The Use of Portfolios to Introduce Constructivist Teaching Practices in Primary English as a Foreign Language Classrooms

Abstract

The purpose of this action research was to describe the effect of a five month professional development innovation using portfolios to learn about teaching with constructivist principles. Participants were ten primary English teachers from a Catholic girls’ school in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The portfolios represented cycles of action, reflection and goal setting. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed to report change in the use of constructivist practices in the classroom and to determine how the portfolio process contributed to that learning. Greer’s Constructivist Teaching Inventory (CTI) was used to analyze field notes, videos and photographs of classroom observations. Portfolio documents, ongoing field notes and transcripts of audio recordings of portfolio presentations were analyzed to determine what was learned and the quality of the program. A structured interview at the end of the program was used to know the participants’ perspective on learning with portfolios. Results indicate a moderate effect size of 0.55 or a 22 percentile gain in the overall CTI with the greatest change taking place in the sub-scale of Curriculum and Assessment. Qualitative results confirm that self assessment using rubrics transferred into the classroom as did connecting activities to “big ideas.” Implications are discussed in terms of what was learned and how learning took place as well as recommendations for future professional development and research.