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PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO IMPROVE THE STUDENT’S WRITING SKILL IN 10TH GRADE IN PUBLIC SCHOOL

LORENA CORREA

TUTOR: OSCAR MONTOYA

UNIVERSITY OF QUINDIO

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

MODERN LANGUAGES PROGRAM

ARMENIA, QUINDIO

2013

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PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO IMPROVE THE STUDENT’S WRITING SKILL IN 10TH GRADE IN PUBLIC SCHOOL

THEORETICAL REVIEW

LORENA CORREA

ELIANA PULIDO

TUTOR: OSCAR MONTOYA

UNIVERSITY OF QUINDIO

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

MODERN LANGUAGES PROGRAM

ARMENIA, QUINDIO

2013

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INTRODUCTION

As it is demanded by the National Ministry of Education in Colombia, (MEN) to

strengthen the domain in a foreign language, English in this case, is vital to any

competitive society which wants to belong to the Globalized world nowadays. In addition

to this, the improvement of the levels of proficiency of students, bring them new

opportunities to be more competent citizens and to strength their professional

background. Moreover, through the process of acquiring a foreign language, the main

skills to be developed in the English students are listening, speaking, reading and

writing. In this case, it can be stated that even though the writing skill is one of main

importance, because it is a production skill, most if not all students have several

problems in relation to it. The writing skill is a very demanding skill which demands form

the student a proper domain of the language in terms of grammar, punctuation rules,

coherence and cohesion, vocabulary among others. These are perhaps the reasons

why it is so difficult for students to develop properly their writing skill, and to submit good

writing compositions. Furthermore, there are several techniques and assessment tools

that teachers implement in their English classroom on order for students to develop their

Listening, reading, writing and speaking skills. However not all of them have the same

efficiency, and have good results. Nowadays, Portfolios are commonly known as an

assessment technique that can serve as a guide and self-assessment for both teachers

and students. In addition, the use of portfolio in the English classroom, brings positive

results, and contribute to the development of the student’s writing skill, and is a

meaningful tool for educators in the learning process of English as a foreign language.

Taking into account all the advantages of learning a foreign language which can be

positively influence the citizen’s better professional opportunities, we have decided to

research a topic which main goal is to strengthen the student’s writing skill. The

development of the writing skill of 10 grader students will be made by the use of portfolio

that will work as an assessment tool.

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JUSTIFICATION

As Portfolio is a tool in which students make evident their process of learning,

students and teachers should implement portfolio during the process of acquiring a

foreign language; in this case English language, since it is important and useful to

manage with students of 10 grades to improve their writing skill. Besides, this is also a

way to control, assess constantly, and evaluate the students’ progress. For that reason,

it should be mandatory to implement portfolio in English subject because this gives the

students and the teachers an opportunity to analyze their weaknesses and strengths the

development of the writing skill. On the other hand, through the use of portfolio the

students have evidence of what they are learning, and at the same time, they improve

their writing skill.

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CONTEXT

This research will be held with students of English in 10 th grade, in a public high

school, at Marcelino Champagnat , in Armenia, Quindio. The purpose is to work with

these students since they already have an adequate acquaintanceship about the writing

skill. The intention is that this group will use portfolio assessment. Through the results it

will be analyzed the effectiveness of portfolio to develop and strengthen their writing

skill.

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PROBLEM

Due to the low results and weaknesses of the students writing compositions of

students of 10 grade at Marcelino Champagnat in Armenia, Quindio, it is evident to

assert that the acquisition and domain of a foreign language, in accordance with the

aims of the PFDCLE implemented in 2004 by the Education Ministry, have not been

reached at all. As a result of this, and considering that the writing skill is of main

relevance for being a productive skill, is necessary to implement the portfolio as a tool

which strengthen it, as it influences positively their learning process as well. Moreover,

the formulation of the research problem revolves around the following aspects: 1)

Formulation of the research questions 2) Formulation of the research objectives.

