Dynamic versus formative assessment (original) (raw)
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Journal of Language and Translation, 2013
The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of implementing three forms of assessment namely , summative, formative and dynamic assessment on Iranian freshmen's listening ability and listening strategy use to fulfill the purposes of the study , 140 freshmen from Garmsar university and jame-elmikarbordi university who were majoring in English translation were selected . They formed randomly three experimental groups. Each group experienced a certain type of assessment. To study the effects of the assessment types, the learners took five teacher-made listening tests. Moreover, to observe any development in the learners' level of listening strategy use a questionnaire based on O'Malley Chamot and Kupper (1989), Young (1997) and Goh (2000, 2002) was used. The results indicated that the learners in dynamic group not only could outperform the other groups in terms of listening ability, but they also used more listening strategies.
English Language Teaching, 2015
Listening has long been the neglected skill in second/foreign language acquisition, research, teaching, and assessment. And managing listening instruction and improving listening comprehension in the classroom are difficult for teachers and EFL learners. In this regard, this study aimed at investigating the effect of group dynamic assessment (G-DA) on Iranian EFL learners' metacognitive listening strategies and listening comprehension. Sixty young EFL listeners were assigned to an experimental and a control group at random. The experimental group (n = 30) was metacognitively instructed based on group dynamic assessment. The students in the control group (n = 30) were orally exposed to the same material without being metacognitively instructed by the same teacher. After ten instructional sessions, a listening comprehension post-test and the metacognitive awareness listening questionnaire (MALQ) were administered to both groups to measure their listening comprehension and metacognitive awareness, respectively. A comparison of pre-and post-test scores of the G-DA group showed that the learners benefited from metacognitive instruction as measured by the listening comprehension test. As well, it was found that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group on both listening comprehension and MALQ post-tests.
DYNAMIC ASSESSMENT IN DEVELOPING THE EFL LISTENING SKILL IN ADULTS
Proceedings of ICERI2018 Conference 12th-14th November 2018, Seville, Spain, 2018
Listening skill in English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching and learning is one of the major obstacles that prevent learners of EFL from successful communication. This research is based on a series of previous studies. The first one was about the analysis of Cambridge Assessment: English exams taken by adults (test takers over 30 y.o.). It was evident from test results that one of the major problems was listening. This led to the second, neuropsychological study, which was devoted to finding out a specific problem in listening among the test-takers. The major finding was that test takers struggle mainly with phonology and insufficient capacity of the short-term memory. This research is focused on addressing listening problems with the help of dynamic assessment following Vygotsky's theory of the zone of actual development (ZAD) and the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The number of participants of this study was 28, aged 30 and older. The experiment ran for 2 months, two 1,5 hour listening sessions a week addressing the development of the short-term memory and phonology in EFL. Three past-papers of First Certificate in English listening were used to measure the results of the experiment: Test A was used at the beginning, Test B was used both at the beginning and at the end of the experiment and Test C was used to test the transfer of the targeted skill. The results of the experiment complied with the Vygotsy's theory about the instability of the Zone of Proximal Development. Test B demonstrated the highest increase in the listening score: from 26% at the beginning of the experiment to 35.5% at the end for the experimental group and from 25% to 27,5% in the control group; whereas the results of testing in case of tests of A and C was more modest and did not differ greatly from one another. However, dynamic assessment employed in this study allowed us to find out specific problems in learning EFL: adults struggled with cultural differences between their native culture and that of the speakers in listening tasks, which prevented them from comprehending the input correctly; linguistic features of the learned language (L2), like different ways of expressing negation, also were an obstacle in speech comprehension. These findings lead to conclusion that L2 teaching should be age-sensitive and mother tongue/culture specific. This area of research needs further development and study, as dynamic assessment seems to be a promising way of developing listening skill in foreign language teaching by adults.
