Formative Aspects of Portfolio Assessment in Business English and Their Impact on Students´ Writing Motivation

A writing portfolio is a purposeful collection of students´ work that demonstrates their progress and achievements in one or more areas of the core curriculum. Portfolios enhance the overall assessment of the specific language skills, encourage self-directed learning, enlarge the view of what is learned, and provide the tool for student self-evaluation. They also serve as a productive link between teaching and assessment since they encourage productive learning. The formative potential of portfolio assessment in ESP has largely been neglected in latest research which focuses predominantly on summative aspects of students´ writing assessment. Based on student questionnaire and studentteacher interviews, the paper addresses the issue of portfolio assessment through its formative potential and finds that, although students still prefer traditional grading of their written work as the best way to assess their current achievement, they have a positive attitude towards the formative dimension of the portfolio assessment process. The paper also discusses the ways in which this dimension can be further strengthened in order to benefit students´ writing motivation.