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Main research question

1. To what extend can portfolios used as an assessment tool, improve the writing

skill in 10th graders in a public high school in Armenia?

Specific research questions

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using portfolios as an

assessment tool?

3. To what extend can students be motivated to use portfolios in order to improve

their writing skill?

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RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

General objectives:

To analyze the advantages and disadvantages of using portfolios as an assessment tool

for 10th graders in a public high school.

Specific objectives:

To describe the improvement of the writing skill through the use of portfolio.

To discover the advantages of portfolio in the improvement of the writing skill.

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In the PFDCLE, implemented in 2004 by the Education Ministry, and which main goal

is to improve the English Teaching quality in Colombia, focuses mainly in both

Communicative and Linguistic competence in order to make Colombian people more

competent in English as a second language. Similarly, in Colombia, the national

Education Ministry has proposed “Alternative Evaluation Strategies in which there

appear the use of portfolios and project development… these strategies are composed

by observations, expositions, storytelling, experiments, and informal tasks, among

others.” It is in the teacher’s guided assessment, where the use of portfolios is being

commonly used in some public schools in Colombia. This research project will be

conducted to improve the students more meaningful learning process, and the

communicative process in a specific context of adolescents with learning deficit and

where the assessment methods are the most common or traditional. This research

project will be conducted in Grade 10th, at Marcelino Champagnat, in Armenia, Quindío.

ROTE AND MEANINGFUL LEARNING:

Ausubel, (1962) makes a distinction between the concepts of rote and meaningful

learning. According to him, rote learning occurs when the learner learns by

memorization, and forgets easily that information. “The knowledge or information is

stored in an isolated compartment and is not integrated into the person’s larger cognitive

structure”. (pg. 91-92). On the other hand, Meaningful learning occurs when the learner

connects two or more ideas, old and new, and he must attempt to relate the new ideas

to those which he currently possesses. If these conditions fail, there will be as a result

Rote learning. Additionally, it is a fact that the more meaningful the learning process is

for students, the more proficient they will be at the L2.

Moreover, in the learning process is vital for teachers , to know not only the best way

pupils learn (rote or meaningful learning), but also to be aware of how they are

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becoming proficient at that target language. For this reason, effective teachers will use

in their daily professional practice testing and assessment techniques in order to

monitor, guide and improve the students learning process. Authors such as Brown,

(2004) clarified the difference between the terms test and assessment, which are usually

misunderstood by some people. On one hand, he stated that tests is a teaching method

in which the person’s abilities or knowledge is measured, and that are carefully designed

and have the identifiable scoring rubrics. On the other hand, he defines assessment as

an ongoing process that includes a much wider field.

ASSESSMENT:

Pinter, (2006) claimed that “assessment of the learning process is an integral part of

the teaching and learning. Assessment refers to the process of data analysis that

teachers use to get evidence about their learners’ performance and progress in English.”

However, she also stated that the traditional methods ( e.g. Paper and pencil tests) are

often problematic and negative for students as the low grades often discourages

students and they lose their motivation towards English. For these reasons, she advices

teachers to have as an assessment technique the use of portfolios. Even though

portfolios are not very used in public schools, they are a more meaningful technique to

assess students.

PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT:

As stated by Meadows and Dyal, (1999) “students strongly agree portfolio assessment

measures academic performance more adequately than traditional comprehensive

examination process. It examines performance but also provides authentic appraisal of

student performance, and enables the student to exhibit examples of achievement and

gives a reflection on their work.”

Portfolios are commonly used in the world, but late in the 80’s the interest in portfolio

for assessment became evident in the education field. (Belanoff and Dickson; 1991).

