How to Turn the Epostl into an Electronic Setting: The E-epostl

Abstract

Current practices in the field of foreign language teacher education and specifically assessment of student teachers at foreign language teaching (FLT) departments have an inclination to make use of traditional means. Today assessment practices in FLT are more innovative and modern through alternative and authentic assessment tools. No matter how much more eligible for objective testing, time consumption and applicability rather than old fashioned assessment tools both the policy makers and the universities as practitioners should take a step to utilize and develop alternative assessment types in language teacher education to change the direction of this flow back and to meet the educational needs of prospective teachers who are digital natives and international criterion to be an autonomous and successful language teacher. Thus, the European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages (EPOSTL) as a standard self- assessment tool for students in foreign language teacher training departments across Europe was developed in the light of The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and the European Language Portfolio (ELP) by the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe (ECML). In this study it was aimed to transfer this material into an electronic setting so that this digital material will become an electronic portfolio “the E-EPOSTL” and those prospective teachers dealing with digital natives just like themselves can have the opportunity to evaluate themselves whenever and wherever they are online. In this study the procedure for the transfer of the EPOSTL into the E- EPOSTL will be discussed and defined via some visual e-materials.