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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
NGUYỄN QUỲNH HOA
USING PORTFOLIO IN TEACHING READING SKILL TO
SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT
UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS –
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

(Vận dụng hồ sơ bài tập vào việc giảng dạy kỹ năng đọc cho
sinh viên năm thứ hai không chuyên Tiếng Anh tại trường Đại
học Kinh tế - Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội) M.A. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Cohort: MA 16
M.A. Minor Programme Thesis
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Cohort: MA 16
Supervisor: Đinh Hải Yến, M.Ed HANOI, 2010 6
TABLE OF CONTENTS

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ………………………………….
i
ACKNOWLEDMENTS ……………………………………………………….
ii
ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………….
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ……………………………………………………
iv
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES …………………………………………
vi
PART I: INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………

1.2.2. Types of portfolio ………………………………………………………………
8
1.2.3. Characteristics of portfolio ……………………………………………………
9
1.3. Using portfolio in teaching reading skills ………………………………
10
1.3.1. Portfolio in practice ……………………………………………………………
10
1.3.2. Typical gains of using portfolio in teaching reading skill ………………….
11
1.3.3. Typical pitfalls of using portfolio in teaching reading skill ………………
13
Chapter 2: Methodology ……………………………………………………….
15
2.1. The course ………………………………………………………………….
15
2.2. Participants ………………………………………………………………
16

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2.3. Research questions and data collection instruments ……………………
16
2.3.1. Survey questionnaires …………………………………………………………
16
2.3.1.1. Pre-portfolio questionnaire …………………………………………………
16
2.3.1.2. Post-portfolio questionnaire ………………………………………………….
17
2.3.2. Portfolio experiment ……………………………………………………………
17

REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………
42
APPENDIX 1: PRE-PORTFOLIO QUESTIONNAIRE ………
I
APPENDIX 2: PORTFOLIO INSTRUCTION ………………….
III
APPENDIX 3: TEACHER’S HANDOUTS ……………………
VII
APPENDIX 4: STUDENTS’ READING ENTRIES ……………………
XXXI
APPENDIX 5: PORTFOLIO COVER PAGE ………………….
XXXVII 8
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table

Table 2.1. Criteria to assess students’ reading portfolio ………………………
20
Table 2.2. Introduced reading subskills and corresponding reading tasks …….
22
Figure

Figure 3.1. The participants’ frequency of reading in English ………………….

shortcomings of traditional learning and testing, in which learning is only conceived as the
accumulation of stimulus-response association. Moreover, most testing systems used in
Vietnamese universities consist of only written tests, and mainly focus on checking
students‟ memorization of rules or concrete items of knowledge rather than assessing their
effort, real understanding or ability to apply knowledge in real situations. Meanwhile, the
modern society and the labour market are requiring graduates to have higher-order
cognitive skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, analyzing data, and being able to
present facts and opinions orally or in written form (Dochy, 2001; as cited in Birgin &
Baki, 2007). Those are practical skills that help employees fulfill their increasingly
demanding jobs in a competitive environment. In short, there seems to be a gap between
what the society requires and what the educational system offers.
To bridge the gap mentioned above, it is necessary for university education to provide
learners with realistic knowledge and practical skills. Moreover, assessment is required to
measure both on-going efforts and learning outcomes. More importantly, training students
to be active and independent learners should be the ultimate educational aim. In order to do
so, the only way is letting students take responsibility for their own learning, design their
own learning plan, seek out additional learning materials, assess their own progress, and
cooperate with others in learning. In this regard, portfolio is claimed to be a teaching and
learning tool that creates such activeness and autonomy in learners.
In the world, various kinds of portfolio have been used since the early of 1990s in
teaching foreign languages and have shown promising results. In Vietnam, portfolio has
gradually become a favourable teaching tool at many universities as it combines both
instruction and assessment. Moreover, portfolio focuses on various language and learning
skills not just concrete language items. However, this tool has been mainly applied to
English major students as it requires much time, effort and higher-order cognitive skills. As
for non-English majors, portfolio is assumed to be not feasible.
To check validity of such assumption, the writer has selected the topic “Using portfolio
to teach reading skill to second-year non-English major students at University of
Economics and Business, Vietnam National University, Hanoi” to conduct a study.


