Diagnosing L2 Receptive Vocabulary Development: A Microgenetic Study

The present study is an attempt to shed light on the effect of Dynamic Assessment (DA) on diagnosing and developing the receptive vocabulary abilities of upper-intermediate learners learning English as a foreign language. Fifty L2 leaners participated in First Certificate in English test and completed Vocabulary Knowledge Scale. Out of 50 students, ten learners who were identified as being homogenous and were not familiar with the new vocabularies volunteered to participate in individualized tutoring sessions. Reading texts were used to make learners familiar with the target words and cloze passages were administered to assess learners’ receptive vocabulary. Mediation was provided using the interactionist approach to DA and learners’ responsiveness to mediation were studied in a microgenetic approach. The qualitative data were then coded in terms of task completion along with errors and struggles and transformed into quantitative data for analysis. The actual, mediated and transfer scores were reported to analyze learners’ Zone of Actual Development (ZAD), Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), and the degree of the internalization of mediation. Findings of the study revealed that to have a complete picture of learners’ abilities, actual scores are not self-sufficient. Mediated scores are vital to diagnose learners’ areas of difficulties and to promote learners’ receptive vocabulary knowledge. The information from transfer scores also uncovers evidence of learning and data form Learning Potential Score (LPS) predict how learners probably respond to future instruction. Findings of the study indicate that DA is promising in presenting a fine-grained diagnosis of learners’ receptive vocabulary development while also suggesting information related to future teaching and learning.