Post-pandemic reflection on innovative use of e-Portfolio: Stepping up its instructional role in L2 writing

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, emergent remote teaching became commonplace although most teachers were not ready for such a technological shift in pedagogy. With three-year sporadic class suspension, e-learning is here to stay, but how it could be upgraded to suit in-person and/or blended teaching modes remains underexplored, especially during this post-pandemic era. To fill this gap, this paper adopts e-Portfolio methodology as an illustrative case to discuss how e-Portfolios can be contextually utilized to support L2 writing instruction and assessment at the classroom level. The paper first introduces the background of e-Portfolio, such as its definition, types, and rationale. It continues to report on two teachers’ integration of e-Portfolios during and after the pandemic when schools fully reopened in 2022. The paper further proposes feasible strategies, which could scale up ePortfolio instruction to promote a constructive alignment of teaching, learning, and assessment of L2 writing. It ends with pedagogical implications that discuss how to enhance e-Portfolio integration into L2 writing instruction and how to use the latest e-Portfolio and associated AI-powered tools to facilitate such integration.