Improving EFL Learners’ Performance on Receptive-Response and Productive-Response Listening Comprehension Items through Diagnostic vs. Dynamic Assessment (original) (raw)
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Dynamic vs. Standard Assessment to Evaluate EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension
Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies, 2014
The present study chiefly aimed to compare two forms of dynamic assessment and standard assessment of EFL learners’ listening comprehension. 59 Iranian EFL learners were randomly assigned to three test administration groups and assessed on listening for main and supporting information in listening tasks. The first model of dynamic assessment was a form of scaffolding in which for any incorrect answer graded prompts were progressively presented to learners until they answered correctly. The second model of dynamic assessment was direct instruction of listening tasks. Learners in standard assessment group, however, completed the task independently without mediation. The results revealed statistically significant listening improvement in favor of dynamic-supported and dynamic-instructed assessment groups rather than standard assessment one. The findings of the study indicate that dynamic assessment can gain better insights into learners’ level of comprehension and their potential for f...
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.
Developing and evaluating a dynamic assessment of listening comprehension in an EFL context
This study addressed a need to examine and improve current assessments of listening comprehension (LC) of university EFL learners. These assessments adopted a traditional approach where test-takers listened to an audio recording of a spoken interaction and then independently responded to a set of questions. This static approach to assessment is at odds with the way teaching listening was carried out in the classroom, where LC tasks often involved some scaffolding. To address this limitation, a dynamic assessment (DA) of a listening test was proposed and investigated. DA involves mediation and meaning negotiation when responding to LC tasks and items. This paper described: (a) the local assessment context, (b) the relevance of DA in this context, and (c) the findings of an empirical study that examined the new and current LC assessments. Sixty Tunisian EFL students responded to a LC test with two parts, static and dynamic. The tests were scored by 11 raters. Both the test-takers and raters were interviewed about their views of the two assessments. Score analyses, using the Multi-Facet Rasch Measurement (MFRM) (FACETS program, version, 3.61.0), indicated that test-taker ability, rater behavior and item difficulty estimates varied across test types. Qualitative data analysis indicated that although the new assessment provided better insights into learners' cognitive and meta-cognitive processes than did the traditional assessment, raters were doubtful about the value of and processes involved in DA mainly because they were unfamiliar with it. The paper discussed the findings and their implications for listening assessment practices in this context and for theory and research on listening assessment.
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.
Dynamic vs Nondynamic Assessments: Impacts on Intermediate EFL Learners’ Receptive Skills
Education Research International, 2022
Listening and reading skills, which are two of the essential skills in the world of language learning, have established themselves in various academic fields. Many researchers have looked at teaching and developing these two receptive abilities, but less focus has been paid to assessing and testing them. Traditional evaluation has been used to examine learners for a long time, but new teaching methods should introduce new ways to test and assess students. is study attempted to investigate the impact of dynamic assessment (DA) vs. nondynamic assessment (NDA) on Ethiopian intermediate EFL learners' receptive abilities, which was conceptually grounded by Vygotsky's (1978) socio-cultural theory (SCT). To this end, 96 intermediate students from a high school participated in this study. en, they were divided into three equal groups: two experimental groups (EG1 and EG2) and one control group (CG). After administering a pretest, the EG1 and EG2 were taught listening and reading skills through group dynamic assessment, and the control group received traditional instruction. After the treatment, a posttest was administered. e results of one-way ANCOVA revealed that dynamic assessment had significant effects on receptive skills. is study has implications for instructors, students, and material designers in light of the findings. Teachers are encouraged to use DA in their language instruction to help students improve their English language abilities.
This study aimed at investigating the influence of teaching listening comprehension strategies on the improvement of listening comprehension ability of Iranian EFL learners. In doing so, 80 upper-intermediate students were chosen to take Interchange Placement Test. The students were divided equally into two groups: experimental group and control group. They were given a strategy use questionnaire. According to the results of the study, the experimental group showed higher levels of proficiency in comparison with the control group after receiving instruction. Therefore, it was concluded that teaching listening comprehension strategies can play a major role in the improvement of listening comprehension ability. The implications of the finding are presented at the end of the study.
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.
Investigating the Difficulties Encountered by EFL learners in Listening Skill
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This study aims at investigating the difficulties encountered by EFL learners in listening. The researcher used descriptive and analytical approach to investigate the Issue. The tools used for gathering data were the test and questionnaire. The test was designed for 4 th years students English languages at College of Languages at Sudan University of Science and Technology , academic year 2018 where as the questionnaire was designed for the teachers of the English language and College of Education at the same university. The programme of SPSS was used to compute and analyze these two sorts of test and questionnaire. The students were not able to understand native speakers, when they listened to native speaker's speech. They have simple interesting in the scope of listening skill, and the students need more practices in the listening skill. They rarely use modern education technologies to develop their listening skill ,therefore they rarely listen to native speakers. The study recommends that students should be exposed to records of native speakers.
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This experimental study aimed to investigate the effect of formative assessment and remedial teaching on the EFL learners’ listening comprehension. The participants of the study were 34 intermediate students12 males and 22 femaleswho were selected from early total of 60 students after taking the Oxford Placement Test as an English language proficiency test. Having taken the test, they were randomly divided into two groups of control and experimental. Students in both experimental and control groups took part in a listening pre-test (PET) and then during eighteen sessions listened to audiotapes of Expanding Tactics for Listening. The students in the experimental group were given a quiz every four sessions followed by remedial teaching. Following the treatment, both groups took part in a listening posttest. An ANCOVA was run not only to compare the performance of both experimental and control groups after the treatment period but also to show whether post-test differences were due to ...
Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 2014
In the body of literature on listening strategies to EFL learners, what seems to be lacking is that the focus is on teaching listening strategies to learners with little attention to their listening comprehension problems. No local research has been conducted on the nature of the Iranian tertiary level students' EFL listening comprehension problems or strategies. Therefore, no instrument is available to investigate these constructs. This paper reports the findings of a study that made an attempt to develop and test an instrument that will aid researchers identify students' specific listening problems and listening strategy repertoire. The instrument was developed by integrating and validating the available instruments in the related literature. The two developed questionnaires were: the Listening Comprehension Problems Questionnaire (LCPQ) and the Listening Strategy Use Questionnaire (LSUQ). Problems related to designing and testing this instrument is shared and the modifications made to it are presented. The instrument is expected to be useful for researchers interested to study the area of EFL listening in a similar setting.