Portfolio

The objective of Portfolio is to develop and extend the steps taken in On Track to encourage learner autonomy and collaborative learning. Some of the main features are:

• replace the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) with the four modes of communication (reception, production, interaction and reception) as the organisational base for the course.

• blend PBL (project-based learning) with the coursebook elements (grammar examples and reference, vocabulary presentation and reference etc.) that continue to be appreciated by teachers and students.

• develop students’ mediation skills not only for cross-linguistic purposes, but also for cross-cultural and social reasons.

• encourage the use of the internet as a source of information and materials for undertaking and carrying out tasks, projects etc. and as a consequence reduce the number of videos in the course, particularly at the higher levels

• encourage the use of free digital tools available online for the execution, completion, presentation etc. of projects, tasks etc.

• provide students with the opportunity to make decisions about what they want to study.

• provide the structure and support for pair and teamwork turning the tasks in Portfolio into collaborative and creative enterprises.

• encourage students to write or type answers and notes in the print and digital versions, thereby making Portfolio a repository of students’ own work and engendering an intimate connection between students and their material

These features would fulfil the CEFR requirements of digital competence, mediation and collaborative learning found in the 2018 companion volume upon which many regional education departments (Andalucía, Aragon, Balearic Islands, Castile y La Mancha, Catalonia, Madrid etc.) base their curriculums for the teaching of English on

Portfolio could be attractive to a publisher for the following reasons:

• fully incorporating the 2018 CEFR requirements would make the course more attractive to the growing number of teachers in Spain using their coursebook less and less frequently, and to those that don’t use a coursebook at all.

• reducing the number of in-house created videos would lower production costs and therefore the cover price of the coursebooks, whether printed or digital, could be reduced.

• offering a reduced cover price would overcome teachers and parents’ aversion to students writing in their printed books, and this in turn would stimulate annual sales of printed coursebooks.

• providing innovative materials in a familiar package would attract teachers who are both non-textbook and textbook users.