Multifaceted Benefits of e-Portfolios in ESL Classrooms

This study reports on e-portfolios designed by a teacher in college-level ESL classrooms. The benefits are unique, which traditional paper portfolios cannot afford to bring out. Portfolio evaluations, as Mason and colleagues (2004) point out, are effective instructional tools for creating learner centered instructional activities in that students can take initiatives in determining their performances. Due to the inherent limitation of traditional portfolios in demonstrating listening and speaking performances, neither students nor teachers are able to evaluate these skills properly. To address this drawback, some innovative teachers incorporate audio journals or Internet-based portfolios in their instructional design. More than paper approaches, these new approaches to creating portfolios are more effective in evaluating students’ development of audio-lingual English skills, but they also fall short of fully documenting students’ communicative skills in authentic contexts. E- portfolios, comprised of video clips, sound files, and hyper-linked students’ works, can be a powerful solution since they can afford to present students’ communicational skills in various situations. The author designed simple templates for her students using web-designing software and observed for three semesters how students and teachers utilized them in classrooms. Data drawn from a comparison between e- and paper portfolios indicate distinctive benefits. The instruments yielding this data consist of students’ reflection papers and interviews with both students and teachers. There are four most prominent benefits from using e-portfolios. 1) Students evaluate their performance from multiple perspectives: they seldom separate listening from speaking skills. 2) They use a variety of criteria to evaluate their proficiency, including eye-contact, gesture, and turn-taking. 3) They approach English learning with various learning strategies. Finally, 4) teachers become accurate in assessing students’ oral skills. Recommendations pertaining to instructional designs are provided.