Using portfolio as a tool of assessment to improve 10th graders’ reading comprehension at Nong Cong 1 high school

PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study
Assessment plays a crucial part in any educational processes that have advantageous impact on learning and teaching. Along with the recent developments in science, society and educational measurements, instructional and assessment practices become “holistic, student centered, performance based, process oriented, integrated and multidimensional” Gottlieb [4; p.12]. This is accounted for by the concerns to the traditional assessments, which typically fail to assess higher order cognitive skills and other skills essential for functioning in school Haney & Madaus [6; p.28]. In addition, the traditional methods such as tests are seen as particularly irrelevant to learning process “as dark clouds hanging over learner’s heads, upsetting them with thunderous anxiety” Brown [1; p.373]. 
In the context of teaching and learning English as foreign language in Viet Nam, reading comprehension seems to be one of the most important and useful activities, especially for the students of English at high schools to prepare for the National Entrance Examination. Of the four language skills, reading has always received a great deal of attention, which is emphasized by Carrel [2; p.1] that “For many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second teaching of foreign language”. However, teachers of English in Vietnam have a tremendous obstacle to get students enthusiastic about reading texts. Through classroom observations and real teaching context, it reveals that students often feel scared when doing long reading tasks with unfamiliar words. They find it difficult to catch the main ideas of the text, to distinguish facts and details, and to retain information longer. Therefore, they often fail to catch the author’s thought. From this fact, as a teacher of English at a high school, I myself think it is essential to find something new to improve my students’ reading comprehension level so that they can improve their reading comprehension. As a result, I decided to carry out the study entitled: “Using portfolio as a tool of assessment to improve 10th graders’ reading comprehension at Nong Cong 1 high school”. 
2. Purpose of the study and research questions
This study is aimed at gaining an insightful look into the uses of portfolio assessment with a view to improving students, reading skill at Nong Cong 1 high school. 
 	The aims are specified in two research questions:
(1) What are students’ perceptions about portfolio assessment?
(2) To what extent does portfolio assessment enhance student’s reading comprehension ability?
3. Scope of the study
As the title suggests, the study was carried out on a group of forty 10th graders from class called 10C1 at Nong Cong 1 high school to examine the effectiveness of applying portfolio as a tool of assessment in reading comprehension.
4. Methods of the study
This study using qualitative and quantitative research method aimed to determine whether portfolio assessment can enhance students’ comprehension skills or have a positive affect on the ability of students to make sense of what they read. The author used data collection instrument to gather information about the students involved, monitor the progress of the students when they used graphic organizers throughout the research, and determine the effectiveness of the portfolio using based on the students’ reflection and the pre-test, post-test result 
The pre-tests were necessary to assess the reading comprehension level and skill the students possessed before the intervention of the strategy and used as a baseline score. The post-tests were used to determine the effectiveness of the strategy used by the students during the experiment process by comparing the pre-test scores to the posttest scores taken at the end of the study. The students’ reflection was also a reliable data for the teacher to conclude the hypothesis.
PART 2: DEVELOPMENT
2.1. Literature Review
2.1.1. Reading skill
Reading is known as an interactive process that connected the reader with the text, making comprehension. The text displays letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that express meaning. The reader manipulates knowledge, skills, and strategies to decide what that meaning is. Up to now reading has been described differently by lots of academics.
Harmer [7; p.153] shares his ideas “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain. The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages”. Clearly, ideas of reading have been diverse in exploiting words and expressions but they all focus on two actions: studying with eyes and comprehending with brains of which the latter is more significant. The most obvious thing in the latter is that the readers not only look at and understand the meaning of what is written but also read authors’ thinking.
 2.1.2. Reading comprehension 
 	Many studies confirm that the final goal of reading instruction is comprehension and one of the most important goals of skilled reading is decoding and understanding written text. However, the decoding and the ability to recognize words in texts are only the beginning stages of reading and reading comprehension. Grellet [5; p.3] states that “understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible.” He also shows the examples in which a good reader will omit unnecessary information and find out what he or she is searching for. 
In another word, reading comprehension can be defined as “a fluent process of readers combining information from a text and their own background knowledge to build meaning. Reading becomes meaningless without comprehension since only reading comprehension can appreciate how much readers get the text. Therefore, how to aid students in having efficient reading comprehension methods is considered to be the most powerful task in teaching reading. 
2.1.3. Assessment classification
In the words of the worldwide leading methodological researchers there have been two general assessment approaches from which teachers can choose The first type, traditional assessment, refers to assessment that “attempts to measure an individual’s achievement or aptitude through standardized and classroom achievement tests with most closed – ended items such as true/false, multiple choice and fill – in – the blanks” 
Heaton [8; p.5] advocates his point of view that “language testing is a form of measurement. It is so closely related to teaching that we cannot work in testing without being constantly concerned with teaching”. Another reason for teachers, schools and assessment organization to utilize multiple - choice tests is that they are fast, easy and economical to score. Besides, they are scored objectively, which may give the test appearance of being fairer than subjectively scored tests 
On the other hand, alternative assessments value higher - order critical thinking skills because learners have opportunity to demonstrate what they learned. Furthermore, this type of assessment tools focuses on the growth and performance of students over the time. If a learner fails to perform a given task at a particular time, s/he still has chance to demonstrate his/her ability at a different time and situation. In addition, alternative assessments provide learners opportunities to practice authentic activities they might encounter in real life. As this type of assessment evaluates the learning process over time and in context, teachers have chance to measure the strengths and weaknesses of students as well as get further insights into students’ knowledge and skills. 