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Meo S, (2002) stated that “portfolios have been one of the most pervasive innovations

recommended by educational reformers of the 1980s and 1990s.” For example, the

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development identified portfolios as one of

the nation's top three curriculum trends. Professional and pedagogical journals exploded

with pertinent literature during the next decade, as educators implemented a variety of

portfolio projects in a wide array of classroom settings and in subjects as diverse as high

school literature and social studies, entry-level college writing, and adult continuing

education. Also, Practitioners advocated portfolios as devices that engaged students in

critical thinking and realistic performance tasks, as strategies for empowering students

to take responsibility for their own learning, and as tools for evaluating the effectiveness

of educational programs.

WRITING SKILL: Writing as a productive skill is one of the four basic skills of the

English language. Writing is a comprehensive ability involving grammar, vocabulary,

conception, rhetoric, and other parts of the language (Zhang &Chen, 1989). Writing

enhances language acquisition as learners experiment with words, sentences, and other

elements of writing to communicate their idea effectively, and to reinforce the grammar

and vocabulary they are learning in class (Bello, 1997).

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LITERATURE REVIEW

As it was stated previously, the aim of this research is to prove that through the use of

portfolio as an assessment tool in 10 graders of a public high school, students can both

improve and strengthen their writing skill. For these reasons, in this chapter there are

states some evidences of the positives results and effectiveness of using portfolio as

and assessment tool that can actually strength the students writing skill. These are

some of the studies and research all around the world that support this theory.

In Spain, Romero and Crisol, (2011) both teachers at the Universidad de Granada, in

their research study named “El portafolio, herramienta de autoevaluacion del

aprendizaje. Una experiencia práctica en la Universidad de Granada”, it is presented

how portfolios can be meaningful and useful tools for student’s self-assessment in their

learning process. They concluded that “the use of portfolios favors the motivation and

curiosity of the learner towards the learning process, and that it reduces the

disorientation and stimulates the individual development and responsibility of the

students.”

Later in Malaysia, Arshad (2012) in his study stated that using portfolios as an

assessment method in the Malaysian secondary ESL classroom are beneficial for both

students and teachers as it enables them to self- assessment, improves student’s

motivation, and provide them an overall review of their learning process.

Also, in the highschool Sagrado Corazón de Jesus, located in Barranquilla Colombia,

the professor of English 7th grade, Jorge Cuello, stated that portfolios are used as a

classroom project. He claimed that “this pedagogic strategy increases the student’s

writing skills, their vocabulary, and at the same time they serve as an auto-evaluation

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method in the learner’s performance, and helps improve the communicative competence

of the pupils according to the demands of the Common European Framework”.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In this chapter there is stated the research methodology. The methodology comprises

the following information ;( 1) Definition of the research method, (2) Data collection

techniques, (3) procedures according to the methodology, (4) Piloting report, (5) Budget,

and finally (7) Timetable.

1. Definition of the research method

The main aim of the Action research is to give solutions to social and daily situations,

and improve concrete practices. ( Alvarez-Gayou, 2003; Merriam, 2009). Its

fundamental purpose is to give information that can guide the decision-making to

educational programs, and different academic processes. Wallace (1998), asserts that

Action research involves the collection and analysis of data, which is related to the

professional practice. After gathering all the information, and after is being analyzed, we

reflect on what we have discovered, and then it is applied to the professional field. For

this reasons, it has been decided that this research will be done using this type of

research, because it is the more adequate based on the research puroposes.

2.Data collection techniques

Based on Sampieri (1999) qualitative research uses the data collection without

numerical data, in order to discover and correct the research questions in the

interpretation or analysis process. On the other hand, Arias (1997) declared that they

are the different ways to get the information. The data collection techniques consist of

video and tape recordings, direct observation, notes, questionnaires, interview, journals,

among others. In this research, there will be carried out the questionnaire as a data

collection technique.

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CUESTIONARIO DE DIAGNÓSTICO

El siguiente cuestionario ha sido realizado por Lorena correa y Eliana pulido. Este

cuestionario hace parte de una investigación acerca del uso del portafolio como método

de evaluación y como una alternativa para mejorar la habilidad de escritura en

estudiantes de 10 grado en un colegio público. Por favor, siéntase libre de agregar

comentarios o aclaraciones a sus respuestas. Gracias por su colaboración.

