Chapter One Introduction
This thesis focuses on the feasibility and effectiveness of portfolio assessment inEnglish writing instruction in senior high school with the purpose of offering a neweffective tool to promote the teaching of English writing. The background, purpose,significance and the overall structure of this study are included in this chapter.
1.1 The background of this study
English becomes a mighty means of communication in the world in recent years, andit also plays a crucial part in today’ s society. More and more teachers, to a large degree,are aware of the importance of English writing. As one of the four basic skills of Englishlearning, English writing can directly show learners’ English proficiency and is oftenconsidered to measure learner’ s English comprehensive capability. English writing, to acertain extent, is regarded as the most indispensable and difficult skill for English ForeignLanguage learners. Therefore, writing instruction plays an indispensable part of Englisheducation in senior high school because writing ability is crucial to one’sability of applying language. Nevertheless, the current situation of English writinginstruction is exceedingly frustrating.The following problems incline to exist in senior high school English writing teaching.As for students, some of them cannot meet the basic requirements of writing in the NewEnglish Curriculum Standard in senior high school. Many students not only lack sufficientinterest, but also are fearful and anxious universally in writing. Because of the lack ofinterest in writing, students have a lack of writing strategies and are afraid to write. So thewriting is at a low level. As for teachers, on the one hand, in the limited teaching time,most of the teachers are more willing to put time and energy in the teaching of basicknowledge, such as grammar and vocabulary, rather than writing. On the other hand, thereare some problems with teaching method. The whole process of teaching pays lots ofattention to the teaching of writing knowledge, and it remains teacher-centered instead ofstudent-centered. Owing to the fact that there is few interaction between students andteachers in the writing class, hence, students do not energetically take part in writing.
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1.2 The purpose and significance of this study
This study bases on the theories of constructivism, multiple intelligence andhumanism, attempts to apply portfolio assessment to senior high school English writingteaching. The new curriculum standard of senior high school English promotes the changeof traditional evaluation methods, which emphasizes that teachers should use theevaluation system of integrating formative assessment into summative assessment, with thesame attention to the treatment of learning results and learning process, so that theevaluation can diagnose and promote the students learning, give full play to the role ofevaluation of the learning guidance and feedback. Portfolio assessment, as one of the mostpowerful tools for formative assessment, can improve the students’ learning activities andteachers’ teaching activities. Therefore, based on the present situation of the writingteaching in senior high school, in this thesis, portfolio assessment will be used in theEnglish writing teaching in senior high school, so as to test the effect of portfolioassessment method in students’ writing strategies, self-reflection ability and writingproficiency.It is necessary to change the function of assessment, with the development of thecurriculum reform in our country. Teachers should study how to take advantages of theassessment to facilitate the progress of students. However, the traditional assessment is stillutilized by most schools in our country. Tests are used to make an evaluation, and the score,as the only criteria, is used to evaluate the performance of students’ learning.
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Chapter Two Literature review
In this chapter, first, the author introduces the formative assessment. Moreover, theaut
