Using Digital Portfolios to Develop Students’ Writing: A Practical Guide for Language Teachers

This book equips pre-service teachers, research postgraduate students, teacher educators, and language specialists with specific knowledge and skills about the principles, research, and applications of digital portfolios within the EFL writing contexts.

While most digital portfolio scholarship focuses on higher education, this book targets primary-level and secondary-level school audiences, namely pre-service teachers, teacher educators, and Ministry of Education staff members with a focus on EFL writing. The rationale behind this design is that the published literature on digital portfolios tends to be generic and one-size-fits-all; there has been scant published scholarship about the development of digital portfolio literacy among teachers and pupils, which could enable them to upgrade the teaching and learning of writing in a larger EFL environment. This volume fills this gap by illustrating the why, what, and how aspects of digital portfolios in ten reader-friendly chapters.

Guiding educators to enrich their pedagogical repertoire via the portfolio approach, this book emphasises a healthy balance between principles, research, and practice. It is an easy-to-follow guide to setting up digital portfolio systems and coaching pupils to improve writing, ensuring the dissemination of digital portfolios with high fidelity.

Ricky Lam is Associate Professor and Associate Head in the Department of Education Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China. He is Associate Editor of Frontiers in Psychology and has served in several international editorial boards of journals, such as Assessing Writing, RELC Journal, and Journal of Asia TEFL. He has mentored eight doctoral students.

Benjamin Luke Moorhouse FHEA is Assistant Professor in the Department of Education Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China. He is a recipient of the Early Career Teaching Award 2019 from the University of Hong Kong and a Fellow of Advance HE.