2.1.4. Definition of portfolio and classification
De Fina [3; p.13] states that portfolios are systematic, purposeful, and meaningful collections of students’ working in one or more subject areas. 
Some other definitions share two common points. Firstly, portfolio is a collection or selection of samples of student work. Secondly, these samples are selected purposely in a way that they can reveal students’ learning progress over a period of time.
There are different ways to categorize portfolios. In the narrow scale of my study, however, only Venn’ view has been mentioned.
According to Venn [11; p.533] portfolios have been grouped into two types: product portfolio and process portfolio. The product portfolio is used to document accomplishment while the process portfolio documents the stages of learning and provides a progressive record of student’s growth. In general, teachers prefer to use process portfolios because they are ideal for documenting the stages that students go through as they learn and progress. 
To sum up, different types of portfolio serve different purposes. Based on the aim of the instruction, teacher can select a proper type and apply it. This study examined the progress students’ reading comprehension ability when using portfolio as an assessment tool; therefore, the kind of portfolio used in this research is process portfolio. 
2.1.5. Portfolio Assessment
	It is widely believed that portfolio can help students successfully organize and integrate newly acquired knowledge. Many language teaching practitioners have applied portfolios as a tool of assessment in a variety of classroom learning environments due to a need for more equitable and authentic assessment that goes beyond traditional testing. English teachers have also used portfolios to evaluate and enhance student’s learning. As the use of portfolios may encourage students to take more initiative and control of learning and to reflect on their learning freely and as creatively as they can, portfolio can be a useful tool for fostering learner autonomy Portfolio has thus become a popular trend of assessment in recent years. 
2.2. Research context
2.2.1. Setting and participants
This study was conducted in 12 weeks from October 2017 to December 2017 in class 10C1 at Nong Cong 1 high school in rural area of Thanh Hoa province.
Forty tenth graders involved in the study. They mainly came from the countryside. In general, they had learnt English for over 7 years. However, their proficiency is not satisfactory enough, and their learning style is quite passive. In addition, they hardly acquired any effective skills in reading, especially with long and complicated texts. In their opinion, learning English means getting grammar and structures with common lexical resources. As a result, they were almost beginners in reading comprehension as a high school student. 
After one month studying at my school, their language skills regarding listening, speaking, reading and writing had improved a little bit. In term of reading skills, the students had been accustomed to basic reading skills like reading for main ideas, reading for specific information, recognizing the reading structure. 
2.2.2. Textbook and Reading materials
The reading materials used in the study consisted of selected texts from new English Textbook 10 (learner-centered and communicative approach with theme-based teaching) published by Education Publishing House and Pearson. In the textbook, there are 10 units with diverse topics related to 4 themes: Our lives, Our society, Our environment, Our future. 5 sections were included in one unit namely: Getting started, Language, Skills, Communication and Culture, Looking back and Project. There are some samples based on the new English textbook for grade 10 in which such common organizers are appropriately applied. It is hoped that English teachers will have a better insight into using portfolio as an assessment tool and become confident to integrate these effective tools into their reading comprehension practice. The study was conducted when the participants were in the first semester when they already had had knowledge about basic structures as well as vocabulary in textbook in lower secondary level. Therefore, the author found that it matched with the objectives of the learning program and students’ levels of competence. 
2.2.3. The reality of teaching and learning reading skill at Nong Cong 1 high school
	As mentioned above, reading skill in new Tieng Anh 10 is the third of eight lessons that make up of one unit in the textbook. Reading lesson admittedly provides language inputs such as vocabulary, structures as well as knowledge background related to the lesson topic. The students in our school, however, have been facing numerous challenges in reading lesson because of their poor source of vocabulary, structures. Some get bored with long reading tasks, others don’t know how to activate their language capacity to comprehend the reading passage. In addition, most of them have difficulty getting general ideas, specific information, paraphrase the meaning of the words in order to successfully explore the reading text to tackle assigned reading tasks. The language of reading texts in this semester is not very complicated. The comprehension questions after each text not only check students’ understanding of the text but also provide them with background knowledge about the world and complex language structures and vocabulary.
Of all reading skills targeted in new English 10, 3 skills were sorted out as major skills in this paper. They are:
Finding main ideas
Reading for specific information
Understanding vocabulary from context
In my view, the three skills were chosen as main skills in the course for two reasons. First, they are among the most common reading skills. Second, from the researcher’s experience, these skills, especially understanding vocabulary from context and making inference are perceived as difficult to students. 
