The Effect of Dynamic Assessment on Elementary EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension through Mediational Strategies

The present study concentrated on the theoretical and methodological issues at the intersection of second language acquisition, language pedagogy and socio-cultural theory (SCT) which were proposed by Vygotsky (1978). One of the offsprings of SCT is dynamic assessment (DA) emanating from Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory which has a long history in applied linguistics but has been the hot topic of EFL studies recently. Dynamic assessment promotes language development; it assumes that mental activities are mediated by psychological instruments. Dynamic assessment has received considerable attention from researchers over the last three decades culminating in many studies which have been conducted on the effect of DA on language skills, but a few studies have focused on the effect of dynamic assessment on listening comprehension, and the unclear results have prompted the researchers to capitalize upon the impact of dynamic assessment on the listening comprehension. Therefore, the present study aimed to expand traditional understanding of listening assessment in foreign language contexts and pertain dynamic assessment to the development of learners’ listening ability. To do so, thirty six elementary Iranian students studying English as a foreign language ranging in age from 12 to 17 took part in the present study. They were selected among the seventy students who participated in Oxford Quick Placement Test who were then divided into one dynamic group, one non-dynamic group, and one control group. The analysis of one-way ANOVA and Tukey test demonstrated that the dynamic group outperformed both non-dynamic and control groups, but the non-dynamic group did not have a better performance than the control group. Finally, according to the findings, language teachers are recommended to use the meditational strategies and also care about the learner’s potential. Furthermore, teachers are suggested to apply more DA approaches in their classes in a more systematic way rather than the traditional kind of testing which concentrates only on the learning product.