Portfolios as a means for raising students’ awareness of their oral skills’ improvement: The Case of 3rd year students in the department of English at the University of Algiers 2

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the oral portfolio as a means for raising Algerian EFL degree students’ awareness of their oral interaction and oral production. The study involved 12 EFL degree students from the English Department at the University of Algiers 2. Students were involved in two tasks (oral interaction and individual oral production). As Algerian EFL students needed more speaking practice in English, and also needed an unthreatening environment outside the classroom, participants in this study were required to provide three audio recordings of their oral performance in the oral interaction task and three audio recording performances in the individual oral production task. Participants’ reflections on their oral performance over the period of eight weeks may answer the research question on how the oral portfolio would raise students’ awareness of their oral skill. Audio recordings transcripts from the participants, questionnaires and interview were used to collect data.