The impact of group dynamic assessment on grammar achievement of EFL learners

Taking its roots from the Vygotskian sociocultural theory of cognitive development, Dynamic Assessment (DA) has proved to be a valuable tool in psychological and educational research for a long time. However, DA has recently been employed in the field of SLA and given promising results. Considering the gap in the literature, this study sought to investigate the impact of Group Dynamic Assessment (G-DA) on development of B1 EFL learners' control over narrative tenses. A total of 72 students were included in the study and divided into two groups as experimental and control. Employing a mixed-methods design, the data of the study were collected via multiple sources including grammar tests on narrative tenses, a written transcendence task, recordings of G-DA sessions, semi-structured interview, and reflective teacher journal. During the intervention in which interactionist approach to DA was employed, experimental group learners were offered contingent and graduated mediation from implicit to explicit in response to emergent needs of the learners in a dialogic interaction for four weeks while control group received explicit corrective feedback. The findings revealed outperformance of the experimental group on the grammar test. It was also found that the experimental group showed a more varied, more accurate, and higher number of tense use in the transcendence task. The analysis of DA sessions revealed that the experimental group had higher self-regulation abilities compared to the control group, who had a higher need for other-regulation. Finally, the perspectives of the learners and the teacher about the implementation of DA in a classroom context were analyzed and interpreted. Considering the potential of DA for L2 learning, implications and suggestions were provided.