Dynamic Assessment in ELT

Dynamic Assessment (DA) is built upon the progress in the Vygotsky's (1978) Zone of Proximal Development and is a framework for the integration of instruction and assessment as a unitary activity and serves first to identify the abilities of the learners and second, actively support the progress of such abilities (Poehner, 2008). Considering the adhered importance of DA and in an effort to investigate the efficacy of this newly introduced assessment mode, this study delves into the results of a number of empirical studies of DA that are recently carried out in the field of EFL/ESL. The results of this secondary analysis revealed that the application of DA in the second or foreign language learning contexts enables the teachers and even the learners to efficiently identify the origins of the learner's educational problems and provide them with the appropriate feedback or solutions. The provision of solution is the main distinctive feature of DA as the static modes of assessment even if are able to identify the origins of the learners educational problems, are not oriented towards the immediate provision of appropriate remedies for the problems. Furthermore, DA is a better means to distinguish the learners from each other based on their knowledge or communicative competence and to predict their future performances.