those adjustments is decided according to pedagogical theories of specialists and teaching
experience of the writer of this thesis.
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I.4. Method of the thesis
The study is carried out in form of an action research, conducted by the writer herself as a
practitioner in EFL teaching and concurrent with the teaching and learning process. Both
quantitative and qualitative data are collected in order to get a full view of the effects that
the designed portfolio brings to classroom practice.
To collect desired data, two research instruments are made use of, namely survey
questionnaire and portfolio analysis. As for the first instrument, there are two
questionnaires – the pre-portfolio questionnaire and its post-portfolio version. They were
manipulated to gather information to answer three research questions. In addition, teacher‟s
notes and informal talks between learners and the teacher – mostly occurring during break
time – are used to obtain detailed information about students‟ feedback and suggestions.
However, these data are merely students‟ opinions; thus, quite subjective. Accordingly, to
improve validity of the research results, submitted portfolios are analyzed from the
pedagogical standpoint to reveal effectiveness and feasibility of reading portfolio.
I.4. Design of the study
The study consists of three parts:
Part I: Introduction
This part introduces the objectives, scope, and organization of the study.
Part II: Development
This is the main part of the study. It is divided into three chapters.
Chapter I: Literature Review
Theoretical background relevant to the topic and critical survey of related articles,
books and other resources are presented.
Chapter 2: Methodology

Perhaps because of the writer‟s absence, Anderson focuses mainly on the interaction
between the reader and the text in building meaning. He further describes that:
A synergy occurs in reading which combines the words on the printed page with the
reader‟s background knowledge and experiences. Readers move through the printed
text with specific purposes in mind to accomplish specific goals.
Anderson (1999, p.1)
Similarly, in Silberstein‟s words (2002, p.12), reading is “a complex information
processing skill in which the reader interacts with text so as to (re)create meaningful
discourse.”
The mentioned viewpoints persuasively reject the old conception that reading is merely
a receptive process in which the reader passively absorbs the written text. In short, reading
is the integration of the direct interaction between the reader and the text, the indirect
interaction between the reader with his/her prior knowledge and experience and the writer.
Another way to understand a notion is looking into its components. As for reading, they
are its subskills. The part below will discuss major reading subskills.

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1.1.2. Reading subskills
Basing on application level, Nuttall (1996) suggests two groups of important reading
subskills that a learner should develop. They are word attack skills and text attack skills.
The first group, word attack skills, helps students deal with difficult vocabulary items
such as idioms, multi-meaning words, sub-technical vocabulary, text-structuring words and
pin-down words, i.e. words with abstract meaning that can only be inferred from textual
cohesion. This group of skills includes a number of subskills as following:
 Identifying key words and ignoring inessential words
 Assigning meaning to a word using structural clues like grammatical function,
morphology
 Guessing word meaning from the context
 Using a dictionary
The second group, text attack skills, deals with above-word level with the aim of getting

construct sentences, paragraphs and texts. Moreover, ideas and opinions from reading texts
will be a rich source of food for thought, which aids learners much in catching points when
listening or expressing their own views when speaking.
Furthermore, in Anderson‟s words (1999), this skill when strengthened may act as a
momentum pushing learners forward in their academic areas. In this era of information
boom; students have easy access to numerous reference sources, which are commonly
written in English. Reading texts from such sources, students can get information relevant
to their specialized academic fields. Hence, as commonly stated in the curriculum for non-
English majors, reading is the focus of the teaching and learning of English at universities.
1.1.4. Requirements for the teaching and learning of reading skill for non-English major
students
According to Nuttall (1996, p.31), the most general aim for teaching reading is
to enable students to enjoy (or at least feel comfortable with) reading in the foreign
language, and to read without help unfamiliar authentic texts, at appropriate speed,
silently and with adequate understanding.

Clearly, this is a challenging task, which needs strict requirements.
As for Anderson (1999), he claims that reading and the process to weave a tapestry are
somewhat similar. From this comparison, it seems obvious that learning to read is a process
that requires much time and practice. Because of the fact that the language proficiency of
most non-English majors is not very good, adequate practice is even more important.
Moreover, appropriate reading strategies are crucial, especially when difficulties are
created by both the foreign language itself and the complicatedness of specialized content.
This requirement results in a call for teacher‟s guidance or instruction. In Railton and
Watson‟s viewpoint (2005; as cited in Sert, 2006, p.192), teacher guidance is of great
importance even when learners study autonomously. They argue that:

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Autonomous learning is as much a skill as learning to drive - it must be taught, it
requires practice, and it is assessed against specific criteria. Unless they are taught

assessing tool which teachers can apply to see how much their learners have progressed.
Those definitions not only clarify meaning of portfolio but also reveal its benefits. In
fact, both teachers and learners gain from portfolio as a useful teaching-learning activity.
However, it seems that these authors just mention three different kinds of portfolios,
namely collection, reflection and assessment portfolio as suggested by Zhenhui (2005).

