Many theoretical claims have been made about the role and effectiveness of Dynamic assessment (DA) in L2 learning. It has, for example, been suggested that this kind of approach provides learners with appropriate and timely feedback in a supportive and interactive environment and in ways that can maximize L2 development (Poehner & Lantolf, 2013). However, issues remain about how to measure the effects of DA and how these effects compare with those of traditional ways of providing feedback. This qualitative case study explores the role of interactional DA in the development of L2 writing skills. Three advanced EFL students each produced first 10 writing samples in ten individualized writing sessions. They then engaged in 10 collaborative tutorial sessions with their teacher and received feedback based on the DA principles. The interactions were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. The results revealed important diagnostic and treatment effects for interactive DA.
Situated within Sociocultural theory (SCT), this article analyzed an existing data set (Toth, 2021a(Toth, , 2021b(Toth, , 2021c, available at https://www.iris-database.org) to investigate learners' development through participation in a dialogic approach to grammar instruction called PACE. The target of instruction was the Spanish pronominal clitic se. Microgenetic analysis of the interaction between the teacher and learners was used to track two students' development during both small-group work and whole-class instruction. To analyze the process of development, evidence of obuchenie (i.e., teaching-learning activity) that preceded changes in each learner's performance was sought. These findings were compared to the two students' performance on a pre-, post-and delayed-intervention picture description task. Findings highlight the instances of mediation that promoted students' metalinguistic awareness and use of se. The article concludes with a discussion of the extent to which claims of development could be made based on the provided data set and considerations of the affordances of dialogic versus deductive explanations of grammar.
Keywords mediation; zone of proximal development; obuchenie; instructional conversations; conceptsWe would like to thank Paul Toth for the invitation to take part in this special issue, for sharing his meticulous data set, and for his many insights and contributions to our analysis and manuscript. We would also like to thank Richard Donato, Próspero García, and participants at the 2019 Sociocultural Theory and L2 Learning Working Group, whose ideas and mediation shaped this manuscript.
Taking a case study approach, this study investigated the differential potentials of interactionist and interventionist Dynamic Assessment (DA) as diagnostic tools for the investigation of the difficulties faced by five Farsi-speaking learners of English argumentative writing. The study was conducted as part of an EFL academic writing course which aimed to improve learners’ ability to present strong arguments based on a revised version of Toulmin’s model (Qin, 2009). The focus of the study was on the process rather than the product of learning, with the aim of gaining insights into the diagnostic nature of DA to address persistent problems these learners had been shown to have, as confirmed by their instructor. Data were collected via individualized sessions between the mediator and the learners, randomly assigned into interactionist (n=3) and interventionist (n=2) DA groups. Qualitative analysis of transcribed interactions evidenced that interactionist DA could provide more nuanced understandings of the learners’ ZPDs in relation to the components of Toulmin’s model. Suggestions for further research have been made.
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