Dynamic Assessment of Oral Proficiency Among Advanced L2 Learners of French

Open Access
- Author:
- Poehner, Matthew Edward
- Graduate Program:
- French
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 10, 2005
- Committee Members:
- Celeste S Kinginger, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
James Lantolf, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Thomas Albert Hale, Committee Member
Meredith Christine Doran, Committee Member
Gabriella Appel, Committee Member - Keywords:
- second language acquisition
language assessment
Vygotsky
dynamic assessment
sociocultural theory - Abstract:
- This dissertation seeks to offer an alternative way of conceptualizing the relationship between assessment and instruction whereby the two are not dualistically opposed, as is traditionally the case in Western pedagogies, but are instead integrated as a unified activity. Dynamic Assessment (DA) is rooted in L.S. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of cognitive development, according to which human cognitive abilities can only be fully understood through studying the processes of their development. Thus, Vygotsky argued that assessment must go beyond mere descriptions of observable phenomena to reveal the underlying causes of poor performances and to make recommendations as to how problems can be remediated. That is, assessment should be about prognosis rather than diagnosis. At the level of practice, DA challenges the widely accepted notion that interaction between an examiner and an examinee jeopardizes the procedure’s reliability. Instead, DA requires the examiner to mediate the examinee’s performance during the assessment itself through the use of prompts, hints, and questions. In this way, the focus of the assessment shifts from examinees’ success or failure at completing a given task to an analysis of the amount and kinds of assistance they required as well as the extent to which they reciprocated the examiner’s interactive moves. Vygotsky formalized this approach to simultaneously understanding and promoting development as the zone of proximal development (ZPD). From this perspective, analysis of examiner-examinee collaborations reveals the future performance examinees will achieve if they are given appropriate instruction (Vygotsky, 1998). This study sought to explore the application of DA to a L2 learning context. In particular, L2 DA was considered in terms of the following: (1) any insights into learners’ abilities that were not obtained from assessing a candidate’s independent performance but that only came to light during DA; (2) the possibility of promoting learners’ abilities through DA; (3) the usefulness of DA in leading to individualized instruction that remained sensitive to examinees’ ZPD; and (4) the extent to which development transcended the given assessment context. Six advanced undergraduate learners of L2 French were asked to orally construct a series of narratives in French based on short video clips. The learners created the first narrative independently and the second narrative with support from the examiner. The results of these assessments were used to develop a six-week long enrichment program in which participants met with the researcher for individualized tutoring. The goal of these sessions was to address problems that were identified during the assessments and to do so in a manner that took account of their interactions with the examiner during DA. Following enrichment, the nature and extent of their development was explored through repetitions of the original assessments as well as variations of these tasks. The findings suggest that DA is an effective means of understanding learners’ abilities and helping them to overcome linguistic problems. The approach is especially relevant to L2 classrooms as a method for rendering formative assessment practices more systematic. It is therefore argued that DA should be taken seriously by Applied Linguistics researchers interested in language assessment, teaching, and learning.