Another rather slow and plodding monday. Currently working on the whole portfolios idea - it's evolved a bit. just a bit. Currently, the idea is to use the European Language Portfolio as the core for students to reflect on their own language skills and what they want to do with language, followed by a reflective diary-type thing, possibly on the net, then sections covering functional and notional skills. The headache lies in the latter. I don't want to be too proscriptive as to what can and cannot be done, yet it would be desirable to have concictency across several levels in the same learning cohort - it means we can match students to the ALTE framework and give us a really accurate snapshot of a whole academic year, covering accuracy of initial placement tests to end of year results. It'll also give us standardised pieces that would make Internal Validation, and external for that matter, much easier. However, saying 'this and this must be in the portfolio, but not this' isn't desirable, as it ignores the students' needs. In addition, each class may have subtly different needs that require addressing. It's all rather thorny.