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Dynamic assessment is a new approach toward testing which is deeply rooted in a variety of theories and therefore attracted researchers in recent decades. However, most of the researches conducted in the field have been in experimental settings and few of them, if at all, have studied its applications in real educational setting.Thus,aimed at diagnosing and removing learning difficulties of Iranian high school students in productive skills of English, the current research was an attempt to present and explain a local model of dynamic assessment and then compare its results against a standard model. The findings showed that the local model is not only able to prognosticate language problems but also to propose a local inventory of mediation for removing them. Besides, the results of a post test only control group design through analysis of variance showed that the participants which used the model outperformed both control group and the one in standard dynamic assessment approach. These findings have implications for teachers, syllabus designers and educational decision makers.

The current study was an attempt to explore whether dynamic assessment had any significant impact on learning non-congruent and congruent collocations by Iranian learners. Sixty out of one-hundred and twenty EFL learners were selected based on OPT Test, divided into experimental (N=30) and control (N=30) groups. During ten sessions of treatment, eight of the collocations incorporated in the initial test including four congruent and four non-congruent collocations in each session were presented to the learners, thus a total of 80 collocations were covered. The experimental group was exposed to the pre-test-mediation-posttest design while the control group was instructed through conventional ways of teaching collocations. The findings of one-way ANCOVA revealed that the dynamic assessment instruction had a significant effect on learning congruent and specifically non-congruent collocations by Iranian EFL learners. If the purpose is to have an active learning environment, attention needs to be devoted to the integration of a dynamic approach in the classroom, providing learners with appropriate and leveled-feedback within the evaluation and teaching process.

This study tried to examine the effect of using dynamic assessment on EFL learners’ performance on selective and productive reading comprehension tasks. Sixty EFL learners out of 78 were selected based on their performance on a Nelson test at the elementary level; then, they were divided into a control and a dynamic assessment group. In both groups, the reading section of KET with 28 selective and 27 productive items was used as the pretest and the posttest. The participants in the dynamic assessment group benefitted from the interventionist kind of mediation in the form of taking a set of four tests, each one twice, before and after the mediation. Finally, two repeated-measures two-way ANOVAs and one MANOVA were run on pretest and posttest results of selective and productive tasks to answer the research questions. The primary finding was that dynamic assessment improved EFL learners’ performance on both types of tasks significantly. Conclusions and implications are further discussed.

In new approaches to foreign language learning, communicative competence is a major goal. The literature review shows that foreign language learners find it a formidable task to interpret figurative language. The linguistic theories derived from the realm of literature are deficient in applied instructional solutions to these problems. Thus the current research was an attempt to use the interventionist model of dynamic assessment to expand the competence of learners to interpret figures of speech. Dynamic assessment enjoys rich theoretical underpinnings in psychology and linguistics. To this aim 10 student majoring in English literature participated in a quasi experimental pre-test, post-test study. The regulatory scale of Aljaafreh and Lantolf (1994) was adopted for intervention phase. Then, paired-samples t-test was used to investigate the effect of this intervention on interpretation of figurative language in writings of Edgar Allen Poe. The findings showed that the intervention promoted the competence of language learners significantly. These findings have implications for teachers of English literature, researchers in applied linguistics, language learners and syllabus designers.

