ABSTRACT
Theories and empirical studies on the potential of portfolios at all levels of education suggest that the ELP is indeed a great creation for the field of languages. It is, however, down to language educators and researchers to work on this model, make it relevant to new and diverse learning contexts, and promote and disseminate their experiences using it. More than a decade since the birth of the ELP, there is not much research data on whether the ELP is adequate for a variety of target groups; on whether it is applicable to diverse contexts; on how culturally transferrable different models are; and on what challenges educators face during the creation process of new models. There is also very little evidence about the extent to which the two basic functions of the ELP – namely, the pedagogic function and the documentation and reporting function – have been successfully applied by users of different models. This lack of research on the ways in which the ELP has been developed and used is even more intriguing when compared with the ample academic work undertaken in the area of educational portfolios. 1
