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Plata got her doctorate degree in July 1998 and began teaching English language at her alma mater, De La Salle University, also focusing on research of student evaluation methods. In the background, there was her awareness of the issues behind the necessity to reform the "English education for sake of the test". Student performance is also an evaluation of the teachers, and evaluation of the school. The exam questions of the unified test the government implements are the multiple choice format. Teachers are planning the contents of the lessons in order to teach the students how to get good points on the test. They don’t intend to teach communication skills or writing skills that are required in society.
In April 2000, Plata obtained a "Specialist Certificate in Language Testing and Assessment" from the Regional Language Centre of The Southeast Asia Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), and started gaining experience related to the reform of English education in Singapore.
In 2001, the students who were taking the English courses in the faculty of the De La Salle University she was teaching in, began to say that they don’t want to take the final exam. In response to that, Plata proposed the introduction of “portfolio assessment” method to the faculty.
The syllabus of the university has learning goals specified for each subject. In general, teachers evaluate the degree of student’s attainment level by performing exams at the end of the semester. By contrast, the portfolio evaluation is a method which allows the students to evaluate themselves while constantly reflecting on what was learned, and with this technique to raise their academic achievements towards their goals.
The mentioned here "portfolio" refers to files such as notes, printouts, presentation materials, reports, or in other words artifacts which were created during the student’s learning process toward their goals. Plata who implemented this approach, evaluated to what extent the students created their portfolio along with the rules and whether they completed it. Plata describes the results obtained through the portfolio assessment in the following manner.
"Once students get out of the class, they don’t receive guidance from teachers whether their knowledge is enough. If students have their own portfolio, and evaluate themselves on their own, even without the help of the teachers they can learn independently.
Students do not understand their own strengths, but they know their weaknesses. To overcome the weaknesses, they must first set their own goals and direction. In order to achieve the goal, they learn ways to improve their abilities, and methods to evaluate themselves. This also means that students themselves are responsible for their own learning.
When they enter the world of work, in order to increase the performance of the company, they have to find problems on their own, discover method to resolve them, and also to evaluate the results. Since the students are learning on the assumption that they are going to work in society, I think that school should adopt some of the common evaluation methods society has.(2/4)