1. Cuál es el concepto que usted tiene acerca de portafolio?

2. Ha utilizado alguna vez durante su proceso académico el portafolio?

○ si

○ No

3. Que otro tipo de evaluación es utilizado en su aula de clase actualmente?

Exámenes

Ensayos

Evaluación escrita

Evaluación oral

4. De qué manera evalúa su maestro su habilidad escrita?

5. Se siente cómodo con el método se evaluación? Con cual?

Si

no

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6. Cómo considera su habilidad de escritura?

○ mala

○ adecuada

○ buena

○ excelente

7. cuáles son los aspectos que cree, debe mejorar?

GRACIAS !

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CUESTIONARIO DE DIAGNÓSTICO

Este cuestionario hace parte de una investigación acerca del uso del portafolio como método de

evaluación y como una alternativa para mejorar la habilidad de escritura en estudiantes de 10

grado en el colegio Marcelino Champagnat de Armenia. Agradecemos su colaboración al

responderlo y adicionar comentarios o aclaraciones que puedan ser útiles para nuestra

investigación.

1. ¿Ha utilizado alguna vez durante su proceso académico el portafolio?

• SI - ¿ En qué asignatura? ¿ cómo lo ha desarollado?

• NO

2. ¿cuál es el concepto que usted tiene acerca de portafolio académico en su aprendizaje?

• Recolección de datos

• Recolección de evidencias de aprendizaje que mejora las habilidades del estudiante y le

induce a reflexionar acerca de ello.

• Recolección de material de una asignatura en específico.

3. ¿qué tipo de evaluación utiliza el profesor en su clase de Inglés?

*Exámenes escritos *Ensayos * Evaluación escrita * Diálogos

* Traducciones * Presentaciones orales * Portafolio * Entrevistas

* Otra ¿ cuáles?

4. ¿con qué método de los mencionados anteriormente se siente más cómodo? ¿por qué?

5. ¿Qué tipo de composiciones utiliza su maestro para evaluar la habilidad escrita?

* Oraciones * párrafo corto * párrafo largo * Ensayo

* Cuentos

* Diálogos * Dictados * Poemas * Portafolio

* Otra ¿cuál?

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6. ¿cómo considera su habilidad de escritura en Inglés?

*Mala * Adecuada * Buena * Excelente

7. ¿cuáles son los aspectos que cree que debe mejorar en cuanto a su habilidad de

escritura?

*Puntuación * coherencia * cohesión * vocabulario * Gramática

* uso de un vocabulario académico ( Formal)

GRACIAS!

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Piloting report

Data collection technique:To carry out this project it is implemented a questionnaire in Spanish language since the

students do not manage correctly English language. The questionnaire contains seven

questions; one of them is an open format question, four of them are multiple choice

questions where the student can select several of them, and one question is yes/no

question where the students only have two possibilities. In addition, in this question that

is the first one, if the student answers “yes” he or she has to answer two short questions

more that are related with the principal question. On the other hand, this questionnaire is

to diagnose how much 10th grade students know about portfolio; also, to have an idea

about their English level in writing skill and how they are evaluated by their English

teacher.

Expert concept

The questionnaire was revised by Tatiana Laritza Rico, professor of the University of

Quindío. In general she stated that the questionnaire was adequate for the grade and

the topic, also the questions were useful and meaningful. However, she suggested

modifying some questionnaire aspects. For example, some of the questions that were

open questions, they had to be multiple choice questions since it facilitates the analysis

of them. Besides in this way students understood better the questions and they did not

misunderstood them. Moreover, she suggested writing more alternatives in the multiple

choice questions because it is important that in some cases students choose more than

one option. In addition, the expert Rico said that each question has to be more specific

and to include the important concepts. For instance, English subject, writing ability in

English and so on. Another aspect she suggested modifying in the questionnaire was to

reorganize the order of the questions since if one question derived from another one, it

was essential to respect the order it means one follow the other one. Finally, she

suggested including the option “another one” “which one”.

