Assessing the Composing Competency of Adult Second Language Learners Enhanced Through Increased Self-Confidence During Portfolio Based Learning

Abstract

Writing being a language skill hard to acquire, but essential for academic success, identifying the learner attitudes towards it is important. This study is devoted to investigate the possibility of developing the writing process through portfolio based learning to raise learners` self-esteem during a fifty-hour writing course. Ninety-six first year undergraduates of the Faculty of Technology, Wayamba University participated in this. The learners produced ten paragraphs of different structures and revised the first drafts on a computer based on the teacher feedback which comprised of both direct corrections and indirect clues. The brainstorming exercises, paragraph outlines and first and second drafts were placed in a portfolio, and the learners were asked to reflect on the process and feedback every time they attempted the next paragraph. The same questionnaire designed to identify the learner attitudes towards writing was administered both prior to and after the treatment to measure whether there was an improvement. The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was applied on six questions that focused on writing skills such as the ability to generate ideas, organize ideas, support them with appropriate and interesting examples, write fast and accomplish a task within a given time. The p value of 0.00 (P < 0.05) revealed that there was a statistically significant improvement in composing competency in their perception. Moreover, the learners` thoughts on portfolio writing were extremely positive, and could be coded as 'interesting, skill enhancing, confidence building, beneficial, and supportive for future purposes, proving the self-directed approach to portfolio writing to be quite productive.