Research and Practice in Learning Portfolio Adoption on College Writing: A Case Study

The purpose of this study is to report and share an adoption on using learning portfolios in a university setting and writing through portfolio writing samples including personal drafts, peer feedback, teacher feedback, and personal reflections. By adopting the idea of using Learning Portfolio system, this study tries to report that it can be an applicable teaching/learning tool for English language learners (ELLs) in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context to facilitate their writing skills through using portfolio system. Participants were given a Learning Portfolio workshop which indicated how to make an appropriate portfolio and asked to collect their writing drafts, peer feedback, teacher feedback, and personal reflections. Both qualitative and interpretive analyses were conducted for 70 students’ portfolio samples throughout two different semesters. The study revealed that the students’ writing anxiety was reduced as they can check their progress through the collection of their portfolio. Errors of basic sentence structure, subject-verb relationship, and the tense were noticed by the peer feedback and teacher feedback. This study suggests that educators could be aware of, and consider adopting, the Learning Portfolio system in writing class so as to facilitate students’ writing development.