Portfolio Commentary

A year ago, now, I graduated from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, with a Master of Arts degree in Teaching Foreign Language and a certificate in Computer-Assisted Language Learning. The exit mechanism for that program comprised a portfolio of my work in the program, professional products, critiques, etc. Over the next few days, I intend to revise/update much of that work and post it as my blog entries.

The assignment included a number of components, meeting a defined set of criteria, as follows (from the 2005 MIIS Portfolio Guidelines):

INTRODUCTION: THE PORTFOLIO CONCEPT

The MATESOL/MATFL Program Portfolio (henceforth the Portfolio) is a collection of work selected and organized by the candidate for
graduation in accordance with the guidelines laid out in this document. The work
selected will be representative of the candidate's learning (reading, thinking,
research, writing, and introspective and interactive debate) during the program.
Its final form will represent a meaningful and complete testament, an authentic
and personal compilation of the author's academic labors and professional
preparation. The Portfolio will represent both the products and process of the
candidate’s work and learning; it allows for the revision and reworking of
particular products, together with reflection on the learning involved. The
Portfolio is comprehensive, covering all aspects of the program, and
integrative, allowing the author to explore relationships among theory,
research, and practice and among different aspects of our field. The Portfolio
also allows each candidate to develop and reinforce a strong professional
foundation, incorporating practical and professionally useful aspects. The
academic Portfolio (the record of learning in the program) should be ultimately
transformable into a professional Portfolio (a catalogue of qualifications,
skills, knowledge, and views relevant to a career in language education).

It is our belief that writing for the Portfolio should be
not just another course requirement, but a series of communications with the
TFL/TESOL community that the author is joining. Faculty members function in this
process as coaches and guides. The Portfolio concept is designed to promote a
fruitful exchange of ideas within our community, continuing as the Portfolio is
first planned, then compiled, integrated, considered, discussed, revised,
finalized, and displayed. The Portfolio is also intended to serve as a
compilation, revealing the author’s professionalism and mastery of the field.

In developing the Portfolio as a program-long task, the faculty
and students seek to meet the following requirements:

(a) The task
must be valid, in that it is natural (something that students might do anyway,
rather than one exclusively imposed for the purposes of assessment); its outcome
is likewise real and useful (consulted and utilized subsequently, possibly
published in part by the author, rather than being filed away, never to be seen
again);

(b) The task must be useful, in that it provides feedback to
students on their learning and stimulates the review and integration of
material, inspiring the candidate to pursue new lines of thought or
investigation;

(c) The task must be valuable, in that it represents the
candidates’ most exemplary academic products, usefully assists authors to
reflect on their own learning (both processes and outcomes), helps graduates
leave the program feeling confident and prepared for their professional future,
and represents a significant resource as they begin their careers.

GOALS OF THE PORTFOLIO

During discussions among faculty and students in recent
years, the following goals have emerged for the Portfolio process and its
outcomes:

(a) To provide clear evidence that the candidate has
achieved the level of mastery implied by an MATESOL or MATFL degree from the
Monterey Institute of International Studies.

(b) To integrate material and ideas from different courses
in the program, and to explore the relationships among theory, research, and
practice.

(c) To foster a greater personal investment in the learning
process and a greater willingness to take risks.

(d) To stimulate clear, logical thinking and encourage
habits of inquiry, taking candidates beyond the requirements of any particular
course or assignment and creating a cumulative and integrative experience.

(e) To develop critical, creative, and independent
thinking.

(f) To build a critical awareness of values; to
recognize what is important in personal learning and to relate this learning to
wider educational issues; to examine the intersection of intellectual,
affective, and moral concerns and to pursue the implications.

(g) To cultivate effective writing skills by incorporating a
variety of written genres and attending to the writing process.

(h) To encourage candidates to take responsibility for
their own learning, resulting in a greater awareness of their own learning
processes.

(i) To develop the skills of reflection and self-assessment,
in terms of both the processes and products of learning.

(j) To provide the basis for a professional teaching
portfolio, with the result that candidates develop an informed and critical
focus on the range of professional opportunities and can make responsible career
choices.

(k) To develop effective interpersonal skills by providing
and accepting feedback, thus entering into positive interdependence with others
throughout the Portfolio process.

THE CONTENTS OF THE PORTFOLIO

Although the final version of the Portfolio will be
presented as a whole, the contents are discussed here under four headings for
greater clarity. Candidates are not required to follow this exact organizational
format and may wish to assemble their work in an organized structure that makes
the most sense to them. Of course, none of the required components described
herein may be omitted or abbreviated. Whatever organizational system is used, it
must be clearly and explicitly introduced in the Portfolio Commentary (A1,
below) and presented in a detailed Table of Contents. The different sections of
the Portfolio must be clearly marked.

It should be stressed that sections B1, B2, and C must be accompanied by a cover note that explains their
significance to the author and what they represent about the author's learning
or preparation as a teacher, curriculum designer, test developer, researcher,
teacher educator, and so forth. Items in Sections A and D are exempt, as they
are, in themselves, global versions of cover notes. Authors should aim to
economize. That is, they should endeavor to include only the most essential
items. In deciding what to include, authors should ask themselves what essential
skills the item demonstrates about themselves and their abilities that is not
demonstrated elsewhere. In keeping with this spirit of economy, Portfolios
should be contained within binders no larger than two inches.

To facilitate the review process, Portfolio writers should not use plastic sleeves
to enclose papers. If the writer so chooses, papers may be stapled and put in
easily accessible folders that are three-hole punched and put into the binder.
Preferably, Portfolios will be presented so that readers can leaf through them
easily, from start to finish. Double-sided printing and copying are
strongly encouraged.

