Teachers' understandings of projects and portfolios at Hacettepe University School of Foreign Languages Basic English Division

In the last 40 years, traditional approaches in writing instruction and assessment have moved towards alternative instruction and assessment. Many institutions are going through changes to keep up with the developments in the field of ELT. Changes are generally undertaken to improve the quality of teaching both for the teachers and the students. Teachers play an important role in the changes proposed by institutions. These changes may require a change in the teachers’ practices. Teachers’ understandings of these practices play a vital role in the innovations proposed to be undertaken. The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ understandings of using projects and portfolios during the implementation of the new writing program at Hacettepe University School of Foreign Languages Basic English Division. By finding out the understandings of teachers towards the new writing program, its instruction and assessment tools, necessary improvements and changes can be prepared for the future of the program. iii Data was first collected through questionnaires distributed to 34 teachers in the School of Foreign Languages Basic English Division. The 40 questions in the questionnaire aimed at discovering the teachers’ interest in teaching writing, and their understandings of traditional writing assessment, projects, assessment of projects, the portfolio, and assessment of the portfolio. Secondly, in order to gather more in-depth information about the teachers’ understandings of the projects and the portfolio, interviews were conducted with five teachers and the director of the writing program. During the interviews, questions investigating the participants’ general and institutional understandings of the projects and the portfolio, and their views on the new program were asked in order to collect more in-depth information. Data collected through the questionnaire was analysed by employing descriptive statistics, such as frequencies and percentages. In order to support the results, the chi-square value of each question was also calculated using SPSS. Data collected through the interviews were analysed qualitatively through categorization. The categories were based on the research questions and grouped as teachers’ understanding of projects in general and in the institution, teachers’ understanding of the portfolio in general and in the institution, and teachers’ suggestions to improve the current writing program. The analysis of the data revealed that the teachers believe the new program is a good beginning; however, there is no clear understanding of the new writing program’s instruction and assessment tools, the project and the portfolio, or a consistent implementation of it among the staff. However, as this a new beginning, things can be improved through more in-depth teacher training.