English Result Upper Intermediate Student.pdf
Vida Hubbert
In the current research, the impacts of portfolio assessment (PA) on the grit tendencies, motivation, and willingness to communicate (WTC) of Saudi Arabian EFL learners were examined. The population of this study was fifty-eight EFL learners who were assigned to two groups in order to accomplish this purpose. Following that, both groups were given the WTC, grit tendencies, and motivation pre-tests to gauge the participants' proficiency in the dependent variables. After that, the students in the control group received the instruction without the use of PA, while the experimental group (EG) received treatment utilizing PA. Following the treatment, the two groups completed the WTC, grit tendencies, and motivation post-tests. The results revealed differences between the two groups' post-test scores, with the EG performing better. These findings imply that teachers can exploit portfolios to provide their students with relevant content that will help them improve their language proficiency.
The objective of PA in teaching is to provide students the ability to reflect on themselves so they may keep track of, evaluate, and do better at their academic performance without having to follow their teachers' instructions (Muin et al., 2021). According to Brown (2004), PA is seen as a continuous process that has attracted a lot of attention, particularly when it comes to communicative language instruction. In contrast to typical exams, portfolios allow students to be evaluated holistically and provide them with the opportunity to expand on their language learning experience. As a result, students can eventually become independent and responsible learners based on the information, abilities, and methods they pick up under their teacher's direction (Reardon, 2017).
The use of PA encourages students to reflect on themselves and gives educators and students insightful feedback. Additionally, it makes it possible to evaluate a wider variety of competencies (Virgin & Bharati, 2020). According to Gamiz-Snchez et al. (2016), a portfolio is a deliberate compilation of student work that demonstrates their attempt, development, and performance in one or more domains. Thus, the fundamental idea behind a portfolio is to empower pupils to get more self-directed students and to assume accountability for their own education. Portfolios are seen as learner-based rather than instructor-based, which is thought to be the major prominent quality of portfolio as a reflective instrument, given that students are taking on more accountability and becoming self-determined in their learning (Boumediene et al., 2016). The use of language portfolios by educators and students is relatively new, having begun in the mid-1990s (Gonzalez, 2008). However, professionals in other fields, like artists, designers, and architects, have been using them for a longer time to gather examples of their work and record their accomplishments.
Using PA can influence grit tendencies of the students. Researchers have become interested in grit because it is a non-cognitive skill that can affect an individual's happiness or success (Wang et al., 2021). Cross (2014) defined grit as the capacity to endure hardships while holding onto a desire for long-term goals. Choi (2020) said that grit encompasses not only an individual's resilience against failure but also their tenacity in achieving a goal through unceasing effort. Based on Duckworth (2016), growth, tenacity, and resilience are the elements of grit. Baquerizo (2018) contended that grit is inconsistent and can result in necessary outcomes through educational and environmental interventions.
L2 grit for learners is an amalgamation of persistence in trying and craving for long-lasting objectives. Research on this construct has shown that it is strongly correlated with other constructs related to teachers and students, which contributes to the success of education (Sudina & Plonsky, 2021; Sudina et al., 2021). L2 grit and its contribution to academic accomplishment and language evaluation are particularly significant since students' success in language acquisition is largely based on their work and desire for long-term objectives (Zheng et al., 2022). As stated by Lan (2022), having high level of grit help people have optimistic attitudes towards their careers. From an alternative viewpoint, the personality attribute of grit enables people to focus their attention and discern between goals that are high- and low-priority (Shirvan & Alamer, 20222022; Vadivel et al., 2021). As important as skill, grit may ensure that students succeed and produce more than their innate or natural capacity (Kolganov et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2021).
The idea of grit, which is referred to a person's willingness to work for a long-term objective, is strongly linked to intrinsic drive. Grit is a key component of student engagement and academic achievement. It is described as enthusiasm and persistence in attaining long-standing purposes (Tang et al., 2019). Therefore, it is presumed that people who not only put in more effort but also like what they do have a greater probability of overcoming potential challenges and producing positive outcomes (Totosy et al., 2021). According to studies, grit and age and educational attainment are strongly correlated. Grit has been demonstrated to be an accurate indicator of improved learning results in the realm of education (Chua et al., 2020).
