PORTFOLIOS

Prepared by:
Joanne Lian
Chua Swee Woon
Tee Shu Min
Kev Yi Beng
Daniel Koh
Nurul Adilah

Definition
Paulson & Meyer (1991: 60)
define portfolio as a
purposeful collection of
student work that exhibits the
students efforts, progress,
and achievements in one or
more areas.

Portfolios include materials

such as

Essays and compositions in draft and final forms;

Reports, project outlines;
Poetry and creative prose;
Artwork, photos, newspaper or magazines clippings;
Audio, and/or video recordings of presentations,
demonstrations, etc;
Journals, diaries, and other personal reflections;
Tests, test scores, and written homework exercises;
Notes on lectures; and
Self- and peer assessments comments,
evaluations, and checklists.

Contents
of Portfolio

Portfolios include materials such as:

1. Essays and compositions in draft
and final forms
2. Reports, project outlines
3. Poetry and creative prose
4. Artwork, photos, newspaper or
magazine clippings
5. Audio or video recordings of
presentations, demonstrations etc

Portfolios include materials such as:

6. journals, diaries and other personal
reflections
7. test, test scores and other written
homework exercises
8. Notes on lectures
9. Self and peer-assessments
comments, evaluations and checklists

Essential
Elements
of the
portfolio

Every portfolio must obtain the

following essential elements:
1. Cover Letter About the author and
What my portfolio shows about my
progress as a learner (written at
the end, but put at the beginning).
The cover letter summarizes the
evidence of a students learning and
progress.
2. Table of Contents with numbered
pages.

Every portfolio must obtain the

following essential elements:
3. Entries both core (items students have to
include) and optional (items of students choice).
The core elements will be required for each
student and will provide a common base from
which to make decisions on assessment. The
optional items will allow the folder to represent
the uniqueness of each student. Students can
choose to include best pieces of work, but
also a piece of work which gave trouble or one
that was less successful, and give reasons why.

Every portfolio must obtain the

following essential elements:
4.Dates on all entries, to facilitate proof of
growth over time.
5. Drafts of aural/oral and written products and
revised versions; i.e., first drafts and
corrected/revised versions.
6. Reflections can appear at different stages in
the learning process (for formative and/or
summative purposes.) and at the lower levels
can be written in the mother tongue or by
students who find it difficult to express
themselves in English.

For each item a brief rationale for

choosing the item should be
included. This can relate to students
performance, to their feelings
regarding their progress and/or
themselves as learners. Students can
choose to reflect upon some or all of
the following:
What did I learn from it?
What did I do well?
Why (based on the agreed teacherstudent assessment criteria) did I
choose this item?
What do I want to improve in the

BENEFITS OF USING
PORTFOLIOS

Foster intrinsic motivation,

responsibility, and ownership

Promote student-teacher interaction

with the teacher as facilitator

Individualize learning and celebrate

the uniqueness of each student

Provide tangible evidence of a

students work

Facilitate critical thinking ,selfassessment , and revision

processes
Offer opportunities for
collaborative work with peers
Permit assessment of multiple
dimensions of language
learning

DISADVANTAGES OF
USING PORTFOLIOS

Portfolios become problematic

when they are used on a large
scale.
It is quite subjective as it must be
considered as a personal student
product.
Different interpretation in the
setting of standards and criteria
for grading portfolios is a problem
where it has to evaluate a
students personal interests.

It is needed to train teachers to

assess the portfolio fairly and
accurately.
The increased time and
resources needed in developing
and assessing the portfolios
become a problem.
It is difficult to maintain high
inter rater reliability with
portfolio assessment because
there are many items included

Steps and Guidelines

1. State objectives clearly

Pick one or more of the CRADLE
attributes named above and
specify them as objectives of
developing a portfolio.
Show how those purposes ae
connected to, integrated with,
and/or a reinforcement of your
already stated curricular goals.

2. Give guidelines on what materials

to include

Name the types

of work that
should be
included.

Teacher
guidance will
keep students on
target with
curricular
objectives.

Give clear
directions on how
to get started
and
give samples
from previous
students to
stimulate some
thoughts on what
to include.

3. Communicate assessment criteria

to students
Two sources- self assessment &
teacher assessment must be
incorporated for maximum benefit.

Self-assessment clear & simple.

Teacher-assessment mirror selfassessment wit similar questions
designed to highlight the formative
nature of the assessment.
Conferences important

Can include peer assessment or small

group conferences to comment on one
anothers portfolios.

4. Designate time
within the
curriculum for
portfolio
development
- Make sure students
have time set aside
for portfolio work
(including in-class
time).
- Your own
opportunities for
conferencing are not
compromised.

5. Establish
periodic
schedules for
review and
conferencing
By doing so, you
will prevent
students from
throwing
everything
together at the
end of a term.

6. Designate an accessible place

to keep portfolio

- Encourage
students to create
- Self-contained
their own
classroom or a
accessible location
place in reading
and to bring to
room/library to
class only the
keep the materials.
materials they
needed.

7. Provide positive washback-giving

final assessment

For portfolios containing written work, Wolcott

(1998) recommended a holistic scoring scale
ranging from 1 to 6 based on such qualities as
inclusion of
out-of-class work
error-free work
depth of content
creativity
organization
writing style
engagement of students.