An Investigation on the Use of Portfolio Assessment in Business English Reading Course

【摘要】筆者采用了課堂觀察、問卷調查和訪談的方式，對某高校商務英語專業開設的《商務英語閱讀》課程進行了調查，旨在調查這門課是如何運用檔案袋評價方式的，找出實施過程中的問題。調查后發現，大部分同學對于檔案袋評價的應用持肯定態度，學生們的學習成績，學習興趣等得到提高。同時發現了一些實施的過程中的不足。

【關鍵詞】檔案袋評價；形成性評價；商務英語；商務英語閱讀

【作者簡介】馮霞(1978-)，女，吉林白山人，云南省紅河學院外國語學院講師，碩士，研究方向：外語教學及二語習得。

1. INTRODUCTION

Portfolio assessment can comprehensively evaluate students and cultivate professionals with better social adaptability. Traditional paper-and-pencil test cannot play the function of education assessment very well. It only judges students by their scores. It can only show the selection function of assessment, which hinders the promotion and incentive function of education assessment for students’ development. In the actual business English classroom teaching process, due to the lack of full consideration of the professionalism of business English reading materials and the neglect of detailed explanation and practice of reading strategies, students’ business English reading ability is poor. At present, portfolio assessment is widely used in all kinds of courses. This research investigates the classroom using formative assessment in order to understand how teacher use formative assessment in business English reading course, and puts forward some suggestions based on the results of the survey.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Portfolio assessment, also known as learning folders, refers to the organized display of collected information in order to achieve a certain goal in a certain process. In the late 1980s, Barton and Collins of the Stanford University Teacher Assessment Project made their first attempt to use portfolio assessment in teacher education. However, he did not use portfolio assessment in student learning. Since the 1990s, growth record bags have been widely used in various levels of education, including not only art and English in middle school, but also social and natural sciences in Colleges and universities. Paulson and Meyer (1991) discussed the aims and standards of student learning portfolios. Tierney, Carter, and Desai (1991) illustrated the difference between standardized testing and portfolio assessment, and pointed out that portfolio assessment can fully reflect students’ reading and writing activities compared with traditional assessment methods. Norman E. Gronlund (2003) pointed out that the advantages of portfolio assessment method over traditional assessment method lie in that it enables teacher to better integrate assessment with classroom teaching, encourages students to develop self-assessment skills, takes responsibility for their own learning, and promotes the communication between teacher, parents and other relevant personnel.

3. RESEARCH DESCRIPTION

54 students Business English majors join in the research who are freshmen in the business English course. They were not familiar with portfolio assessment. The author also sent out questionnaires to 54 students and interviewed 5 of them.

The author observed the students’ performance in class, in order to know the operation process of portfolio assessment in class. In the whole process of classroom observation, the author described the whole implementation process of portfolio assessment. The implementation process is as follows.

(1) Grouping students. In the first class, the teacher divided the classes into 10 groups according to the number of students; each group has 5-6 students, in order to facilitate students’ cooperative learning. The contents and requirements of teacher assessment are as follows.

(2) Classroom performance. Students’ classroom performance accounts for 2.5% of the total scores. In order to enable students to express themselves actively in the classroom, the teacher prepared many questions related to the teaching content for students to answer. For example, choosing the best answers, filling in blanks and discussing problems actively. If the students answer questions actively, the teacher will give the students corresponding points according to the established standards; if the students violate classroom discipline in class, the teacher will deduct the students’ scores according to the standards.

(3) Attendance rate. Attendance rate accounts for 2.5% of the total achievement. One absence deducts the usual score of 0.5 points. If a student is absent of class three times, the teacher will refuse the student to take the final exam.

(4) Homework. It accounts for 25% of the total achievement. These include: 1) Students use Ximalaya mobile phone APP or Wechat to find “Xia’s English morning news reading” to complete the voice punch-in from every Monday to Wednesday; Teacher issues punch-in subject in QQ group one day in advance Students enter QQ group and use voice function to send voice into the group. The time is from Monday to Wednesday; On Thursday and Friday, they reissue the contents that they didn’t finish before, and on Saturdays and Sundays without punching card. 2) Students will write at least three news journals in a week in conjunction with the “Xia’s English morning news reading”. 3). Students can choose their favorite English novels, periodicals, folklores, biographies and other English materials as reading materials, according to the report template formulated by the teacher to complete the reading reflection log. The reading content and the length are unlimited; they can choose materials other than business class to expand their reading horizon; 4) Students need to read two pieces of Shanbei news at least two days a week. Starting from the second week, there is no restriction on which day. Students must read at least two articles within a day. Students can add new words into scallop words. Group leader count the results once a month, and give the statistics to teacher. Teacher usually takes random checks. 5) Students can choose all English novels material which are suitable for their reading level and complete reading reports with unlimited content and length. Students will complete two novel readings each semester and discuss and share them in class in the 17th week then hand in the reading report. According to the students’ completion degree and quality, the teacher will give the students’ scores according to the standard.6) The mid-term test accounted for 20% of the total scores. The mid-term examination adopts the form of group report and presentation, which gives students more opportunities to exercise courage and practice oral English.

4. FINDINGS

Through classroom observation, the author finds that students perform well in class. Most students listen carefully in class, take part in classroom learning actively, and interact actively with teacher. They listen attentively to teacher’s lectures in class and take notes of important knowledge points. In the whole teaching process, teacher plays an active role in students’ activities and gives students the opportunity to discuss with other students in class, it strengthens students’ ability to master knowledge. The author finds that students become active participants in learning, and teacher plays an assistant role in this process.

Through the questionnaire survey, students have positive and negative attitudes towards portfolio assessment. They gradually understand the connotation and function of portfolio assessment, which enables them to consciously organize and summarize what they have learned, and classify knowledge modules. Students can more effectively absorb the knowledge they have learned in class and actively participate in the learning of the course. Under the portfolio assessment method, their learning enthusiasm has been improved, while they have increased their knowledge of business English, accumulated vocabulary and improved their reading speed. However, everything has two sides. Some students think that they have too much to learn, which increases their learning load, reduces the learning time of other subjects, and affects the academic performance of other subjects. Some students also think that the problems they encounter in the learning process cannot be timely feedback to teacher, which leads to the problems they encounter cannot even be solved.

Through interview, students think they have learned more knowledge outside the classroom, which broadens their business English knowledge; their reading ability and speed have been improved, and the accumulation of words has been increased. But some students think that this assessment method aggravates their learning tasks, resulting in insufficient learning time, and ultimately, their learning efficiency is not guaranteed. Some students think that teacher should reduce learning tasks appropriately, so that students can better master knowledge on the premise of completing homework.

Under the portfolio assessment method, students’ reading comprehension ability has been improved. It cultivates students’ reading ability. Through the application of portfolio assessment, students’ reading motivation and interest have been improved. In the implementation of portfolio assessment, the role of teacher has changed. Obviously, portfolio assessment plays a key role in promoting the overall development of students’ quality, promoting students’ autonomous learning and improving teacher-student relationship, but it still needs to be improved.

References：

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