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In short, it is hard to decide on a perfect definition for portfolio as it has various
versions basing on purposes for which it is created. It is then advisable to classify different
types of portfolio. The next section will provide a brief review of major portfolio types.
1.2.2. Types of portfolio
Portfolios can be classified in accordance with a number of criteria. According to Haladyn
(1997), there are five types of portfolio namely ideal, showcase, documentation, evaluation,
and class portfolio.
 The ideal portfolio contains all students‟ works. The teacher does not assess this
portfolio. Students, instead, evaluate their own portfolios.
 The showcase portfolio consists only of the students‟ best works. It is important
for students to select and reflect their own works. Thus, this portfolio type is also not
suitable to be graded.
 The documentation portfolio involves a collection of works over time showing
growth and improvement of students' learning. This portfolio contains qualitative and
quantitative data.
 The evaluation portfolio includes a standardized collection of students‟ works
which is determined by the teacher or, in some cases, by the students. This portfolio is
suitable for grading students.
 The class portfolio contains student‟s grade, teacher‟s view and knowledge
about students in the classroom.
Such way of classification is based on the content of a portfolio, i.e., what is included in
it. Meanwhile, using the same criterion, Slater (1996) describes only there types of portfolio
as showcase, open-format and checklist portfolio. The first type is a limited portfolio where

 Focusing on learners‟ learning effort and progress: Chen (2006) quotes Dudley
(2001) to argue that the real aim of portfolio is not assessing but revealing learners‟ effort
and progress as well as giving them a sense of achievement. Only in this sense, can
portfolio show its value and result in maximum benefits. In other words, portfolio is a
learning tool rather than an assessing tool. On the other hand, assessment – though not the
most important role of portfolio – functions as a considerable source of motivation. Thus,
assessment criteria must encourage students to make real effort in learning. Accordingly,
discussion among teachers and learners is essential to reach agreement on appropriate
criteria. Besides, these criteria should be clear and easy to understand. Normally, they are in
form of rubrics with detailed explanation.
 Putting students at the center: According to Birgin and Baki (2007), a portfolio
should be as student-centered as possible. The students are the portfolio‟s real owners in the
way that they select its components, contribute in deciding assessment criteria, and assess it
themselves. In this process, teacher facilitates guides, offers choices rather than informs,
directs, and predetermines priorities as in traditional teaching. Lynch and Shaw (2005) also

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emphasize learners‟ active participation in selecting the portfolio components, showing
their reflection, and deciding evaluation criteria.
Besides, Barton and Collins (1997, as cited in Birgin & Baki, 2007) state that portfolios
of any kind should be multi-sourced; authentic; flexible in terms of assessment; explicitly
purposeful and multipurpose; corresponding to both the course and reality; and, most
importantly, encouraging to learners‟ ownership. Therefore, all portfolios should be
ongoing so that they show students‟ effort, progress, and achievement over a period of time.
With the descriptions stated above, portfolios are not either the arbitrary collections or
observation of student‟s works to be filled haphazardly. It is important that the portfolio
collections should be purposeful, systematic, with clearly determined evaluation criteria,
and are taken over a period of time.
Similarly, Lynch and Shaw (2005) propose seven key features that portfolios of any
type must demonstrate, among which is the requirement that portfolio evaluation procedure

In conclusion, studies on the use of portfolio have been conducted since the early of
1990s. Moreover, researchers seem to explore this pedagogical tool from various aspects –
to replace traditional pencil-and-paper tests, to aid understanding of concrete language
issues, or to build up learners‟ language skills.
1.3.2. Typical gains of using portfolio in teaching reading skill
From practical research results, portfolio has been proved to be a promising teaching
technique. It brings about remarkable gains to teaching and learning process.
The first gain is portfolio‟s effect on learner autonomy. Discussing the feasibility of
using portfolio to enhance learner autonomy, Zhenhui (2005, p.23) claims:
By using portfolios, they [learners] can take an active control of their learning
process by using metacognitive strategies, for example, planning and organizing
learning, monitoring and observing learning, and reflecting on learning. There is no
doubt that using metacognitive strategies can alter students‟ view of the teacher‟s
and their own roles in ways that enhance autonomy.

