Description: This research was done at the University of Zuerich in collaboration with a Gymnasium (Higher Secondary School); the subject was English. It consisted of designing and implementing five complex instructional settings in which students improved their writing competence in the foreign language. They were asked to perform various tasks (literary interpretation, report, etc.), and to document both the development of their work and the results in a portfolio. They also worked with exemplars chosen so as to illustrate what distinguishes high quality from low. Teachers used feedback loops to alter the gap between actual level and reference level of performance in the respective fields of learning. The theoretical framework was that of formative assessment, where the emphasis is on diagnosis and improvement. The aim for students was to develop an appreciation of what high quality work is, and to develop a store of tactics which can be drawn upon to modify their own work. Research Questions:- How can teachers organize feedback loops in which students can monitor the strength and weaknesses of their performances?- How do teachers deal with student development which is multidimensional rather than sequential, and where growth takes place on many interrelated fronts at once?- By what steps do teachers arrive at qualitative judgments, what criteria do they apply and how do they communicate them to students?The research aims contribute to establishing a new learning culture in foreign language teaching at secondary level. It is relevant to a wide variety of instructional systems in which student outcomes are appraised qualitatively using multiple criteria. The research is part of the researcher's Habilitation project (post-doctoral degree) in English and Pedagogics. Preliminary results were published in the German journal Die Deutsche Schule (2005). Methodology: - The researcher conducted a qualitative analysis of the portfolios of ca. 150 students (aged 15-18). He studied the quality and progress of the work, the type and quality of feedback given by teachers, and students' own relections of their learning processes. - Quantitative, standardised questionnaires (SELLMO) were used to measure learning motivation (50 students). - Hour-long interviews with participating teachers were conducted and transscribed. Conclusions: The use of complex instructional settings, portfolios and feedback loops is a highly efficient way of fostering students' personal, social and task-specific competencies. However, the use of such settings requires competencies that some foreign language teachers they are unfamiliar with, such as appreciating qualities in student work. Instead, they tend to be too fixated on student deficits. They often find it difficult to describe what they are looking for, although they may have little difficulty in recognizing a fine performance when it occurs among student responses. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop models for teacher education where teachers can learn to make their criteria of quality transparent, and to communicate them to students.