Saeed Mohammadi; Esmat Babaii
Abstract
This study investigates EFL teachers’ perceptions regarding Dynamic Assessment (hereafter DA) prior and subsequent to taking part in workshops and panel discussions. Twenty-five EFL teachers participated in a semi-structured interview, 10 of whom were selected through purposive sampling to take ...
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This study investigates EFL teachers’ perceptions regarding Dynamic Assessment (hereafter DA) prior and subsequent to taking part in workshops and panel discussions. Twenty-five EFL teachers participated in a semi-structured interview, 10 of whom were selected through purposive sampling to take part in a five-session workshop, which was held to familiarize them with the principles of DA. Following workshop training sessions, a panel discussion was run for 2 sessions and teachers shared their ideas and discussed their problems in applying DA in their classes regarding reading skill. Their classes were video-taped for further analysis and they were also asked to keep reflective journals regarding their practice. After these treatment sessions, a second semi- structured interview regarding EFL teachers’ perceptions about DA was run. According to the results of the discussion sessions and interviews, using them as the base of work, an observation checklist was created to assess the EFL teachers' classroom practices and see whether they correspond to their attitudes or not. The results of this study showed that EFL teachers found workshop training sessions both informative and practical. They mentioned panel discussion groups as a good platform to discuss their practice- related problems with their colleagues and writing reflective journals as an awareness raising act which help them improve their DA practices. Implications for teachers and teacher training courses are discussed.
Arezoo Daneshvar; mohammad sadegh bagheri; firooz sadighi; Lotfollah Yarmohammadi; Mortaza Yamini
Abstract
AbstractDynamic Assessment (DA) has been utilized for language evaluation. This mixed-methods study aimed to examine the potential impact of interactionist and interventionist models, as two significant offshoots of dynamic assessment on IELTS candidates’ performance in academic writing task 2. ...
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AbstractDynamic Assessment (DA) has been utilized for language evaluation. This mixed-methods study aimed to examine the potential impact of interactionist and interventionist models, as two significant offshoots of dynamic assessment on IELTS candidates’ performance in academic writing task 2. The study also compared the efficiency of these dynamic models and static assessment in the overall writing development of potential IELTS test-takers’ proficiency in writing task 2 in terms of IELTS writing assessment criteria. An experimental pretest-treatment-posttest design was employed. A qualitative approach was also conducted using field notes as a cross-validation strategy. To this end, 54 (26 males and 28 females) Iranian IELTS candidates aged 19 to 35 were randomly assigned to one control and two experimental groups (n=18). Initially, a pre-test was run to assess all participants’ developing writing skills. Afterward, the experimental groups received treatments based on interactionist and interventionist models, whereas the control group received no dynamic treatment in the form of interactionist and interventionist models and was trained according to the conventional static methods of writing instruction. Finally, a post-test was administered to check the treatments’ efficacy. The quantitative results demonstrated that the interventionist group’s writing performance was significantly better than that of the static group. However, there existed no statistically significant difference between the DA groups’ writing performance. The qualitative findings substantiated the quantitative results indicating the outperformance of dynamic assessment over the static assessment approach in the development of IELTS writing task 2 skills. The research findings have some pedagogical implications for IELTS teachers.