Fourteen years earlier, Paulson, Paulson and Meyer already argued that portfolio had
the power to urge learners to take charge of their own learning. Then in Zhenhui‟s view
(2005, p.20), when learners are given control over their own learning in terms of both
content and method, they “are more likely to be able to set realistic goals, plan programs of
work, develop strategies for coping with new and unforeseen situations, and evaluate and
assess their own work.”
Meanwhile, autonomy is commonly agreed to be an influential factor contributing to
learners‟ success. Scharle and Szabó (2000) pose a common question “Why should you
[learners] develop responsibility and autonomy?” to raise awareness of necessity for this
capacity and attitude. The authors then point out that the answer lies in the nature of
language acquisition, that is learning only occurs when learners actually make their

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contribution. Moreover, it is without doubt that learners will have to acquire further
knowledge by themselves all life long as their needs constantly change. The only way for

observation and assessment
 Invite the learner to be reflective on
 Provide a summary of student‟s
performance on certain (thus limited) tasks

 Provide a temporary picture of each
learner‟s abilities on particular tasks
 Ask the learner to provide a singular

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his/her work and knowledge, thus
encouraging him/her to become independent
and self-directed
 Encourage teacher-student conferencing

 Inform instruction and curriculum, place
learner at center of the educational process
desired response, which seemingly trains
him/her into an auto but passive learning
machine
 Force teacher-administration
conferencing
 Reinforce idea that the curriculum is
the center of the educational process

Sharing the same opinion, Hamp-Lyons (1994; as cited in Chen, 2006) favours the use
of portfolio as it can interweave assessment with instruction. He further explains that when
multi assessment methods are made use of, evaluation will be “less threatening and more
supportive” (p.54) to learners.
In short, with the given advantages, portfolio helps enhance learners‟ autonomy, and

recordkeeping and information management.
For learners, another shortcoming is portfolio‟s limited effect on test performance.
Meanwhile, grade is still something important in Vietnam educational system.
Chen (2006, p.85) mentions difficulty when applying portfolio with a
heterogeneous/multilevel class. It is challenging to design suitable tasks and decide on
appropriate standards for learners of various language proficiency, to make them all
interested and motivated in learning.
In general, portfolio may bring about not only advantages but also pitfalls including the
problems of reliability, validity, time and effort consumed especially when applied to
multilevel classes. Record keeping is also a real challenge for the students‟ side, while slow
effort makes portfolio not very attractive to them. Thus, appropriate adaptation and
adjustment are crucial to maximize the educational gains and minimize unexpected effects
of this teaching and learning tool.
To conclude, fundamental notions including reading skill and its subskills; portfolio and
its various realizations, outstanding features and feasibility for application have been
reviewed in this chapter. All together set the theoretical framework for the study, which
will be presented in details in the following chapter.

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Chapter 2: Methodology

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2.2. Participants
Fifty three students from two classes of which the writer is in charge in teaching ESP take
part in the study. Among them, twenty six students are majored in Finance and Banking,
while twenty seven other students are majored in Business Administration. They all have
finished three GE courses in previous semesters. However, these students are of various
language proficiency levels. Those who studied English as a compulsory subject for the
university entrance examination are much better at the language than their counterparts who
entered the university with subjects in natural science areas. The participants are coded
randomly from S1 to S53. Besides, the researcher plays the role of the teacher (coded as T)
in this study. She is qualified to be an English teacher and has four-year experience in
English language teaching.
2.3. Research questions and data collection instruments
This study is an action research as the teacher is also the researcher. Being aware of her
learners‟ difficulties in acquiring reading skill, she decided to use reading portfolio, which
is highly recommended by both researchers and experienced teachers, to improve the
teaching and learning results. Thus, the study is actually the way she applies theory into
practice and evaluates changes by the designed portfolio. In details, three research
questions are:
1. What are portfolio‟s effects on improving learners‟ reading skill?
2. What are the problems emerging in the implementation process?
3. What are possible adjustments to tailor the common portfolio design and make it
more suitable to non-English majors?
To achieve research objectives, two main data collection instruments are manipulated.
2.3.1. Survey questionnaires
2.3.1.1. Pre-portfolio questionnaire
The first research tool for data collection is a pre-portfolio questionnaire (see Appendix 1).
This questionnaire, which consists of 14 questions, was designed to get general information

