Identifying the best Foreign language teacher: Teacher Standards and Professional Portfolios by Joann Hammadou Sullivan

Article title : Identifying the best Foreign language teacher: Teacher Standards and Professional Portfolios
Writer : Joann Hammadou Sullivan
Journal/Newspaper : The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 88, No. 3 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 390-402
Date published : 2004         Number of words: 461
List no. : 242

The main issue of this article is about the differing perspectives of principals and foreign language department chairs on teaching standards and the use of professional teaching portfolios as part of the hiring process.
The method used in this study is survey method that is a 17-item questionnaire that was mailed to 84 principals of Rhode Island high schools and middle schools and to their 83 FL department chairs. The questionnaires requested demographic information about the educators' schools and communities and their own educational backgrounds. It also asked for their views concerning the RI-BTS (Rhode Island- Beginning Teacher Standards) and FL teachers' professional portfolios. The results show that both the principals and FL departement chairs agreed strongly that all teacher standards are important but the principals rated more standars more highly than did the FL chairs. They both also agreed that portfolios are helpful tools for evaluating teacher candidates but they differed in respect to what entries to include in portfolios to evaluate teachers’ ability. Principals most wanted evidence of creativity and innovation and most interested in seeing evidence of communication with parents than were chairs. Chairs most wanted evidence of second language proficiency in a candidate’s portfolios. The district size (urban, suburban, small town/ rural) didn’t affect their view of what it is important in teachers standards or teachers’ professional portfolios.
The writer put himself as a surveyor who conducts this study by mailing the questionnaire to the participants. He observed the result to find the difference perspective between principals and chairs towards teacher’s standards and portfolios.
I agree that teacher’s standards and portfolios are important tools to identify teacher’s ability and to evaluate teacher’s candidates, as another researchers, Constantino and DeLorenzo (1998), explored eight attributes which make creating a professional portfolio a worthwhile effort  for beginning and experienced teachers. In this case, I am more likely agree with principals perspectives about what should be included in portfolios, because teaching is a complex and challenging activity that cannot be accurately described by any single set of goals, standards or job descriptions, so it needs more than teacher’s second language proficiency  but also needs teacher’s creativity and innovation.
In Indonesia, portfolio is used as a competence test for teacher to be certified. This portfolio includes some entries, such as academic competence, education and training, teaching experiences, lesson planning and its implementation, assessment from principals and chairs, academic achievement, the participation in scientific forum, experiences in educational organization, etcetera.