Task #15 -- Communicative approach

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Date Posted: 02:19:16 08/11/03 Mon
Author: Andre Luiz Elias
Subject: Task #15

First of all it makes important to define what a portfolio is and then try to understand why people (teachers) have been using it to assess others (students) development. Portfolios are collections of pieces of work representing the performance of a given person. They are originally common in areas such as photography, architecture, etc in which the professionals keep records of their work as a mean to show it to other people.
As the concern in second language learning of a more autonomous student begins to increase, teachers started applying this idea of portfolios in their practice as a mean to emphasize the student�s role in constructing understanding. By this fact, one can get the idea that portfolio in second language learning (and should be in other areas too) should not only considered to be a bunch of papers, letters, drawings, sketch and so on that were put together for no reason. In contrary, portfolios should be a tool to enhance students� awareness. These materials should be evaluated by students and they must think of the work they�ve already done. This way the student will be provided a continuous and/or cumulative development and in a more holistic way. Through that, teachers might be able to assess what students have thought of their own development. Portfolios can also be contextualized providing a basis for formal test results based on testing what is not authentic or at least authentic-like.
For language learning this fact of authenticity turns out to be important once testing language should take into account contextual constraints that helps language works the way they do.
In summary, one can say that the use of portfolios in second language classes are important for they provide tools for a self-assessment (through looking back the works already done), and also because they function as a more authentic- hence functional-like way of assess development.

References:
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/classuse.html
http://www.cal.org/ericcll/digest/hancoc01.html
http://www.stanford.edu/group/CFLP/research/portfolio/portfolio1.html

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Replies:

Re: Task #15 -- Vera Menezes, 15:39:30 08/13/03 Wed