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Changes Made and the Final version

The changes in the final version were made taking into account the expert’s

suggestions. First at all, it was not necessary to mention the questionnaires authors, so

in the final version it was omitted the names. In addition, at the end of the introduction it

was modified a sentence in which it was expressed that they can add any comment

about if it is useful for the project.

It was exchanged positions the questions one and two; the first question places the first

questions in the final version and vice versa since the second one was more general

and it started to indicate what portfolio is about if they did not have any idea. On the

other hand, the second question that was yes /no question was modified it means that if

students answer yes, they have to answer two short questions that were inside of it,

“¿ En qué asignatura? ¿Cómo lo ha desarrollado?”. In addition, in the third one the

expert professor said that it has to be more specific. For that reason, in this question it

was added “English class” with this modification, the student realized which class it was

referring. Besides, for the answer of this question it was added five kinds of evaluations

in order to give more alternatives to the students to choose.

Additionally it was changed the position of the fifth question by the fourth one since it

was related with the third question. Also, it was modified because it was an open

question and as professor Tatiana Rico said it is more comfortable to analyze multiple

choices questions than an open question. What she suggested was that it was essential

to ask students a question related with the previous one, but to give the same

alternatives that it was given in the third question.

Although the fifth question retained the same idea, the way it was written changed since

it needed to be more elaborated. Moreover, it stopped being an open question to be a

multiple choice question; for the answer it was given nine alternatives to select. Besides,

it was an option called another one? In which the student could add another if it was

necessary.

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Additionally in the sixth question it was needful to focus the question on the English

subject since it was very general. This step was required in order not to confuse the

students and to obtain an adequate answer since what was needed in this question was

information about writing ability in English subjects not in the other ones.

Finally, the last question was modified as well. First at all, it was added the phrase

“writing ability” principally to be more specific and to obtain an adequate answer, it

means that students answered the questions taking into account that writing ability

referring in the English subject. Moreover, in this point, it was added six alternatives, so

the students had more possibilities to choice and not to confuse the question.

Population

The diagnostic questionnaire was applied in 10 th grade students at Institution Educutiva

Marcelino Champagnat School located in Las acacias neighborhood, Armenia-Quindío.

This questionnaire was answered by 31 students; 20 of them were women and 11 of

them were men. These students were around 15 and 17 years old. In addition, these

students have five hours of English classes; one student from the University of Quindío

teaches two hours, and their English teacher teaches the other three hours.

The Difficulties Respondents found

To answer the questionnaire, the respondent mainly had one difficulty. In fact, they did

not have very clear the concept of “portfolio”. It was necessary to explain them what

portfolio is. As they associated portfolio with portfolio they used in Spanish class, they

continued to answer the questionnaire. In addition, more than a difficulty it was a doubt,

as it was not specified if they could select one or more options in the multiple choice

questions, the majority of them asked the same question that if they chose one or more

than one alternatives.

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Administration Process

The questionnaire was applied at Institution Educutiva Marcelino Champagnat to 10 th

grade students. It was done on October 1st, 2013 at 10 o’clock in the morning. At the

moment they started to answer the questionnaire, they were in chemist class solving

some exercises about it. On the other hand, it was necessary to have a special

permission from the academic coordinator. Nevertheless, the first day the questionnaire

was going to be applied, he was not there. For that reason, to carry out the

questionnaire it was necessary to wait and go another day, it means almost a week

later. However, next time the academic coordinator was not there either. As a

consequence, the parish coordinator had to give the permission to enter to the school

and to apply the questionnaire. By the way, he went to the classroom and told the

student a little about the activity.

In the classroom the first thing that it was done was to make a short introduction and

explain the motive why it was necessary they answer the questionnaire. After that, it was

read all the questions and it was asked if they had any doubt about vocabulary, topic or

about any question itself. In fact, some of the students asked about the meaning of a

specific word “portfolio”. As a consequence, it was explained what portfolio is. On the

other hand, the students lasted 20 minutes answering all the questions, during this

period of time, they shared their answers although it was said that it was individual.

