Portfolio assessment of EFL writing ability

Constructivism brought about new dimensions in language teaching and assessment, one of which was alternatives in assessment. Portfolio as one of the most important types of alternative assessment has been called upon recently in foreign language education. The present study aimed investigating the effect of developing portfolios in university essay writing classes on writing performance of the students. To this end 94 junior English Literature students participated in two experimental and control groups of the study and follow a pre-test, treatment, post-test design. The results of ANCOVA analysis revealed the outperformance of the portfolio group over conventional group in essay writing ability. This important finding can have immediate pedagogical implications for language teachers, testers, learners, and curriculum developers.