The Effect of Dynamic and Non-Dynamic Assessment on the Acquisition of Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners Speech Act on Apology and Request

With the emergence of new approaches and method in teaching, language assessment changed and developed, from traditional ways to more dynamic assessment. Dynamic assessment (DA) is based on Vygotsky s (1978) sociocultural theory and his Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Dynamic assessment propose a novel approach to second language acquisition (SLA) research according to which a dialectical relationship is expected between instruction and assessment. Although DA has been applied to some scopes of SLA, There are areas, Such as Interlanaguge pragmatic (ILP) which have been ignored. However very few studies have investigated the impact of dynamic and non-dynamic assessment the pragmatic comprehension of two speech acts of apology and request. Therefore, the present study has aimed to investigate the effect of dynamic and nondynamic assessment on acquisition of apology and request speech acts among Iranian EFL learners. To address the issue thirty-six Iranian intermediate levels were selected based on their Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT), were divided into three groups; one non-dynamic group, one dynamic assessment group and one control group. Each group participated in a pretest and posttest, Listening Pragmatic Comprehension test was developed by Birjandi and Derakhshan (2014). Both DA group and NDA groups received different episodes of Flash Forward series as an instruction. The main findings of this study demonstrated that dynamic assessment help student to perform and learn speech acts better than non-dynamic groups. However, in order to make sure whether or not the groups were different statistically, One-way ANOVA test was run. It can be concluded that there was not a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the three groups. But descriptive statistic for posttest indicated that the mean scores for the posttest in one dynamic assessment non-dynamic assessment group, and control group, respectively, were 117.42, 72.83, and 61.58 which show considerable difference among the groups. In the light of the gained results, the present study offers some implications for teachers, learners, and material development.

کلیدواژه ها:

Dynamic Assessment ، SCT ، ZPD ، Pragmatic ، ILP