Finally, all of them handed in the questionnaire paper and the students received a thank

you for their collaboration.

Findings based on the questionnaire

In the first question ¿Ha utilizado alguna vez durante su proceso académico el

portafolio?, 19 of 31 students answered “yes”, they answered that they have had

implemented it in Spanish subject, what they do with it is to compile the worksheets they

did in this subject during their class in a folder, then at the end of the period they hand in

this portfolio to their teacher. On the contrary, 12 of 31 students answered “no”. it

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exposes that although they already implemented portfolio, they did not know what it

really is.

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In the second question ¿cuál es el concepto que usted tiene acerca de portafolio

académico en su aprendizaje?. As it is shown in the graphic number 2, the majority of

the students selected the option B which is the correct one. By contrast, only 8 students

selected the option A, and 9 of the students selected the option C. This result indicates

that fortunately more than half knows what portfolio is, and the others have an idea

about it, but it is not as clear as it expected to be

2

A. Data collection.

B. Collection of learning evidence

that improves student skills and

leads him to think of it.

C. Collection of material from a

specific subject.

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In the question three “¿qué tipo de evaluación utiliza el profesor en su clase de Inglés?

”Students had the possibility to choose more than one option, in this point it is evident

that the method that their teacher implemented most is translations; the method that

their teacher implemented less is interviews, and the method that their teacher do not

use is portfolio

3

In the question four ¿con qué método de los mencionados anteriormente se siente más

cómodo? ¿por qué?, 12 of 31 students wrote that they feel more comfortable with

written exams because they were easier than the others, also because the students feel

confident with this kind of exam since some of them are shy and they do not like to

speak in public In addition, written exams have an advantage, students have more time

to process their ideas. On the other hand, 11 of the students prefer reductions because

with this method they acquired new vocabulary and new phrases; also, because some

of them think that translation is interesting.

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4

5 of the students totality feel comfortable with dialogues because they say that through

this method they practice listening and pronunciation. Besides, with dialogues they have

time to memorize what they have to say. Finally, 3 students of the whole group prefer

oral presentations because this method helps them to improve their pronunciation and to

know more about grammatical use.

5

As the previous graphic shows the result of the question five ¿Qué tipo de

composiciones utiliza su maestro para evaluar la habilidad escrita?, the kind of

composition the teacher uses most to evaluate writing skill to their students is

sentences, after this, he uses the construction of paragraphs short and longs. By

contrast, the composition he uses less is tales and poems. On the other hand, he does

not use portfolio to evaluate writing ability.

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In the sixth question ¿cómo considera su habilidad de escritura en Inglés? 7 students

consider that they have a bad writing skill level, 19 of them think that they writing skill

ability is adequate. However, 5 students consider their writing skill is good. And none of

them consider their writing ability is excellent.

6

Finally, in the last question ¿cuáles son los aspectos que cree que debe mejorar en

cuanto a su habilidad de escritura? All the students agree that vocabulary and grammar

are the aspects that they need to improve.

7

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Budget

DESCRIPTION QUANTITY COST PER UNITY FINAL COST

Photocopies 32 $ 100 $3200

Visits to the institution

4 $1500 $6000

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TIMETABLE

Activity

TIME

2014

jan. febr. march apr. may. june. july. aug. sep. Oct. nov. Dic.

Problem X

Theoretic framework

X X

Data

collection

X

Data transcription

X

Data analysis

X

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Final Project

ORAL SUPPORT

REFERENCES

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Zhang ,X and Chen, J.(1989). The techniques to teaching writing. Forum ,vol XXVII

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Bello, T. (1997). Writing topics for adult ESL students. Paper presented at the 31st

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Arshad, A, S. (2012). The use of portfolio as an assessment tool in the Malaysian l2

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