İngilizce öğretmenlerinin ölçme ve değerlendirme konusundaki görüşleri: Bir alternatif olarak portföy değerlendirmesi

The aim of this study is to find out the opinions and tendencies of in-service English language teachers towards assessment and evaluation of young learners, particularly towards portfolio assessment. Another aim is to look into the feasibility of portfolio assessment in a young learners' class. The aim of the first phase of the study is to determine the tendencies and opinions of English language teachers towards alternative assessment methods, especially towards portfolio assessment. The aim of the second phase of the study however, is to reflect the experiences of a teacher during portfolio assessment implementation in a young learners class.The first phase of the study was conducted in Çanakkale with 26 in-service English language teachers. The participants were administered a 27-item questionnaire. The second phase of the study was conducted at Çanakkale Özlem Kayalı Primary School with 34 7th grade students. The case study took 16 weeks to be completed. The data collection instrument for the case study was the diary.The data obtained from the questionnaire were analyzed and interpreted with the help of SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) computer program. On the other hand, the data obtained from the diary were evaluated qualitatively by using content analysis method.In conclusion, the survey study shows that English language teachers use alternative assessment methods and particularly portfolio assessment in their classes to some extent. However, they are not knowledgeable enough about the implementation of it. The English language teachers also emphasized the time demand as a challenge of portfolio assessment.The case study part on the other hand, reveals the implementation of portfolio assessment in a young learners class. The advantages and challenges both for the teacher and the students were reported from the researcher's point of view. The advantages of portfolio assessment clearly outweigh the challenges of it. However, it should be kept in mind that this study was conducted in only one class. If it had been carried out in all the classes that the researcher had it would have been enormously difficult to conduct it. Therefore, it might be said that if portfolio assessment was implemented in a number of classes with lots of students, some inconveniences would be experienced during the implementation phase.