2.3. Stages of the study
2.3.1. Instructional Procedure
At the beginning of the instruction, I familiarized the students with portfolio how to use them to assess their reading process (see steps presented below). The students were also instructed to use and present what they did in their portfolio for different types of reading passages. 
2.3.2. The Pre-test and Post-test Model
Post-test is measurement of the outcome in both groups after the experimental groups have received the treatment while pre-tests measure the student performance prior to the experimental intervention. A pre--test was administered to both experiment and control groups to ascertain the standard of the students in reading comprehension. The pre-test scores of both groups were recorded. The test material was designed based on the scope of the study. It was made up of 2 passages, totaling 20 questions which can be classified into four types of reading questions (1) Identifying the main idea, (2) finding the supporting details, (3) understanding vocabulary, and (4) making inferences. Out of 20 questions, there were 5 main idea questions, 5 supporting detail questions, 5 vocabulary questions, and 5 inference questions. Each question was worth 1 mark and the sum total of the test was 20 calculated over 100 marks.
Before administering the pre-test, it was important for the researcher to examine whether the proficiency level of the students in both the experimental and controlled groups are the same or different. In the first session of the experiment, a pre-test was given to all the participants in the two groups. The result of the pre-test proved that the comprehension skills of both the groups were on the same level
2.3.3. Portfolio assessment procedure
Step 1: Planning portfolio assessment
This is the initial and crucial step because it affects the success of the portfolio project. There were four sub-steps in planning portfolio assessment: setting assessment purpose, specifying the content of the portfolio, establishing criteria for assessment and planning classroom procedures.
The first sub - step was setting assessment purpose in Table 1 below. This project was designed to help students develop five targeted reading skills, which were reading for main ideas, reading for specific information, understanding vocabulary from context and making inferences. Besides, the self – assessment skills, self – study and active learning of students were encouraged. Through finding materials, the ability of material searching skills was expected to develop as well.
The second sub-step was determining the portfolio content (See Table 1 below). In this step, what to put in the portfolio and how to organize the information were decided. The portfolio contents included five portfolio entries of targeted reading skills in the second semester. Normally, each portfolio entry had to contain (1) one sample of student’s work, (2) two samples of their friends’ work (reading exercises) and (3) two types of assessment: student’s reflection and teacher’s assessment. A students’ final feedback indicating their reactions towards the whole portfolio project and advantages and disadvantages of portfolio assessment was attached with five portfolio entries before being submitted to the teacher.
DESIGN OF PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT
Portfolio purposes 
To equip students with background knowledge on the following reading skills 
Reading for main ideas 
Reading for specific information 
Understanding vocabulary from context 
Making inferences 
To develop those reading skills 
To develop self-assessment skills
To encourage self-study and active learning 
To encourage material searching skills 
II. Portfolio contents
Each portfolio entry should consist of the following items:
A reading exercise collected by the portfolio owner 
Two reading exercises from two friends 
A reflection per two weeks
Teacher’s assessment 
Portfolio procedures 
collect reading materials 
bring to class for sharing with friends and group discussion
write reflection at home 
discuss with teacher
IV. Portfolio assessment
Self-assessment 
Teacher’s assessment 
Table 1: Design of portfolio assessment
The next step is establishing criteria for assessment by which students’ portfolios would be assessed. In this project, there were two types of assessment used to evaluate each portfolio entry: student’s reflection and teacher’s assessment with the help of portfolio rating scale in Table 2.
PORTFOLIO RATING SCALE
Insufficient
(level 1)
Sufficient
(level 2)
Proficient
(level 3)
Excellent
(level 4)
Your grade
CONTENT
Portfolio collection includes
less than 50% of:
- Student’s reading
exercises
- Peers’ reading
exercises
- Personal reflections
- Teacher assessments
Portfolio collection includes
more than 70% of:
- Student’s reading
exercises
- Peers’ reading
exercises
- Personal reflections
- Teacher assessments
Portfolio collection includes more than 80% of:
- Student’s reading
exercises
- Peers’ reading
exercises
- Personal reflections
- Teacher assessments
Portfolio collection includes more than 90% of:
- Student’s reading
exercises
- Peers’ reading
exercises
- Personal reflections
- Teacher assessments
QUALITY
- Students can’t do peers’ reading
exercises
- Reflections show little evidence of
learning
- Reflections do not show an awareness of
student strengths and
weaknesses
- Portfolios do not show improvements
in targeted reading
skills
- Students can do peers’ reading
exercises with some
difficulty
- Reflections show some evidence of
learning
- Reflections show some awareness of
student strengths and
weaknesses
- Portfolios show some
improvements in targeted reading
skills
- Students can do peers’ reading
exercises rather well
- Reflections show adequate evidence of
learning
- Reflections show an
awareness of student
strengths and
weaknesses
- Portfolios show good
improvements in targeted reading
skills
Students can do peers’ reading
exercises very easily
- Reflections show a lot evidence of
learning
- Reflections show full
awareness of student
strengths and
weaknesses
- Portfol