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ABSTRACT
One of the effective approaches helping students to sharpen their writing skills,
which is currently being overshadowed by other skills in teaching and learning Eng-
lish, is Writing Portfolio. However, this method has not been applied widely at high
schools in Vietnam in general and Lang Son in particular. Thus, this study is conducted
to examine how Writing Portfolio influences students’ writing skills as well as how
students think about its implementation. The study adopts action research with the use
of both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, including writing assign-
ment evaluation, questionnaire, and interviews.
The research’s findings reveal some significant improvements in participants’
overall writing scores, as well as in each of the criterion, namely task achievement, co-
herence and cohesion, grammar and vocabulary. By being given the marking rubrics,
the educator’s regular feedback and chances to revise and rewrite the writings, the lan-
guage learners can better monitor their progress in writing.
Apart from that, though most of the students think this activity has positive in-
fluences on their writing skills, they still fail to see the advantages of this improvement
to their language acquisition process as writing skill has not been included properly in
testing. Therefore, they do not think it’s necessary to apply Writing Portfolios in the
next academic year.
Despite the positive outcome of the research, there is still a need for further
studies to assess more Writing Portfolio’s effects and the best way to apply Writing
Portfolio in official school curricular.
