The online posting
(My posting: the use of electronic portfolio in English learning)
I believe that it is important to keep a record of our progress as we learn. 'Electronic portfolio (e-portfolio)' is a collection of electronic record that students can keep, usually on the web. They can keep text, electronic file, images, multimedia, etc.
As e-portfolio is like an electronic container that students can store items, it is easier to organise and effective than using a folder with lots of papers. It is not just a collection of items, but also students can review and reflect their learning.
I found it very useful because students can actually see the evidence of achievement as they learn. It can be used as an assessment. Teachers can see student ongoing learning process and check whether they meet an outcome.
They also can provide them advice or help throughout the course via e-portfolio even they are outside of the class.
For example, it will encourage students to find reading resources that they are interested in, and save in E-portfolio. They also can store English pronunciation online exercise so that they can practice at home. Students comments and reflect what they learned in each lessons, and teachers can comment on, or other students can share the opinions. Lots of video, animation or pictures can be stored and used as learning materials students will be motivated in learning. E-portfolio is available on the web (http://elgg.org/index.php, http:www.eportfolios.ac.uk). So if computers are available, it is easy to access and use e-portfolio to improve English teaching/learning in the class. I hope it can be used effectively in many different ways depends on your teaching context.
(Comments on other people)
Yuka, I agree to the problem that you mentioned. Interactive White board is such a amazing tool for English learning, but the first thing I thought was 'how can all teacher be trained to use it effectively?' when I saw IWB for the first time in the class last week. It is possible to have training workshop for teachers at each school, although it will cost money and time. We need trainers who know about how to use IWB well, and more importantly teachers have to know the effectiveness of IWB and become willing to use it. In Japan, probably in most countries, teachers are too busy to have time to have workshop for new teaching method. However when school decided to have IWB, I think it is necessary to have enough teacher training program so that they can use it effectively. It also will take some time for students to get used to using it in the classroom. Even if they are taught how to use IWB, the problems will occur when they actually start using it. So we may have to take some time and money to adopt IWB in English learning. Once teachers and students acquire the skills to use IWB effectively, it is for sure improve their learning in many ways.
Ole, I found it very useful for using i-Tunes for grammar learning in Japanese school context. We have grammar-focused class at every school even at University (depends on levels), which is not always exciting class for students. I once used grammar learning computer resource with lots of interactive activities with attractive and colourful layout when I was in university. Although I had to sit in front of the computer to use that resource, it was much fun because I could learn grammar in more casual way with games, pictures, animation, etc. Now, as you said, we can download a digital file such as 'English Grammar in Use' to iTunes and bring it anywhere. I think one of the big strength of using iTune for grammar learning is portability and easy-access. It also might be able to change their negative impression about grammar learning.
Essay
The use of e-portfolio in English class
Technology has been developed considerably recent years in many areas. In the area of English education, various technologies have been developed to improve English teaching and learning. Different technology is used for different purposes. In this paper, in order to place an importance on student’s learning process rather than their final product in English learning, electronic portfolio (e-portfolio) will be focused on as one of the emerging technology. Its practical use in English classroom will be then presented. My own teaching context also will be related to the use of e-portfolio.
An e-portfolio is ‘a purposeful collection of a student’s work that is made available on the World Wide Web or a recordable CD-ROM’ (Khtani 2010, p.262). It uses an electronic media, word-processing software as well as Web homepage. While traditional portfolio consists of papers and folders, information in e-portfolio can be online text, graphics, videos, sounds, images, or any other multimedia sources.
Recently, e-portfolio is used in English learning classroom for many purposes. It enables learners to easily store and manage students’ work than traditional paper-based portfolio. Throughout the course, they can reflect and review their own work easily. It is also used for teachers to conduct both ongoing and summative assessment, as well as to give a feedback to students. It provides share space with other students so that they can reflect their learning each other. Through these processes, it makes it possible for students to use informal English as they learn academic English. One of the advantages of using portfolio is that it can serve to bridge the gap between formal instruction and informal learning (Jones 2008, p.9). From the theoretical perspective, an e-portfolio is useful for motivating learners. Because they can share their work on the Web, it is more engaging and motivating rather than presenting their work only to teachers. Another factor is that learners can use animation, photo, and videos, and other interesting items. Positive motivation is associated with a willingness to keep learning (Lightbrown and Spada 2006, p.63).
Example of the use of e-portfolio in English learning and teaching will be described in next part.
Kahtani (2010) presents an advantage of using e-portfolio in English learning and teaching writing in particular. He claims advantage of using e-portfolio in English writing teaching and learning. It makes easier for both teachers and students to access electronically and retrieves all the information they need. They also can store all information without having space problems. At the end of the course, students are able to save their work on CD-ROM or a compact disc. Furthermore, having students share the portfolio on the Web makes them to have active attitude toward English writing and they tend to write better because they feel as if their work is published. For example, in essay writing class, e-portfolio can include students’ work, peer response forms, teachers’ comments and feedback, and reading journals as well as other items. In the process of writing, students also can access to relevant information online and save it as a resource. They are able to keep reflecting their writing and record their progresses. Peer response and teachers’ evaluation can be facilitated by e-portfolio using link or mail. They can ask questions or evaluate their work. These evaluations can stay in their own e-portfolio. It is possible to find a journal or hypertext link on the internet and collect such information for students’ writing.
