مطالب

In this unorthodox autoethnographic study, we present a dialog between us - two transnational scholars. Throughout the manuscript, we explore several issues, which instantaneously came out during our unstructured, simultaneous, and casual conversations. We first discuss how our dichotomous relationships based on respect as an advisee and an advisor; a mentee and a mentor; and a student and a teacher have transformed into a sincerity-based friendship over time owing to our shared interest in autoethnography. We then move on to a discussion of our beliefs/thoughts/emotions about “home” in accordance with our lived experiences as transnational scholars. We scrutinize how inhabiting, knowing about, and becoming in academia complicated our understanding of where, or more importantly, what “home” means for us. Afterwards, we talk about the affordances and challenges of autoethnographic discourse agreeing that it requires us to practice vulnerability in order for us and our readers to benefit from the therapeutic effect of autoethnography. Throughout the manuscript, we also discuss how using both singular and plural first-person voice provide us with the opportunity to maintain our individual voices in an interpersonal and collaborative relationship while achieving a multivocal tone. We hope that our discussion extends with our readers’ critique of, negotiation with, participation in, and/or resistance to our beliefs/thoughts/emotions as stated in our conversation.

Due to inconclusive evidence for the differential impacts of portfolio assessment (PA) on genre-based writing improvement and learner engagement, this study cross-examined 46 EFL undergraduates’ descriptive and narrative writing performances in a 12-week PA design. Teacher feedback points were collected from consecutive formative assessments of the students’ descriptive and narrative writing according to the genre-specific indicators in the West Virginia Department of Education descriptive writing rubric and Smarter Balanced narrative writing rubric, respectively. Statistical results reported the significant impact of PA on improving accurate word choice and grammar, development, and organization of ideas in session-wise students’ descriptive writing, with no sign of improvement in their performance on post-test descriptive writing. Further, the positive impact of PA was supported by improving the components of elaboration of narrative, language and vocabulary, organization, and convention in session-wise students’ narrative writing, as well as their performance on post-test narrative writing. Qualitative data on students’ engagement in PA was collected from inductive content analysis of their reflective journals. Students’ self-reports were schematized, and their level of engagement was rendered in terms of their approval of the usefulness and novelty of PA, the frequent mismatch between student self-assessment and teacher feedback both in quality and quantity, the sensitivity of teacher feedback to some writing features over others, the applicability of teacher feedback to the revision process, and overall positive perception of writing improvement.