Evaluation of the implementation of the University of Namibia portfolio for French as a foreign language

Abstract

Namibia is a young country which gained its independence in 1991. Before that date the educational system was based on an Apartheid regime imposing discriminative access to education among the population. After Reconciliation, Namibia had the hard task to create a new education system for all valorizing the former underprivileged children. The Ministry of Education fast considered the learner centered approach as a good alternative to reach schools new objectives. Nevertheless, this pedagogy is still encountering difficulties to be fully operational in Namibian classrooms. The Namibian Portfolio for Languages (NPL) was conceived as a practical tool promoting this approach at secondary level. NPL findings proved that it was indeed well received by pupils, learner-centered and contextualised but they also revealed that teachers faced some challenges implementing self-assessment and individual counseling with their learners. Therefore, the present paper proposes a comparative approach between NPL results and another language portfolio implemented at the University of Namibia (UNAM) with beginner levels in 2016. Findings are cross-examined to assess the benefices gained from language portfolios in general and in particular to investigate the statu quo of self- assessment and learning strategies guidance at U NAM to holdout solutions supporting teachers in secondary schools.