An e-portfolio makes possible to organise a large amount of information they need much easily than traditional portfolio. In the writing process, learners need resources to support their writing. E-portfolio enables students to have their own record of writing process. Moreover it places an importance on the process of the writing including self-reflection, peer-review and teacher’s feedback. Process is essential part of language learning, and e-portfolio can play an important role for focusing on the process in classroom.
As an example of the use of an e-portfolio in English as a foreign language education, Chang, etc. (2005) shows students progress in building learning portfolios in English class from their study. In their study, students at junior-high school in Taiwan were asked to create their own personal e-portfolio that included four elements: homepage recorded speaking, Mother’s day card and diary. Students create their own homepage according to their own interests by using Microsoft Front page, recorded their own voice by reading vocabularies or dialogues from the textbook, designed an electronic Mother’s day card and wrote sentences in English to their mothers, as well as post their diaries written in English on their homepage. Although some of the students show difficulties to write diary and record their speaking, most students’ progress were recorded in this study. Students could record the activities such as English drama and animations for making a card. Additionally they could collect their speaking activities and writing texts by making their own diaries, which enable to reflect their progress throughout the course. Some students commented they increased their motivation toward English learning.
An important point here is that activities were related to the textbook and their pedagogical outcome, which was the project-based learning about festivals that students experienced in their holiday. As technology rarely works without pedagogy (Chen 2010), it is important to keep in mind that pedagogy leads, not a technology. These activities using an e-portfolio were also effective in terms of motivating students. They are able to be more engaged and creative in learning English.
There are several free software packages that learners can use to create an e-portfolio. Elgg (http://elgg.org/) is an example. Elgg is an open source Web application combining elements of web blogging, e-portfolios, and social networking to create their own learning records. It provides a file repository, which allows users to upload and share learning objects in different formats such as photos, audio, animations, and other such kinds of resources (Ammann and Dieu 2005).
An e-portfolio can be used as an assessment. It provides a much clearer ideas of learner’s progress and achievement than test score or grades (Dudeney and Hockly, 2007). It is possible to have formative assessment using students’ own e-portfolio because it collects ongoing learning process. Teachers can assess and review not only students’ final products but also their development process.
The effective use of an e-portfolio has been presented, however it has some disadvantage to be considered. Because e-portfolio is implemented on the web, the paper-based materials cannot be stored. Yet, teachers can combine paper-based activities and online activities, or they can use scanner to scan photos or text document when they needed.
My teaching context is secondary school in Japan, where English is taught as a foreign language. The use of technology in English learning is becoming common and computer has been used in classroom. In terms of practicality, e-portfolio can be adopted easily as long as a classroom has computer and internet access. The purpose of using e-portfolio in English learning and teaching in Japanese context would be motivating students, providing opportunities to use English not only formal situation but also in informal situation. Assessment in my teaching context tends to focus only on students’ products, such as grammar-focused multiple choice, translation, or vocabulary check. These are important part of assessing students’ ability, however there is a need to assess students’ progress. Thus we can use e-portfolio to provide formative assessment in order to place an importance on student learning process. As most secondary school have English textbook, I suggest supporting activities via E-portfolio related to topics in the textbook. For example, it is possible to ask students to collect information bout the topic from Website to create their feedback to the topic. They make a comment in every class about summary of what they learned. It can be similar to diary and will improve students’ writing with teacher’s ongoing support throughout the course. They also can learn text using hypertext which enables students to practice reading relate to the topic.
Effective use of e-portfolio in English learning and teaching has been presented above. Although technology such as e-portfolio makes English learning and teaching more effective, it is important to keep in mind that there should be purposes and pedagogy to use e-portfolio. In my teaching context, it will be beneficial for both of teacher and students because e-portfolio enable them to manage various format of their learning resources, reflect and review their learning process, and conduct authentic assessment. Thus, an e-portfolio would enhance English teaching and learning significantly.
References
Ammann R & Dieu, B 2005, ‘Elgg-A personal learning landscape’, Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language Electronic Journal, vol.9, no. 2, pp. 1-11, accessed 15/09/2010 (http://tesl-ej.org/ej34/m1.pdf).
Chang, Y J, Wu, C T and Ku, H Y 2005, ‘the introduction of electronic portfolios to teach and assess English as a foreign language in Taiwan’, Career and technical education, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 30-35.
Chen, H 2010, EDGT940 ‘Materials and technology in second language teaching’, lecture notes, accessed 15/09/ 2010, eLearning @UOW.
Dudeney, G & Hockly, N 2007, how to teach English with technology, Pearson longman, England.
Jones, G R 2008, ‘emerging technologies web-writing 2.0: enabling, documenting, and assessing writing online’, Language Learning & Technology, vol. 12, no. 2, pp.7-13.
Kahtani, A S 1999, ‘Electronic portfolios in ESL writing: an alternative approach’, Computer Assisted learning, vol.12, no.3, pp.261-268.
Lightbrown, P M & Spada, Nina 2006, How language are learned, Oxford university press, N.Y.