Today’s entry consists of my Portfolio Commentary, the first required component of the portfolio. The Portfolio Commentary assignment follows:

Section A: Personal Statements
A1: The Portfolio Commentary

The Commentary is the overall preface introducing the Portfolio and its significance. The commentary discusses the criteria for selection of items and explains what the author has learned from being engaged in the Portfolio process. The Portfolio writer may also choose to include a discussion of themes within the Portfolio, but is not required to do so.

Here is my Commentary:

It might seem strange to start a story with an ending. But all endings are
also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time (Albom, 2003, p. 1).

Soyez les bienvenus! Welcome to my portfolio. This compilation of
work, writing, and reflection represents so much more than the tasks I have
undertaken over the past three years. It symbolizes more than trying
unsuccessfully and then trying again, and again. Probably more than anything
else, this portfolio is a statement of who I am as a teacher and as a learner.
It defines my place in the academic world by providing a glimpse of what I have
found most salient in that world, and how I have come to arrive here. And so, I
am asking you to join me in my journey, giving you a peek at my true self. Come
travel with me for a while…

I did not intend to become a language teacher. My
parents both were French professors. They spent countless hours writing their
doctoral dissertations, planning their lessons and materials, correcting and
grading papers, taking to the road three hours early to beat the snow to class,
and leading large groups of unruly students on study trips to France. I still
remember the name of my mother’s dissertation, although I never sought to
discover what she wrote about. Somehow, not knowing what Irony and Ambiguity in
Floire et Blanchefor is made my mother’s efforts more admirable.
Besides my
parents’ being language teachers, my maternal grandfather was a novelist, and my
paternal grandparents lived in France and didn’t speak English. So, academia,
and language have always been defining factors in my life. To the extent that,
even now, I am not sure where language stops and people begin, or if one is
inextricably part and parcel of the other.

Despite being daunted by my
parents’ workloads, some of my favorite memories are from their first years of
teaching. My father would bring home scrap paper from the mimeograph machine in
his office. I would use that paper to “take notes” on the new words I learned on
Sesame Street and The Electric Company. Those note-taking tendencies endure to
this day. I remain a mechanical learner, preferring to “learn by doing, either
saying things aloud (. . .) or writing things down” (Shaw, personal
communication, 2002). My childhood note-taking tendencies led to a lifelong
learning style!

Every life is a journey. On that journey, the things that
happen to us, and our reactions to them, define us and determine who we are. The
choices we make along the way determine what we make of that definition, or
where we end up, our destination. So I was almost born to be a language
professional. But I didn’t take the easy route; I tried to fight my destiny.
Despite many detours and false starts, I could not keep myself from becoming the
person I had always been. Now, finally, I find myself at an end of the journey.
Endings frighten me. I am never sure how to make the transition from one life
stage to the next. But, as Albom (2003) so eloquently put in the passage cited
as the preface to this commentary, every ending is a beginning whether we
realize it, or not.

Over the course of the journey of the MATFL program at
the Monterey Institute of International Studies, I kept envisioning this program
portfolio as my ultimate destination. As if, somehow, when I completed this
task, my journey would be done. But it isn’t, this portfolio is but a
milestone…

I spent several years living in rural Brittany, in France. Many of
the old Breton roads still have “milestones” set into their shoulders. In a very
basic and fundamental way, instead of my destination, this collection of work is
like one of those milestones - a rest stop, at most, on the road to becoming the
language education professional I was always meant to be - thus the picture of a
milestone on the last page of this portfolio.

When I began this academic
voyage, I didn’t think about the process. In writing this portfolio, I have come
to realize that, just as we are defined by the context through which we travel,
so do we define it. So have I woven together the various threads, creating an
ever-evolving tapestry of language and meaning that represents both my world and
my place in it. For that reason, I drew the Celtic knot border that surrounds
the title and divider pages in this document. These knots represent the
interaction I have participated in, and the intertwining of meaning that has
defined this leg of my academic journey, and how I define myself in it.
In
his artistic travels, Paul Gauguin spent some time in Brittany, which is where I
learned French. As Brittany is a Celtic nation, and part of my ethnic heritage,
I chose to include one of the images Gauguin created when he was living there
within the frame my intertwined knot creates. Throughout this portfolio are
other Gauguin paintings from his time in Brittany. Of these images, the one on
the cover page of my B1 revision, Paysannes bretonnes, is especially fitting
because the two Breton peasant women depicted are talking and that paper address
the topic of negation variation in oral French. These works by Gauguin captured
many aspects of who I am and how I define myself now that I have reached a new
milestone along my academic and professional road.

In the pages that follow,
you will read of the process I have come through, samples of my work, and
reflections on my learning. Most of the work presented is directly related to my
studies in French language and instruction, or to Computer-Assisted Language
Learning (CALL). One or two of the items I have included are more specific to
the TESOL field. I have chosen to include them because I have taught English
before, and would like to do so again. Further, I feel this work gives my
readers a more accurate representation of the program I have come through and
what I have learned in it. I hope that you will come away from your reading with
a better understanding of the road I chose and the contextual tapestry I created
and structured for myself along the way.

I dream on words and lick
them
And wonder
Who created them
When
they were only sobs and
sighs
Of savages too proud
To go to school
And learn how other men
talk.

~ From I Dream on Words, by James
Kavanaugh

Reference:
Albom, M. (2003). The five people you meet in heaven. New York: Hyperion.

~ Copyright, 2005, D. Pensec