TASK 15 -- Communicative approach

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Date Posted: 13:39:01 08/13/03 Wed
Author: Thiago Rodrigues Costa
Subject: TASK 15

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

According to Hancock (1994) �Assessment (�) should be viewed as an interactive process that engages both teacher and student in monitoring the student's performance.� In this way, teacher and students construct together strategies that are able to crate new judgments about the students� learning process. One of the most important examples of alternative assessment in foreign language learning is the use of portfolios.

Portfolios have been increasingly used in foreign language courses as an alternative way of assessment. Through portfolios, students are encouraged to select the most important aspects of their performance during the course, reflecting on these aspects and analyzing their own development in the course. The teacher is no longer the only person involved in the evaluation of the student�s progress. Portfolios help in the increasing of the students� awareness about their development in the language performance. Besides, students can share their experiences among each other, increasing the motivation inside the classroom. Portfolios can be used inside and outside the classroom, since they give to students autonomy to collect their own experiences and progresses.

Teachers that use portfolios with their groups can observe the way students reflect about their learning process through the choices they make while collecting their experiences. A student that decides to include in his/her portfolio a poem written by him/herself is trying to show to the teacher that he/she is able to use words in order to construct poetry in the target language. It shows that students may report in their portfolios aspects of their performance that they are really proud of.

Portfolios can be used to evaluate all the skills of the language, since written language is not the only aspect reported on them. Videotapes and other types of material can also be included in portfolios. So, students may also report their performance in the spoken language. Parents are also benefited with portfolios, since they have the opportunity to follow their children�s learning process and give suggestions to their children, helping them in their development during the course.

Portfolio assessment can be successfully used in communicative classes, since it helps in the interaction among students and teacher and promotes the reflection on the development of the course and the students� learning.

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

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Replies:

Re: TASK 15 -- Vera Menezes, 15:05:09 08/13/03 Wed