Abstract:

Portfolios, in general, have since long, been widely used across various disciplines. They are defined as a collection of facts and proofs that are collected throughout a person’s journey through learning over time and are used to demonstrate their ability and competencies. ePortfolios are digital containers capable of storing different elements such as visual and auditory content including text, images, video, and sound, that are specifically designed to support a variety of pedagogical processes and assessment purposes. Portfolios are classified according to their types and their purposes. The following are three major types of portfolios:
- The learning portfolio which contains ongoing formative work collected chronologically to document all the work that the student has done
- The assessment portfolio, which is an assessment system used for evaluating student learning.
- The showcase portfolio which is a presentation of self and skills for an external audience.

This presentation demonstrates the use of electronic portfolios with students of Arabic as a foreign language (AFL) to showcase the collective work of the entire class on assignments targeting specific course learning outcomes, hence documenting the learning of the class throughout the course. The ePortfolio presented was a joint project carried out with elementary AFL students. The purpose of the project was primarily to encourage students to reflect on their own learning and become lifelong learners. In addition to artifacts, the portfolio also includes students' reflections on the artifacts and on their learning.
Only one ePortfolio is created by the teacher to document the progress of the students throughout the course. This ePortfolio is created as a template that can be reused for other classes in the future.
To develop the e-portfolios, a framework was adopted which consists of the following steps:
1. Defining and clarifying the scope and purpose of the ePortfolios;
2. Creating a flowchart that will give a visual representation and illustration of different ePortfolio aspects (e.g. sequence, organization, navigation) of the content of the ePortfolio;
3. Creating or selecting artifacts that represent the items defined in the flowchart;
4. Positioning the artifacts onto the ePortfolio system;
5. Publishing the ePortfolio.

Keywords:

ePortfolios, Arabic as a foreign language, second language pedagogy.