Abstract
This chapter explores the possibilities of electronic portfolio assessment for emergent bilingual or multilingual students in high school classrooms in the United States. In a three-year federally funded program designed to improve academic performance among culturally and linguistically diverse students at an urban high school in Honolulu, Hawaii, the author implemented electronic portfolio assessment (EPA) into academic English and heritage language classrooms in collaboration with curriculum and technology specialists. This chapter delineates how EPA was developed and implemented to enhance the academic and linguistic abilities of adolescent emergent bi/multilingual students while embracing their multifaceted and hybrid identities as heritage language speakers. It also presents both challenges and benefits that teachers and students experienced in the process of EPA. It concludes with suggestions for developing and implementing EPA for English language learners in similar contexts.
TopBackground
This study derives a framework for electronic portfolio assessment from two bodies of literature: portfolio assessment as alternative assessment in language education and a multimedia design process for the development of electronic portfolios. These complimentary processes are both essential for effective EPA development (Barrett, 2007). Understanding how these processes fit together may contribute to the development of electronic portfolios.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Multimodality: A practice in which multiple modes (e.g., visual, textual, spatial, aural) are used for communication.
Critical Language Awareness: An approach to language learning and teaching through the understanding of power and discourse embedded in society.
Electronic Portfolio: Electronic materials, such as text, image, audio, video that are purposefully assembled and managed by a user (usually online).
Heritage Language: A language other than English spoken at home in the United States.
Portfolio Assessment: An assessment of student performance with the use of student-generated artifacts over a sustained period.
Authentic Assessment: A form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-life tasks that demonstrate the application of knowledge and skills.
Emergent Bi/Multilingual Students: Students who use two or more languages at home and in school who may also be learning English for purposes of schooling.