İngilizceyi Yabancı Dil Olarak Öğrenen Öğrencilerin ve Öğretmenlerin Portfolyo Hakkındaki Algıları: Bir Polis Hırsız Kovalamacası

Alternatif değerlendirmenin önemi, İngiliz dili eğitimine hem teori, hem de pratik anlamda en son katkısağlayan etmenlerden biri olarak kabul görmesine ve portfolyo bazlıdeğerlendirme biçiminin dil eğitimi veren çoğu okullarda bulunmasına rağmen, Türkiye’de dil eğitimi veren okullarda çalışan öğretmenlerin ve bu sisteme tabi tutulan öğrencilerin görüşleri hakkında yeterli derecede araştırma yapılmamıştır. Bu çalışma, İstanbul’daki özel bir Üniversitede çalışan okutmanların ve portfolyo yapan öğrencilerin algılarınıve seçilen, toplanan, değerlendirilen portfolyo sisteminin İngilizce öğreniminde ne derecede etkili olduğunu ortaya koymaktadır. Çalışma ilk önce portfolyonun içeriğini, portfolyonun nasıl uygulandığınıanlatacak ve daha sonra portfolyo sisteminin avantajlarıve dezavantajlarıhakkında hem öğretmenler, hem de öğrencilerin düşüncelerine odaklanacaktır. Ayrıca bu kadar etkili bir değerlendirme metodunun nasıl polis-hırsız kovalamacasına dönüştüğünü gösterecektir. Anketler, günlükler, alan notlarıve röportajlar gibi birçok bilgi toplama aracının kullanılmasıile elde edilen sonuçlar, genel tahlilde 6 ana konu olarak gözlemlenmişve bu çalışmada açıklanmıştır. Bunlar a öğrencilerin zaman kısıtlılığı, b not verme siteminin nesnelliği, c öğretmen ve öğrenciler arasındaki güvensizlik, d eğitici seminer ve konferanslara duyulan ihtiyaç, e dosyaların hantallığıve f portfolyo içeriğinin belirlenmesinde öğretmenlerin rolü olarak sıralanmıştır. Sonuç olarak, bu çalışma Türkiye’de portfolyo sistemini uygulayan dil eğitimi kurumlarına ve öğretmenlere bir dizi öneri de verecektir.

Though the importance of alternative assessment has been acknowledged and regarded as one of the latest contributions to the field of ELT both in theory and in practice, and though portfolio based assessment is ubiquitous in a plenty of language teaching organizations hereafter LTOs , it is clear that hardly any study has been implemented on teachers and students’ perceptions on portfolio assessment in LTOs in Turkey. The fact that the importance of portfolio based assessment is growing exponentially in the last decades has made such an assessment type be fairly common and many language schools and universities employ it all over the world. Portfolio per se is admitted to have a variety of advantages that should be taken into consideration in developing LTOs’ curriculum. In addition to the known standardized and high stakes tests, portfolio based assessment has also started to control the assessment system in schools. Further, the usage of portfolio simultaneously with the standardized tests in the schools has justified that it enhances motivation, engenders individualized and collaborative learning, and inculcates a sense of responsibility and that it lets new ideas germinate in language learners’ mind. As a direct consequence of this, it is not unusual to see that portfolio has become an important assessment tool in LTOs and that a large number of teachers and students have been thinking it as the sine qua non of a successful assessment and using it in their classrooms. The annals of portfolio are replete with already developed fundamental precepts that help improve the negative and outdated sides of portfolio, with which both teachers and students have beset. Additionally, to make vague definitions of portfolio system much more understandable and to underpin the underlying rationale for ensconcing such a noteworthy system in LTOs’ curriculum, many researchers has defined portfolio broadly. However, the universally espoused definition of portfolio epitomizing it is that it is ‘a purposeful collection of examples of learning collected over a period of time’ Segers, Gijbels, & Thurlings, 2008; 36 . On the other hand, multiple-choice tests may sometimes pose a real risk of adversely representing the activities that teachers fulfill in classes. This situation can lead these tests’ face or content validity to suffer. Over all, standardized tests are one-shot tests and do not help predict well learners’ future success. Rather, they present us a fragmentary picture of the process that students have been going through. These concerns and limitations of standardized tests have made them be obsolete in schools. Nevertheless, a lot of LTOs, today, have still been implementing merely standardized tests in their systems, let alone using portfolio based assessment concurrently. In order to improve performance based assessment and let it filter into schools’ systems, a great number of studies have been carried out over the past decades. Although much has already been learned about portfolio based assessment to date, so much more lies undiscovered. And untouched much is the changing perceptions of teachers and students and the extent to which LTOs give importance and emphasis. The present study shows the perceptions of teachers and students and reveals to what extent portfolio – which is selected, collected, evaluated at a University preparatory school in İstanbul, Turkey – is effective in learning English. What’s more, the study will also indicate the underlying notion of portfolio held in the school, setting, sampling, data collection instruments and data analysis in detail, whereby operationalization of the same system in other LTOs will be less convoluted; but rather, more applicable. The research will first present the content of portfolio, move on to how the portfolio system is conducted at the preparatory school, and then focus on teachers and students’ opinions about the pros and cons of portfolio. It will, additionally, display how such an affective assessment method has been transformed into A Cops and Robbers Chase. This study will also reveal how impractically planned portfolio based assessment has placed the curriculum into a conundrum. The pursuit taking place between teachers and students has strongly proved that an incoherent and disorganized alternative assessment tool may progressively reduce students’ enthusiasm and enervate portfolio’s authenticity and tendency to promote autonomy of learners. The findings were collected through an array of data collection instruments, such as interviews, observations, diaries, field notes, and questionnaires. The interviews were in the form of semi-structured format with several questions, which also directed the researcher to probe into new questions. In other words, other than the formerly prepared questions in the semi-structured interview, both the researcher and the participants delved into new ideas during the interview. Observations occurred on portfolio days. While observing the students in the school corridors and classes, the researcher kept diaries and field notes. Data collected through these instruments further shed light on the results of the study. The fastidiously kept diaries and field notes provided the researcher to collect genuinely useful data. The observations were performed in a non-participant atmosphere, so that the data collection process operated in a normal way and the research gathered data unobtrusively. The researcher randomly entered into the portfolio classes and asked students to explain what they were thinking about portfolio based assessment and how much time they were allocating for portfolio sessions held every week. The data coming through the abovementioned instruments were coded under several main themes and united with the data collected through the questionnaires – two questionnaires were distributed to both the teachers, in English, and the students, in their mother tongue. Descriptive statistics were carried out to explore responses of the participants and in the main analysis; six main themes were found out and imparted in the study. These findings were juxtaposed as a ‘time urgency’ of the learners, b the objectivity of scoring system and c distrust between teachers and students, d the need for training seminars and conferences, e the carrying of bulky materials, and f the teachers’ role in determining the content of portfolio. Last but not least, the study will also provide a series of suggestions not just to the LTOs, which will possibly perform portfolio based assessment in their curriculum, but also to teachers in Turkey. On condition that the underlined findings and suggestions are taken into account by the LTOs, it is not untenable to predict portfolio based assessment will be a panacea for all language learners’ problems.