The Impact Of Dynamıc Assessment On Englısh Language Learners’ Wrıtıng Skıll

Abstract

This study explored the impact of dynamic assessment/negotiated feedback and nonnegotiated feedback on EFL learners’ writing skills. Related studies have yielded that there has been a need to adopt the Sociocultural Theory oriented feedback in L2 writing settings since the assertion of one-corrective feedback type-fit-all learners and all error natures has been criticized on some grounds. Instead, having a goal-oriented interaction with learners on errors have been gaining importance. Moreover, scholars have spread the idea of employing the present-to-future model of assessment to offer a fair assessment setting to the learners. Heeding these needs and calls, dynamic assessment (DA) has appeared as an alternative form of instruction and assessment. Within the scope of this mixed methods research, one group was provided DA, whilst another group was provided non-negotiated feedback. Initially, inferential statistical analyses yielded that both feedback approaches helped the students write more accurate and fluent texts. Yet, the students who joined DA sessions outperformed in the linguistic features in the long term. Then, dialogic interactions between the teacher and the students were analyzed, and the findings illustrated that the students might need different feedback for the same error nature, and different error natures might be treated with divergent feedback types. To unearth these differences in detail, the learners’ macrogenetic and microgenetic analyses were presented with mediational moves and learner reciprocity acts. Lastly, the learners who were assisted with DA broadly mentioned the benefits and drawbacks of DA and need to integrate DA in L2 writing classes in interview sessions.