Dynamic assessment in EFL classrooms: Assessing listening comprehension in three proficiency levels
International Journal of Research Studies in Education, 2015
The use of dynamic assessment (DA), grounded in Vygotskian Sociocultural theory, in classrooms is believed to have the potential to provide a situation for creating a group of learners' Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Poehener, 2009). The present study explored the implementation of DA in English as Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms on groups of learners at different proficiency levels in the context of listening comprehension. 146 Iranian EFL learners at three proficiency levels were selected for this study (experimental groups=71 and control groups=75). A multi-assessment procedure in the format of dynamic and non-dynamic pretest-enrichment phase-dynamic and non-dynamic posttest was conducted. During the nine-week group dynamic assessment procedures, mediational strategies were only given to the experimental groups. The quantitative data analysis revealed that through mediated interactions within the group's ZPD, group dynamic assessment is able to determine the learners' developed abilities in listening comprehension while at the same time support the development of individual learners in this skill. Moreover, it was found that the level of proficiency of the learners did not have a significant effect on learners' gains from group dynamic assessment procedures. These findings can have implications for all classroom teachers that the use of DA in classroom setting cannot only be beneficial to them but also be considered as a strategic learning and assessment method that can meet both the learners' and teacher's needs.
The Impact of Electronic-Based Dynamic Assessment on the Listening Skill of
2016
This study investigated the impact of electronic-based dynamic assessment on the listening skill of Iranian EFL learners to achieve this goal, a group of 40 female EFL upper-intermediate students(aged between 26 to 38 years old) from to language institutes were selected as the participants of the study after administering a Quick Placement Test(QPT)to a larger population of EFL learners (N=65).All of the selected to female EFL upper intermediate student were administered a Listening Test (IELTS Format) as the pretest and posttest to assess the participants' listening comprehension. Participants were divided in two control (N=20) and experimental (n=20) groups. The learners in experimental group were taught the listening skill via Dynamic Assessment through virtual electronic-based classroom and the learners in control group were taught listening skill via traditional dynamic assessment in a physical language classroom. A quasi-experimental pretest and post-test design was employ...
Imam Khomeini International University, 2019
The present study reports the results of a dissertation aimed at consolidating assessment and instruction of L2 pragmatics comprehension by drawing on an interventionist computerized dynamic assessment (C-DA) through which the test was embodied by providing graduated hints (from the most explicit to the most implicit) which were standardized for all test takers. To do so, a web-based software, called a Computerized Dynamic Assessment of Speech Acts, Routines, and Implicatures (CDASRI), accessible at http://da-pragmatics.com, was developed. Then, 137 upper-intermediate or advanced high school and university students ranging in age from 16 to 36 from two provinces of Khorasan Razavi and Golestan, Iran, were selected based on convenience sampling, who voluntarily took part in the study. Based on how many hints or mediations were used by each test-taker, the CDASRI provided three scores: actual score (traditional score), mediated score, and learning potential score (LPS). The results of the study indicated that the test could improve test takers" pragmatic comprehension competence. Moreover, the significant difference between the mediated (using hints) and actual (without hints) scores of learners accounted for the fact that because of test-takers" different Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) levels, their level of responsiveness to mediation was significantly different from one another. Hence, it can be concluded that traditional non-dynamic test loses sight of a big part of learners" abilities through neglecting learners" potentialities and putting emphasis only on their preliminary performance. The study concludes with some pedagogical implications for language teachers and instructors who seek an effective perspective for their assessment and instruction.
English Language Teaching (ELT), 2014
This study employed a mixed method to investigate the effects of dynamic assessment (DA) on listening comprehension of EFL students in a foreign language learning context. The participants of the study (N=57) were randomly divided into one control group, i.e., non-dynamic, and one experimental group, i.e., dynamic. They were asked to listen to some listening comprehension teaching materials and transcribe what they hear. The participants in the control group just listened to the audio files and took the tests while in the experimental group, the participants received mediation. The qualitative analysis of the exchanges between the mediator and the participants in the experimental group indicated that the application of mediational strategies was successful enough to help the participants promote their comprehension of the listening input. In addition, participants" listening problems diagnosed in the mediation sessions and the related support helped them overcome their listening comprehension problems. The performances of the participants in the two groups on an achievement test developed based on the instructional materials showed that the dynamic group outperformed the non-dynamic group.