This study aimed to compare the effects of vocabulary practice and group dynamic assessment on word learning through lexical inferencing. Using purposive sampling, 42 Persian language learners were selected as participants. The treatment consisted of four texts which in total contained 20 unfamiliar words. The learners read a text a day and answered its comprehension questions. After reading each text, in the “dynamic assessment” group the learners inferred the meanings of unfamiliar words and in the end read the text once more. The learners of the “vocabulary practice” group did two exercises for each unfamiliar word of the text. The “dynamic assessment plus vocabulary practice” group first inferred the meanings of unfamiliar words and then did one exercise for each unfamiliar word. One day before the treatment, the pretest of unfamiliar words was administered. One day and one month after the treatment, the learning and retention posttests were held, respectively. The results indicated that there were no significant differences between the means of “dynamic assessment” and “vocabulary practice” groups on learning and retention posttests. However, on learning and retention posttests the means of “dynamic assessment plus vocabulary practice” group were significantly higher than those of the other two groups. It was concluded that vocabulary practice and group dynamic assessment have a nearly similar effect on word learning through lexical inferencing, but, simultaneous use of these two could result in more word learning. Extended Abstract: Persian language vocabulary is one of the areas in which Persian language learners experience many difficulties. Many of the Persian language vocabulary cannot be directly taught in the language classes and the learners must acquire them through other means. Lexical inferencing is one of the ways in which vocabulary could be acquired. Lexical inferencing involves discovering the meanings of a text’s unfamiliar words based on textual clues or one’s own knowledge (Haastrup, 1991). Lexical inferencing is a reading comprehension strategy which could lead to word learning as a byproduct (Wesche & Paribakht, 2010. ) Paribakht and Wesche (1997) reviewed the studies which explored word learning through lexical inferencing. In naturalistic studies which involved reading texts and answering comprehension questions, vocabulary acquisition was inefficient and unpredictable. However, in interventionist studies which involved vocabulary enhancement activities following reading and answering comprehension questions, enhanced vocabulary learning was observed. In this study, it was argued that naturalistic and interventionist studies of word learning through lexical inferencing are not different in kind. Both types focus on the amount of word learning pursuing lexical inferencing and do not pay due attention to the process of lexical inferencing. That is, they do not train learners in drawing on textual clues and their own knowledge to discover word meanings. It was suggested that one of the ways in which the process of lexical inferencing could receive due attention involves using group dynamic assessment to explore word learning through reading.  In a lexical inferencing study which draws on group dynamic assessment, the teacher would engage in a dialogic interaction with a group of learners who are reading a text for comprehension. Whenever learners experience problems with an unfamiliar word, drawing on the text and the learners’ knowledge the teacher would offer clues to the learners to help them infer its meaning. At first, the clues would be very implicit and if the learners are not responsive to them, they could gradually become more explicit until the learners discover the meaning or the teacher provides it. This study aimed to compare the effects of vocabulary practice and group dynamic assessment on word learning through lexical inferencing. For this purpose, three elementary schools in rural areas of Urmia were contacted to participate in the study. The student population consisted of 137 Azeri-speaking boys who were studying at grade three. Using purposive sampling, 42 Persian language learners were selected as participants. That is, one day before the treatment the pretest of target words was administered to the third grade students and the students for whom more than 85% of the target words were unfamiliar were selected as participants. The participants were randomly assigned to three equal size groups. Over four days, the treatment was administered to the participants. The treatment consisted of four texts which in total contained 20 unfamiliar words. The learners read a text a day and answered its comprehension questions. After reading each text, in the “dynamic assessment” group the learners inferred the meanings of unfamiliar words and in the end read the text once more. After reading each text, the learners of the “vocabulary practice” group did two exercises for each unfamiliar word of the text. After reading each text, the “dynamic assessment plus vocabulary practice” group first inferred the meanings of unfamiliar words and then did one exercise for each unfamiliar word. One day and one month after the treatment, the learning and the retention posttests were held, respectively. The results of MANOVA analysis indicated that there were no significant differences between the means of “dynamic assessment” and “vocabulary practice” groups on learning and retention posttests. However, on learning and retention posttests the means of “dynamic assessment plus vocabulary practice” group were significantly higher than those of the other two groups. It was concluded that vocabulary practice and group dynamic assessment have a nearly similar effect on word learning through lexical inferencing, but, simultaneous use of these two could result in more word learning. Based on the findings, Persian language teachers were recommended to encourage their learners to read extensively. While reading, the teachers were encouraged to draw learners’ attention to unfamiliar words; to have the learners infer their meanings; to offer inference clues to the learners; and to engage the learners in vocabulary practice pursuant to reading. According to Hulstijn (2001), after elaborate processing of a newly encountered word and intentional practice of that word the learner should engage in fluency practice of the new word. This would necessitate the use of the new word in L2 communication. One of the main limitations of this study was that the learners were not made to use the target words in real L2 communication. Future studies could explore this gap in the literature. Another limitation was that the study involved male participants alone. The effect of group dynamic assessment on word learning through lexical inferencing could be explored in female participants as well.

Dynamic assessment (DA) having root in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of mind has been investigated by many researchers. However, DA of pragmatics has not been much researched. Considering the important role of pragmatic competence in promoting learners’ communicative competence, the current study examined the effectiveness of dynamic assessment, cake model, on the development of learners’ pragmatic competence. To conduct the research a number of 46 MSc students of engineering, studying at the University of Tehran, were assessed dynamically. The assessment provided three scores: actual score, mediated score, and learning potential score (LPS). In order to analyze the data, paired sample t-test and univariate analysis of variance were run. The results showed that DA had a positive effect on learners’ knowledge of the speech acts of apology and request. The results also showed that there was no interaction between learners’ scores and their proficiency levels. The findings of the research can be used in teaching, assessing and learning the speech acts of apology and request.

