E-portfolio assessment in an online English language course

Abstract

Many teachers have the tendency to look at only the standardized test scores of their students while ignoring how or why various dimensions of language proficiency has improved or not improved. Portfolio, however, reveals a clear picture of the student's growth and development. This study reflects that traditional approaches to assessment of student progress in EFL writing lack indicators of students' development of the skill and aims to answer the following questions: what are the learning gains of students who keep an e-portfolio as part of an elementary-level English course and what are student perceptions about the online course, using an e-portfolio and their learning gains? For this aim, the researchers worked with two groups of students: the e-portfolio group who kept an electronic portfolio in the online elementary level English language course and the traditional assessment group who did not keep an e-portfolio. Although there were not significant differences between the post-test scores of the two groups, there were significant learning gains in both groups. The perceptions of the students in the e-portfolio group reflected that they benefited from and enjoyed keeping a portfolio.