Teaching English Language, 2015
Dynamic Assessment (DA) refers to a range of approaches that incorporate mediation into the assessment procedure (Poehner, 2008). Although DA has been applied to some areas of second language pedagogy, its effect on speaking skill seems as if to be less attended to, hence the present study aims at investigating the effects of this assessment procedure on the Iranian advanced EFL learners speaking skill proficiency. To this end, 40 homogenous advanced EFL learners were divided into three groups. They were assigned to two DA groups and one Non-DA group. As the pretest, the participants of the three groups were interviewed to assess their speaking proficiency. Next, the Non-DA group participants were given specific topics as discussion topics and were required to discuss them in the class without any DA based intervention. The first DA group's participants were assessed and given the required assistance through interaction based DA procedures, while the second DA group received DA based intervention following Lantolf and Poehner (2011) scale to assess and assist the participants' speaking proficiency in their discussions. The results of two Matched Samples t-test indicated that: (a) interactionist model of DA had statistically significant positive effect on Iranian
The present study concentrated on the theoretical and methodological issues at the intersection of second language acquisition, language pedagogy and socio-cultural theory (SCT) which were proposed by Vygotsky (1978). One of the offsprings of SCT is dynamic assessment (DA) emanating from Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory which has a long history in applied linguistics but has been the hot topic of EFL studies recently. Dynamic assessment promotes language development; it assumes that mental activities are mediated by psychological instruments. Dynamic assessment has received considerable attention from researchers over the last three decades culminating in many studies which have been conducted on the effect of DA on language skills, but a few studies have focused on the effect of dynamic assessment on listening comprehension, and the unclear results have prompted the researchers to capitalize upon the impact of dynamic assessment on the listening comprehension. Therefore, the present study aimed to expand traditional understanding of listening assessment in foreign language contexts and pertain dynamic assessment to the development of learners' listening ability. To do so, thirty six elementary Iranian students studying English as a foreign language ranging in age from 12 to 17 took part in the present study. They were selected among the seventy students who participated in Oxford Quick Placement Test who were then divided into one dynamic group, one non-dynamic group, and one control group. The analysis of one-way ANOVA and Tukey test demonstrated that the dynamic group outperformed both non-dynamic and control groups, but the non-dynamic group did not have a better performance than the control group. Finally, according to the findings, language teachers are recommended to use the meditational strategies and also care about the learner's potential. Furthermore, teachers are suggested to apply more DA approaches in their classes in a more systematic way rather than the traditional kind of testing which concentrates only on the learning product.
Dynamic assessment effect on speaking performance of Indonesian EFL learners
The research concerned the application of Dynamic Assessment (DA) in English Language Teaching (ELT) which based on Vygotsky's theory, namely Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The research was meant to investigate the effect of DA in improving teaching and learning speaking in Indonesia especially English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in university. The research was conducted using a qualitative method by involving four Indonesian university learners in the first semester. The participants received the same treatments through pre-test and selfreflection, feedback and knowledge expansion, post-test and self-reflection, post-feedback, and semi-structured interviews. The instruments were used to analyze the learners' non-fluency and mastery problem. The analysis showed that the learners' speaking performance was improved after experiencing DA sessions. The results of the test and self-reflection showed significant improvement in their speaking. The finding showed some positive effects of DA on EFL learners' speaking performance. In interviews, learners showed positive experiences and attitude toward DA since it served them a comfortable, structured, practical, and meaningful platform to recognize their speaking behavior, weaknesses, strength, and needs. Furthermore, it also helped them to get the objective feedbacks with less anxiety. The researchers conclude that DA can be applied as a primary alternative assessment in English speaking practices.