeans. Portfolio is a tool for self-assessing a schoolchild, a student, a
university graduate, in fact, any learner of foreign languages. For our
domestic language teaching system the Language Portfolio constitutes a novel,
nonstandard tool. According to K.Smith [1] the use of portfolios may ensure choice (for
pupils) of tasks to be assessed (optional part); individualized teaching
through teachers’ task selection and comments on pupils tasks (possible
to cater for different levels of pupils’ knowledge); various kinds of tasks to
be assessed (from hand-made to recorded speech); pupils’ feedback, reflection on
their own learning shaped and focussed by the teacher’s questions; possibility
for pupils to learn from their own mistakes, which is done through their
revising and improving their own tasks. In general the use of portfolios may
lead to the development of pupils’ metacognitive (learning to learn) skills and
it may enhance their responsibility for their own learning.
The materials read [1; 2; 3] made us assume that the use of portfolio
has a considerable potential for learner autonomy development. There were seven
pupils of the 2d form in the experimental group. The portfolio tasks included
worksheets on listening, reading and writing and assignments on writing and
speaking based on the topic “Animals”. The learning tasks were made up
according to the principles of the communicative approach to teaching young
learners, keeping in view the holistic nature of young learners and their age
peculiarities, differentiated as to the level of difficulty.
The sources of the data obtained
were:
All the pupils of the experimental
group have created their portfolios. Their portfolios look rather impressive
both in appearance – nicely designed and coloured title pages, and in contents
– numerous works done, few mistakes made All the 7 pupils selected for
experiment have included the tasks on all the four basic skills, though the
quality and the number of the tasks included were different.
The learning achievements were
high. The pupils have fulfilled numerous works.
The high score in testing and the low
number of mistakes made, support our conclusion mentioned above that the
portfolio work allow for all pupils to progress though at a different pace,
and that pupils’ results depend on their motivation and metacognitive
awareness. The lowest results are with a low-motivated subject who has not done
the majority of works.
On the whole we found the
experimental work very interesting and enriching in various respects. As a
minus we pointed out that using portfolio certainly meant additional load as the
teacher had to listen to pupils’ answers several times, which took up her
personal time, moreover, she had to deal with one work of one pupil several
times.
Although we had daily evidence of the
pupils’ great interest and involvement through observation, we were eager to
find out their understanding of what they were doing, their opinion on it and
whether they perceive it as a positive or negative experience for them.
Conclusion
Having
used portfolios we consider it an efficient means of learning and assessment,
including self-assessment. We do not deny the fact that it gives more work to
the teacher, however, we think it is worth it.
Our work is just a small part of
research in this field, which is being developed.
1. Common European Framework of Reference for Language:
Learning, Teaching, Assesment. - Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001. – 260
p.
2. Schneider G., Lenz P. Guide for Developers of a European
Language: http // www. culture. coe.int/lang.
3.
Smith K. Learner Portfolios // English Teaching Professional. – 2002.– Issue 22. – 39-41.