Portfolio Assessment Used In English Reading In High School

"How to assess students appropriately?""What should be assessed?""If the current assessment system can promote student's learning and teacher's instruction?"These questions are some of the most hotly debated topics all around our country. As the new English Curriculum Standards (ECS) (2001)demands that educational assessment should consist of"Formative"and"Summative"assessment, while the formative assessment should be focused on. Hence we should focus on assessing students'learning process in order to promote their interests of learning, and the ability of self-directed learning. The process of learning is a process of self-realizing. How to record the process? Portfolio is the best way to provide a picture of learning process.Portfolio, initially introduced as a way for artists, graphic designers and other such professionals to show evidence of their works and illustrate their skill at applying knowledge to practice, is now adopted in educational field. The author has been involved in one of the Eleventh Five-Year Educational scientific projects in Jiangxi Province"Methods and analysis on Reading Portfolio"in 2006. The focus of this project is on the effectiveness of the use of portfolio assessment in EFL reading in senior high school. Correlative analysis revealed that portfolio assessment is an effective method for the EFL reading classroom and it can enhance the students participation, reflective thinking, self-directed learning, and above all it can leave the students a sense of success, which can hardly be found in traditional types of assessment. Hence, more efforts should be devoted to this research and skills like writing, speaking, listening should be covered in the near future. After analyzing the research design, method, results of the experiment, the author believes that reading portfolio is an effective way to improve students' extensive reading ability, and it has a prosperous future.