Since the desire to communicate may result in genuine communication behavior, which increases foreign language competency, MacIntyre and Wang (2021) identified WTC as the primary goal of foreign language acquisition. WTC was first thought to be a stable personality trait that held true over time and in many environmental settings. However, based on Lee et al. (2020), in more recent times, L2 WTC has been described as a situational feature as well as a stable predisposition toward communication. Scholars now think that learners' L2 WTC may be influenced by both external and internal factors, such as social support and intergroup environment, as well as internal factors like L2 motivation and attitude toward L2 (Zhang et al., 2020).
EFL students require an innate motivation to acquire English. Students' motivation is seen to be a fundamental issue in their performance when learning English (Namaziandost et al., 2019). Motivation is closely related to learning activities since it is the center driving force that sustains these activities, gives them direction, and inspires them in order to achieve desired outcomes (Nugraha et al., 2021). According to Purnama et al. (2019), motivation may also be described as a person's behavior direction or as the reason behind a behavior's desire to be repeated. It could have a major role in education. On the other hand, students that receive motivation will be enthusiastic about their studies and will be driven to learn English well (Jaelani et al., 2022).
According to Muslim et al. (2020), integrative and instrumental factors are the two main components of motivation for learning a foreign language. Gardner (2010) defines motivation as the synthesis of both external and internal factors that encourage students to participate in the learning process. Additionally, he stated that pupils' integrative drive reveals their inclination to integrate into a situation including a foreign language (Ter et al., 2019). Additionally, students' positive attitudes regarding the learning environment have an impact on their drive to integrate and their sense of academic fulfillment (Hashemifardnia et al., 2019; Khodadad & Kaur, 2016). Additionally, Pavelescu (2019) made the point that students' integrative motivation is influenced by the zeal, inspiration, and support of their professors. On the other side, instrumental orientation is referred to desire of the students to succeed in learning a foreign language in order to get financial or social rewards. Sallang and Ling (2019) discovered a substantial correlation between instrumental motivation and providing good feedback to students in an educational setting. This is because positive feedback increases students' drive to complete tasks.
Portfolios are physical or electronic dossiers with student-written screenplays. These scripts are carefully chosen and frequently accompanied by a diary of reflection. PA is often regarded as superior to the more prevalent, product-focused standardized examinations in the field of education (Kirkpatrick & Gyem, 2012; Mphahlele, 2022). The benefits of portfolio-based instruction have been the subject of abundant investigations in foreign/second language education. These studies have focused on the positive experiences L2 teachers have had with PA in a variety of contexts (Lee, 2017); the role that PA plays as a mediator in revising works-in-progress; and the impact of the portfolios on L2 learners' independence, social consciousness, self-regulated learning, and metacognitive consciousness (Azizi & Namaziandost, 2023).
In spite of the stated instructional advantages, PA has remained greatly contentious in actual class settings thanks to the rigidity of L2 instructors, low student involvement, insufficient literacy in language assessment, comprehensive and complex grading, and the test-driven (Gan & Lam, 2020) dominant culture in most instructional settings (Lam, 2018). Consequently, there have been several challenges in completely integrating PA in L2 situations, leading Hyland and Hyland (2019) to request further in-depth research on these matters. From a pedagogical perspective, L2 writing is redefined as a metacognitive and recursive activity that includes L2 students in regular reflection on their language improvement via the process-oriented peer evaluation method (Lam, 2020).
Second-language students learn best when they actively generate their knowledge of the target language via social connections rather of merely receiving it, according to Vygotsky's (1987) social constructivism model of learning, which also forms the basis for portfolio-based evaluation. Writing portfolios, for example, helps L2 learners better understand writing as a socially situated practice in academic discourse groups (Duff, 2010). Thus, it may assess the growth of L2 writers' lower-level writing skills, such writing mechanics and punctuations, as well as their higher-level writing skills, like textual and discursive writing (Steen-Utheima & Hopfenbeck, 2018).
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