respect to interests and concern of learners, evaluation could be more comprehensive. Moreover, Valencia (1990) concluded guiding principles of assessment: authentic, continuous, multidimensional, and collaborative. This study generalized that around 70% among the portfolio group and the non-portfolio group agreed with the implementation of the authentic assessment. Valencia agreed with the principle of authenticity for good assessment should mirror understanding and “resemble actual classroom and life tasks” (Valencia, 1990). That was, they could integrate into ongoing classroom life and instruction. Not only did students listen and speak for a variety of authentic tasks, they should be presented with the various texts during assessment. Additionally, the portfolio experience is meaningful to EFL students because the process is authentic. Their reflection expressed how and why students express themselves (Poston, 1993). The uses of checklists, reviews, conferences, student oral presentations, oral reading, or interviews with teacher or peers on audiocassettes are included. Tied to the portfolio process and students? experiences, we might collect language samples of student works over a period of time to track
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student development.
Previous model of collaborative portfolio
Hsieh (2000) advocated the model of “collaborative portfolio”. The relevant research emphasized that teacher and learners had to cooperate together for evaluation and collection. This collaborative portfolio is also good for the present study because of the big-size classroom and limited language proficiency. Jenkins pointed out the contents of this model (Jenkins, 1996, cited in Hsieh, 2000) must capture students understanding across the three areas: a.) Affective development, b.) Cognitive development c.) Metacognitive development. Jekins (p21-22, cited in Hsieh, 2000) believed that collaborative assessments possess the characteristics: 1) Genuine literacy endeavors and a variety of social context. 2) The purpose of monitoring students? development. 3) Taping students? affective, cognitive,
metacognitive
understanding.
4)
Encouraging
self-evaluation. 5) Process-oriented assessment. Through well-designed portfolios, students can document the process of trail and error in language development. While speaking in the English language, students actively process the content of the passage,
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selectively attend to interesting element, relate new information to what they already knew, and infer the meaning of unknown words from the context. On the other hand, teachers must take the responsibility for guiding learners to evaluate. For example, teacher could help learners set up criteria and make sure “the collaboration profiles students? abilities”. 3. Methodology 3.1 Participants
Two groups of learners, who received one-year freshman
English, with four skills training and the sense of basic sentence patterns, were taking “English Oral Training” course in the fall semester of the sophomore year at a university of technology. All participants meet the following criteria: a) categorized as the intermediate-low to intermediate language proficiency level as measured by their score of General English Proficiency Level; b) business majors: showing no prior portfolio experiences and strong commitments to their learning; c) the age ranged from 19 to 22 year. This study proposed that the controlled group with traditional assessment was Industrial Management department students and the
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experimented group with portfolio assessment was Finance and Banking majors (see Figure 2). The research participants were expected to benefit in this study in the followings: a) the optimal chance to practice their written and oral communicative skills in real context; b) more aware of English learning process; c) promoting self-reflection through the portfolio approach. Figure 2. Experimented and Controlled groups
Group Major Male Total Female 15 40 30 45 40 80 Controlled Industrial 25 Management Experimented Finance and 10 Banking Total Business 35 majors 3.2 Design and Procedure
The process of this experiment is described as Figure 3. The
study employed a teacher/researcher-student partnership. The main focus was on exploration of students? perceptions and attitude toward portfolio assessment and traditional tests respectively. The researcher collected data through field observation, student?s reflection from evaluation form, questionnaires, and information of student portfolio of experimental group. The products of students?
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portfolio were arranged in a time order (see Appendix V) and evaluated by peers or researcher (teacher).
There were three main stages in this four-month-long case study.
Around the middle September was the fist stage. Basing the content of the instructions on learner?s needs, both the experimented and the controlled groups were required to fill out self-reflection questionnaire (Appendix I) and survey their interests and general attitude toward practicing oral communication (Appendix II). Then, during the October to December, the second stage, all participants were given the same instructional activities. The only difference depended on the testing method: the experimented group had to keep their works in their portfolio, so that their learning progress could be detected. The performance of the controlled group was given standardized tests based on scoring and one pencil-and-pen test. Near the end of the study, in the third stage, the final questionnaires (Appendix IV) were conducted to explore the participants? feedback toward assessment tools around late December.
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