Vol 04 No 3 TESL Reporter

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spring 1971

portfolio prrogrm for teachiing p ogram e a english cmposittio n i op osi mmposii o
A
by CHARLES J FOX and ROBERT TIPPETTS
idea of an artist compiling a portfolio of his best paintings is an old one in the visual arts many of the great masters at some time in their lives carried a collection of their work to prospective patrons or teachers who could then view the tangible very fact that the portfolio was a compilation assembled over a period of time enabled the viewer to see the artists thematic and technical development as well as assess his weaknesses and failings A limited though revealing profile of the mans thoughts and ability was thus assembled for the interested viewer to evaluate
charles J fox is an assistant professor of english at church college he did his doctoral work at purdue university where he was a david ross fellow with the purdue research foundation

the

sixty six were from the US mainland eighty one were local students of mixed
brigham young university and is presently director of freshman english at church college

robert tippetts did

his graduate work at i

documentation of their creative
imaginations

the

CONTENTS
A portfolio program for teaching

english composition by charles J fox and

robert tippetts
TESL curriculum
Is

page

1

the foundation
page 3 page 5
in

what counts
by william D conway

english oral language

by allan D patterson

with the belief that writing is no less an art than its sister genre some of the faculty members at church college proposed last fall that a portfolio program be instigated in the first semester of our composition sequence of two hundred seventy students in the first semester freshman course only

suppllementation of opposites
simple predicate expansion by yao shen

page 7

using a telephone directory to teach english as a second language page 11 by jason B alter

TESL page 2 ethnic backgrounds and the remaining half it were students from samoa tonga the orient the philippines fiji and tahiti concern for the english language ability of this last group provided the immediate stimulus for a more effective method in teaching composition most of these students learn english as a second language and graduate from the english language institute at the college during the rigors of the ELI program the students often acquire considerable proficiency in the spoken

jesi t

reporter
students the second grade especially when it was higher because theoretically it was based solely on the writing in front of them to the exclusion of any personal prejudices of the regular classroom instructor A pragmatic though unhappy benefit of a second reader resulted in the detection of a few cases of that ubiquitous problem of plagiarism in freshman writing

language

encouragement to continue to improve their writing our former freshman english program simply did not provide sufficient incentive for success the portfolio program of last fall however seems to be a partial answer to our needs
was informed at the beginning of the semester that he would prepare a portfolio of eleven essays which would be read first by the regular teacher of the course and then the completed portfolio identified only by a number would be read as a unit by a second faculty member who would grade and comment on the portfolio as a whole this last provision of course proved to be extremely time consuming but its motivational effect on the student was electrifying the teacher now became an ally who was helping the student prepare a showing of his best work rather than just an authoritarian wielder of the red ppencill enci having a second reader proved to be effective too in providing the original teacher with a corroborating opinion of his assessment of the students work this was especially valuable to rather inexperienced special instructors even the older faculty members were gratified with the results because every teacher reported a surprisingly high correlation between his grades and the anonymous readers grade the folios were divided in such a way that each faculty member received four or five essays from each of the other faculty members in a proportion equal to the number of students enrolled in his composition classes since both readers were in general agreement on grades students tended to regard the whole grading process as more objective most teachers showed no hesitancy in allowing the students to see both grades and read the comments of the second grader in an ir u vi i u a ni dLdivddual conference at the end of the semester in fact many teachers gave the

but usually reqliirre further u te

this article was written in response to the invitation issued in the fal 1970 issue of fai TESL reporter for teachers to share with us
successful plans for teaching specific english skills

each student

first essay was placed in the portfolio unrevised as an indicator of the students writing ability at the beginning of the course this initial essay was followed by two description two narration two definition two comparison and contrast and two persuasion essays with the tenth essay written outside the class the eleventh written in class both unrevised by the help of the teachers comments the first essay and last two essays thus represented what the student could do on his own both in and out of the classroom the student could revise the remaining eight essays as many times as he desired before they were placed in the portfolio this facet of the plan was perhaps the most valuable to the student again the teacher served as a consultant who was available in weekly conferences to help the student revise his work we found that second language students respond to sU ggesttiion and direction much more readily u ges o in a private discussion of their writing than they do in the classroom our plans for next fall are to publish the best student essays in a booklet that will serve as models for next

the

composition courses on the writing and not on the reading of great ideas or the quickie humanities course approach this is not to say however that suitable readings cannot be used to stimulate thinking about theme topics but writing is the essential goal of the portfolio program writing that is hopefully prepared with the seriousness and pride that a sincere artist would use to prepare a work of art

years students above all the portfolio program unified the efforts of the department and put the emphasis back where it belongs in