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Portfolios All your ever wanted to know about portfolios and never dared ask . . . Five easy pieces: 5 wh-questions, then 5 do's and don'ts. What is a portfolio? A listening/speaking portfolio is an individual record of a variety of listening and speaking activities which students carry out outside class time throughout the semester. Who is involved? First and second year English majors (1LCE, 2LCE) are required to prepare a listening/speaking portfolio. Both regular students (étudiants assidus) and off-campus students (étudiants non-assidus) prepare portfolios. Why prepare a portfolio? For the student: it provides a stimulus and a framework for oral work outside class. By doing regular and relevant exercises in listening and speaking, your proficiency will improve. This is obviously particularly important for off-campus students. For the teacher: it provides a basis for class work and insights into students’ interests and abilities. By having students choose topics and activities, we hope to make our classes more relevant to their needs and more conducive to active participation! For the examiner: it provides a resource for the oral exam, providing topics which candidates are knowledgeable about, which they are interested in, and which they have practised talking about. It gives students the opportunity to display their oral proficiency to best effect. How should I go about preparing a portfolio? Consult the specific portfolio requirements here: current 1LCE programme or current 2LCE programme. Remember that the listening/speaking activities suggested can only be as interesting/useful/challenging as you make them; you are encouraged to treat these requirements as a minimal framework – do more and better, and bring in your own ideas! Make sure you run new suggestions by your teachers to get their approval before you begin. When will my portfolio be evaluated? During the semester, students present items from their portfolios in speaking classes. Teachers may also ask to see your write-ups periodically, e.g., once a month. Towards the end of the semester, students turn in their completed portfolios for evaluation. Although speaking grades are awarded mainly on the basis of students’ oral proficiency (see speaking evaluation), portfolio work is also taken into account. In the end-of-semester oral exam, the portfolio forms the basis of the interview, and students are asked to describe and evaluate the activities which they carried out. Once again, although the main evaluation criterion is oral proficiency (see speaking evaluation), students with good portfolios should outperform others: having done useful activities should boost your proficiency, and talking about something you are knowledgeable and enthusiastic about gives you a better chance of performing well in the exam. Do’s
and don’ts for portfolios
DO 1. Choose activities that motivate you, rather than topics that you think are suitably academic or, conversely, easy to handle. 2. Pay attention to the listening and speaking component of the exercise: the language has to be about something, of course, but our focus is on the spoken language. 3. Think about how to present your work both in class and in the exam, and practice doing so. Be ready to explain clearly what you did, give a succinct summary of your topic, and describe your reactions to the exercise. 4. Treat the portfolio guidelines for your class as minimum requirements. You must do what you are asked, but you can also do more. This could mean doing more exercises, or doing more work on each. If you are really motivated about improving English, then these exercises are the best thing you can do to help your proficiency. 5. Type your work neatly and include a contents page. Keep a copy for yourself when you turn the final product in to your teacher. DON’T 1. Don’t put your heart and soul into formatting your portfolio: the activities themselves and your reaction to them are what are important, not the font and the laserprinting. 2. Don’t expect to be examined on the details of topics in your portfolio; while you should be able to converse easily on these topics, specific dates and figures are not the point of the exercise. 3. Don’t learn passages by heart to recite in class or the exam: this is not your spontaneous spoken English and we will interrupt you. 4. Don’t procrastinate. If you leave these exercises to the last minute, you won’t get the benefit of regular practice. Remember the hare and the tortoise! 5. Don’t include huge downloads of information from the internet; it just wastes everyone’s time. Use the net for more useful activities – see our links.
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