Using Dynamic Assessment to Improve L2 Learners’ Knowledge of Grammar: Evidence from the Tenses

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to examine the effect of dynamic assessment (DA) of speaking on rule internalization through giving explicit feedback as mediation along with a focus on five tenses: simple present, simple past, present continuous, past continuous and present perfect. Sixty participants were invited to take part in the study. After a pretest, DA using explicit feedback as mediation was administered in the experimental group as a midterm exam; however, the control group took a conventional midterm exam. In order to investigate the rate of rule internalization, in both groups a posttest (with no mediation) was administered. Given the lack of normal distribution of scores, the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U-test was run on the data obtained from both the pretest and posttest. No significant difference between the performances of two groups at the beginning of the experiment existed, but the results of the posttest showed that at the end of the term the experimental group outperformed the control group as a result of administering DA as the midterm exam. Moreover, considering the lack of normal score distribution, the Freidman test was run to determine which target forms were internalized the best, revealing that the simple past was the form internalized better than the others.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Tests used on the prettest and posttest (questions were not asked successively):

Simple present

• Where do you usually go for summer holidays?

• What do you do at weekends?

• Where do you live?

• When do you wake up in the mornings?

Simple past

• Where did you go for Norouz holiday last year?

• What did you have for lunch yesterday?

• When did you wake up this morning?

• When did you start learning English?

Present perfect

• Have you ever been abroad?

• How many terms have you studied English here?

• Have you ever lost your mobile phone?

• Have you ever played tennis?

Present continuous

• What are you wearing now?

• What am I doing now?

• Do you know what your mother is doing now?

• Who are you living with?

Past continuous

• What were you doing when i entered the class?

• Was it raining this morning?

• Did you watch TV last night when you were having lunch?

• What were you doing this morning at 8?

Appendix 2

Dynamic Assessment text for paraphrasing as midterm exam:

Mr. Parker is a kind man who lives in a small town. One day Mr. Parker said to himself: “I haven’t seen my brother David for a long time, and he is living in a new house now. I’m going to drive there and see him this afternoon.” He took his brother’s address, got into his car and started out. He was driving for a long time, but still couldn’t find the house so he stopped and asked somebody to help him. “You have come the wrong way. Go straight along this road for two miles,”the man said, “then turn left, and then take the second road on the right.” While Mr. Parker was going straight along the road and he was trying to turn left after two miles, but he got lost again. He drove for another mile, and at last he saw a road on his right and stopped. A woman was coming toward him, so he said to her, “Excuse me, is this the second road on the right?”