as the main source of data is the participants‟ opinions and comments. Furthermore, as
students have no pedagogical knowledge, their assessment about effectiveness of the
portfolio may be not of high reliability and validity level. As a result, the second instrument
must be applied, which is the portfolio itself.
2.3.2. Portfolio experiment
In the entire process, the participants‟ reading portfolios function as a backup data
collection instrument for the two questionnaires. In this part, the writer will describe in
details the experiment of using portfolio to non-English major students in practising reading
skill. All collected reading portfolios were analyzed to reveal the participants‟ acquisition
and improvement in reading. It is hoped that these instruments will gather thorough,
detailed, reliable and valid data for analysis.

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Taking into consideration the features of the course and participants, especially the fact
that portfolio owners are non-English majors, a number of adjustments were implemented
during the semester. In details, the adjustment process consists of three main stages.
Stage 1: Pre-portfolio
In this stage, the researcher reviewed relating literature to outline the portfolio‟s content
and assessing criteria.
As for the portfolio‟s content, it was designed to be practical, concentrating on readings
from students‟ fields of study – business and economics – and avoiding demotivated
assignments. Hence, the Financial Times – the world business newspaper – was chosen to
be the major source of reading texts. Besides, four main reading subskills were intended to
include in the portfolio, namely skimming, scanning, guessing new words‟ meaning, and
distinguishing facts from assumptions and opinions. In fact, the two first subskills are
suggested by most linguists. Meanwhile, the third subskill was selected basing on the
researcher‟s teaching experience. Her students always claim that they find reading ESP
texts difficult as there are too many new terms. As for the last subskill, the researcher chose
it with an aim of improving the students‟ judgement skill. Since learners now have chance
to access to various sources of information, it would be very confusing if they could not

their own portfolios. Then they had one week to complete and organize their portfolios into
the final product and handed in. The last week was scheduled for teacher‟s feedback and
comments with the aim of making learners realize their strengths and weaknesses.
 Moreover, criteria for assessment were outlined in the way that both learning effort
and learning outcome would be evaluated. The following table illustrates this principle:
Criteria
Requirement and assessment of fulfillment
Assigned
tasks
< 4 entries: 0
4-5 entries:
0.5
6-7 entries:
1
8-9 entries:
1.5
10 entries: 2
> 6 late
entries: 0
5-6 late
entries: 0.25
3-4 late
entries: 0.5
1-2 late
entries: 0.75
0 late entries:
1
No
vocabulary: 0
1/4 required

portfolio?
3. What do you suggest to make this portfolio more beneficial to your
learning of reading?
Note: Late entries are only accepted AFTER 1 WEEK
Late submission of the completed portfolio (week 14) is NOT accepted

Table 2.1. Criteria to assess students’ reading portfolio
 Finally, a pre-portfolio questionnaire was designed to get basic information about
the participants and identify learners‟ wants and needs. Moreover, students were
encouraged to select the content for their portfolio through this questionnaire. The kinds of
text that learners find interesting and reading subskills that they want to learn were
questioned. This questionnaire would be delivered in the first day of the semester.
Stage 2: While-portfolio
This is when the designed portfolio was brought into application.
As already scheduled, in the first period, the pre-portfolio questionnaire was given to
the participants to complete.
Because portfolio has not been applied in teaching English in UEB, portfolio instruction
was identified as vitally important and required due attention. Consequently, the rest of the
first day in the semester was made use of to introduce key issues of the portfolio. The
purpose is to make learners understand the benefits of spending time and effort on creating
portfolios. To achieve this purpose, both short and long-term objectives were emphasized
as portfolio does not often show clear and immediate effects. Besides, it is a good chance
for the teacher to express respect and willingness to regard learners as partners in working
towards the common aim of improving learners‟ language proficiency. Moreover, assessing
criteria were announced and negotiated with the participants. In general, the participating
students agreed with the teacher‟s criteria, so assessment was fixed as in the above table.
After that, the answers in the questionnaire were analyzed thoroughly. Most of the
learners‟ needs and wants matched the teacher‟s prediction. However, a supporting part
named Business Brief was added, for majority of the participants claimed that poor
vocabulary was their main problem. This part was created to increase the participants‟