Is a self-regulatory eELP the way forward? A reflection on two decades of achievements and failures of the ELP

Abstract

The European Language Portfolio (ELP) launched in 2001 was created and promoted by the Council of Europe (CoE) as a tool to foster learner autonomy, plurilingualism, and life-long learning. In spite of the progressive educational principles and promising perspectives to develop and support language learning, the ELP has not become established as a widely implemented tool within the European educational context, not even in its electronic version. This paper starts by briefly introducing the original elements and principles of the ELP in order to evaluate some of its main achievements and failures. After examining different models of electronic ELPs, the paper focuses on ePortfolios as pedagogical tools and, in particular, on the suitability of ePortfolios to develop self-regulation. The authors then present some examples of self-regulatory ePortfolios they have created and implemented in different educational contexts. Finally, they present a new self-regulatory ePortfolio prototype. Although still in an exploratory phase, this prototype seems to offer a flexible, adaptable and powerful tool for a variety of learning contexts and learner needs, including the learning of languages and specifically for a state-of-the-art variant of the ELP. This paper concludes by mapping out the self-regulatory ePortfolio as a possible way forward for the ELP.