task 15 -- Communicative approach

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Date Posted: 13:56:40 08/11/03 Mon
Author: Mylene Fonseca
Subject: task 15

Communicative Approach On line Class
Learner: Mylene Fonseca Garcia
Task Fifteen

How can we use portfolios to evaluate our students� progress?

According to Heaton , portfolios and conferences are ways of evaluating without testing. Therefore, they are focused on the process. Both methods require students� involvement. Basically, what they propose is to enable students to be aware of the ownership of their own learning. So, this task will present and discuss about using portfolio in language classes.
Still according to Heaton, portfolios are purposeful collections of students� works. Thus, they demonstrate their efforts, progress and achievements. Besides, portfolios imply a continuous record of students� language development. Therefore, they should follow some characteristics, such as they could hold specific focus or not, they must be easy to access, students should maintain the responsibility for self-assessment and ownership of their own learning, they should not be limited to language-related work and, finally, they are collaborative tasks to the class; hence, they should be used actively and interactively.
So, bearing all this in mind, portfolios enhance students� ability to think critically about schoolwork. Thus, date and comments are important. By doing so, students and teachers are able to follow the class� progress. By the same token, works should be put in portfolios all times, being reviewed systematically by students and teachers.
Besides, through portfolios, students can make reflections, decisions and can control their own language learning, guided by teachers. By doing so, students have to take notes about each piece in their portfolio, by describing why each piece is in their portfolio, by telling 1) what they like about it; 2) what they learned when they did it; 3) where there could be improvement; by asking students to compare pieces of work and to identify which of them are better, most improved, most difficult and why.
Summing up, portfolios are a way of testing the process of students� language learning in a continuous assessment. They are basically interactive in the class, so, they enable students to be aware of their own learning process. Most importantly, considering all that was already mentioned, portfolios stimulate students� self-reflection. That is, students learn to take part in their own language learning process actively. Thus, the teacher becomes a guide in this progression. Therefore, he or she is not viewed as the only person responsible for the class� language learning process.

HEATON, J.B. Classroom Testing. New York: Longman, 1990.

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Replies:

Re: task 15 -- Vera Menezes, 15:29:45 08/13/03 Wed