This article reports on a study of pre-service French immersion teachers who were required to compile second language (L2) portfolios as part of their professional development. Documents included a brief biography of the students' lives as speakers and learners of French; an action plan in which students assessed their L2 proficiency and set specific language learning goals; artefacts from both in-class and out-of-class learning experiences; and a final narrative entry commenting on the degree of success of their action plan. Volunteers participated in semi-structured audiotaped interviews and allowed their portfolios to be copied. Although the project was not as successful as initially anticipated, the process of compiling portfolios created a new space for L2 development. The portfolio became a tool mediating language learning activities. Furthermore, students showed that they were less capable of working autonomously than had been anticipated and that they required encouragement and support throughout the project.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.