Improving Linguistic and Pragmatic Knowledge of Hedging Strategies in EFL Undergraduate Students: A Dynamic Assessment Approach

Dynamic assessments originated from Vygotsky’s ZPD theory have been widely accepted and employed as an effective contribution to linguistic development in EFL classrooms in recent years. With this in mind and due to the importance of hedging devices in qualifying academic writing and the fact that EFL writers experience difficulties in acquiring and applying them appropriately in their writings, the present study aims at exploring the effectiveness of dynamic assessment approach on developing the Iranian EFL learners’ linguistic and pragmatic knowledge of modal auxiliaries as hedging strategies. To this end, thirty seven undergraduate students majoring in different fields were randomly assigned into an experimental and control group. The participants in the experimental group received the dynamic assessment mediation. Both groups attended a pre-test and a posttest. Consequently, the obtained scores were analyzed using SPSS V. 22. The results of descriptive analysis as well as t-tests indicated that the participants in the experimental group improved significantly and meaningfully regarding linguistic and pragmatic knowledge of modal auxiliaries. The results also showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in acquiring and employing the given hedges in their writing tasks. The interpretations and the implications of the study have also been discussed.