The Effect of Portfolio on Foreign Language Speaking Skills of 60-72-Month-Old Preschool Children

Abstract

From the past to the present, people have used language as a tool for understanding. They conveyed their feelings, wishes, and expectations to other people through language. This ability to transmit has facilitated the lives of people and, therefore, everyone. The desire of the communities to interact and communicate with other societies revealed foreign language learning behaviour. Today, all countries have set a goal of learning at least one foreign language in their education programs. In this context, it is increasingly vital to start foreign language education at an early age. This study was conducted to examine the effect of portfolio use on foreign language speaking skills of children attending preschool education. One group pre-test and post-test design without a control group, which is one of the pre-experimental designs without a control group, was used in the research. The study sample consisted of 25 children (14 boys and 11 girls) attending preschool education in a private school affiliated to the Directorate of National Education in Kütahya in the 2016-2017 academic year. In the collection of data, the portfolio developed and applied by the researcher was used. The Wilcoxon signed rankings test was performed in the data analysis to determine the difference between each section’s pre-test and post-test scores. According to the study results, it was concluded that using a portfolio had a positive effect on children’s speaking skills of this age. As a result of this effect, it was found that there was a significant increase in speaking skills both in the target foreign language and in their family language.