This study aimed to explore the effect of computerized dynamic assessment on Persian vocabulary learning through lexical inferencing. In this quasi-experimental study, 75 learners of Persian as a foreign language read four texts over four days, one text per day, and answered comprehension questions. In the control group, the learners were not informed that there were unfamiliar words in the texts. In the second group, the learners were informed that there were unfamiliar words in the texts and they had to infer their meanings. In the third group, the learners were informed about the presence of unfamiliar words and were asked to infer their meanings. In addition, computerized dynamic assessment approach was also utilized. The results of learning and retention posttests showed that noticing of the texts’ unfamiliar words and adoption of computerized dynamic assessment enhanced vocabulary learning through reading. After the study, four questions were administered to the third group’s participants to explore their perspectives on the efficiency of vocabulary learning through computerized dynamic assessment. The results of this analysis showed that the learners were interested in computerized dynamic assessment and judged it as an apprpriate and effective means of developing vocabulary knowledge.

1. Introduction Dynamic assessment (DA) is grounded in the Vygotskyan concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and includes mediated teacher-learner dialog during the assessment procedure. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of DA on EFL learners’ morphological awareness. A secondary aim of the study was to examine whether there was a relationship between dynamic assessment and static assessment measures.
In this study, a new approach to measure morphology was adopted targeting the shortcomings of measures of morphological awareness, which have been dually noted in the literature (Apel, Diehm, & Apel, 2013; Moats & Smith, 1992). Neither criterion-referenced nor norm-referenced assessments that adequately assess derivational morphology are available (Moats & Smith, 1992); therefore, a new method of assessment can be adopted to examine morphology.
Despite promising findings gained from the implementation of DA in the domain of L1 morphological awareness (Larsen & Nippold, 2007; Ram, Marinellie, Benigno, & McCarthy, 2013; Wolter & Pike, 2015), no published study has tried to find whether a DA of morphological awareness task may improve morphological awareness in the EFL context. In this regard, the current study has applied the principles of DA to the teaching and assessment of EFL learners’ morphological awareness in order to offer an alternative perspective on assessment and its relevance to teaching and learning of morphological awareness based on the sociocultural theory of mind developed by Vygotsky (1987).
2. Methodology The participants of this study were two groups of female students each consisting of 25 students between the ages of 14 and 18, all of whom had enrolled at the intermediate level of general English classes in Iran Language Institute, Yazd branch. First, all of the participants of this study, who were at the same level of general English proficiency based on the institute’s policies, in the experimental and control groups completed the static morphological awareness task (SMAT). In the DA sessions, students in the experimental group were asked to define each targeted word (e.g., define the word cookery). If needed, a series of prompts or scaffolds, consistent with Larsen and Nippold’s (2007) task, was then systematically provided to determine the level of assistance needed to define the given word. After each cue, the researcher paused for up to 10 seconds; if no response was given or the language learner responded incorrectly, the next clue was provided. In addition, the scoring stipulations of Larsen and Nippold (2007) were further adapted for EFL students and were similar to those of Ram et al. (2013). Finally, the SMAT, was administered in the posttest aimed at understanding the extent to which the intervention affected students’ reading morphological awareness.
3. Discussion The first question of this study addressed the effect of DA task on morphological awareness. Comparing A comparison of the pre- and post- static morphological awareness of the students indicated that their performance on the dynamic morphological task significantly improved through the use of scaffolding [(t =3.81, df =48, p4. Conclusion There was a significant improvement in the EFL learners’ ability to demonstrate morphological knowledge on low-frequency derivatives, indicating that scaffolding prompts likely resulted in morphological improvement. The findings can be a unique contribution to the literature as the study examines improvement in morphological awareness performance via DA, a subject that does not seem to have been investigated in previous research in the EFL context. In addition, findings concerning the validity of the DATMA are encouraging. In the current study, the dynamic measure was shown to have adequate internal consistency. Findings show that the DATMA had a strong relationship with the SMAT, a static measure of morphological awareness. It can be concluded that the DA was not just a measure of individual variations in a morphological analysis task; it was a measure of individual variations in a student’s ability to respond to adult instruction. Generally, static measures typically assess already-developed abilities whereas dynamic measures are an indicator of a student’s potential to learn new information (Lantolf & Pohner, 2004). The DATMA task may have potential as a tool to help determine an individualized instruction plan for EFL learners to improve their morphological awareness. Since each successive prompt increases the amount of scaffolding that is given to a language learner, it could potentially help a mediator how much instructional support needs to be provided. All in all, DA may open a new horizon in teaching and assessing morphology, paving the way for language learners to learn vocabulary more efficiently.