Portfolio & testing

At a number of schools a portfolio is used. Pupils can keep up with their own progress. Most schools for natural learning work with learning courses and development lines. Development lines indicate the cognitive development, like with language or arithmetic. The portfolio is not a folder without obligations in which beautiful ‘proof’ is included, but a really good instrument to direct pupils in their personal and cognitive development. The added value is mainly in the adaptive nature of this direction. The teacher follows the pupil in its personal learning process, but the pupil itself is owner of that process.

Schools can make their own choice between English as separate part of the (school)portfolio, or a language portfolio (see www.taalportfolio.nl or www.europeestaalportfolio.nl), in which English is a part of language in general. As developers of My name is Tom we prefer the last option. Pupils can indicate what dialect and languages it can speak en what level it has reached, and the teacher can follow its learning process.

Beside the portfolio, it is important to test. The method My name is Tom includes a digital test, in which we keep to the levels as developed by Anglia. These levels are related to the European Framework of References and Liz Bangs from Chichester College in England sees to it that these levels are indeed secured in My name is Tom. The tests are developed in such a way that they are attuned to the contents of the CDcd-rom. Thus the pupils can be tested without effort (diagnostically) to see whether they have passed a certain level.