Interactionist Dynamic Assessment Approach To Student-led Group Discussion

Dynamic assessment (henceforth DA), grounded on Vygotsky’s concept of theZone of Proximal Development, aims to promote learner development through activeintervention. It integrates assessment and instruction into a seamless activity and thusdiffers from none dynamic assessment (henceforth NDA), in which there is nofeedback during the process and the assessor attempts to be as neutral or uninvolvedas possible. During the DA process, the researchers can use two main kinds ofmediation, which are interventionist mediation and interactionist mediation (Lantolf&Poehner,2004). The former focuses on the standardized hints while the latterfollows Vygotsky’s preference for dialogic cooperation. Interventionist DA has beenused in the area of education for a long time (Budoff,1987; Guthke,1992; Carlson&Wiedl,1992; Campione, Brown, Ferrera&Bryant,1984; Kozulin&Garb,2002;Davin&Donato,2013), which focuses on the speed of learning. When the examineecompletes efficiently all the tasks, mediation in the interventionist DA ends. However,from Vygotskian perspectives, the assessor should continue to offer mediation so thatlearner development keeps going. Interactionist DA emphasizes assessment andinstruction around the zone of proximal development (henceforth ZPD) with learnersin order to promote development. It has been applied in language teaching, especiallyforeign language teaching, in the past two decades. The role of interactionist DA inpromoting language development of the language learners has been verified by anumber of researchers (Lantolf&Aljaafreh,1994; Antón,2009; Poehner,2009;Poehner&Lantolf,2005; Hill&Sabet,2009). In these studies, the researchers triedto create an activity that develops learner development around ZPD with learners andtransforms classroom activity. In Chinese EFL context, though application of DAapproach has been explored theoretically, attempting to apply interventionist DA inteaching has been sparse except a few in writing (Han,2009; Pen,2004; Lan&Liu,2010; Zhang,2008; Zhang,2010). So far, how DA functioned in specific teaching andlearning activities is still poorly understood. This study attempts to embedinteractionist DA in group discussion in an organized extracurricular activity and seeif it could promote participants’ oral language development and critical thinking skills, both valued in oral production.The extracurricular activity in the present study, named as the Movie-directedEnglish Corner (MEC), was composed of a foreign teacher team, discussion leadersand participants. Participants watched a movie and then discussed it in groups led bydiscussion leaders. All the leaders were required to attend an extra discussion inadvance with foreign teachers, in which a list of questions to be used in MEC werebrought up and discussed.In the present study, two leaders and the groups they led were investigated inorder to see if conscious use of interactionist DA approach could play a facilitativerole in group discussion. One of the two leaders was trained in DA and implemented itin her leading of the group discussion in the experimental group, while the other wasnot subject to any of this particular training in DA except the weekly meeting withforeign teachers. Data of the study were collected through audio recording,nonparticipant observation and interviews. Each section of the MEC within6weekshas been audio-recorded, observational notes were taken and interviews were alsoconducted with both leaders and MEC participants.The present study is guided by three questions:1) Can meditative dialogingfacilitate the participants’ critical thinking skills in group discussion ofMovie-directed English Corner?2) What meditative skills tend to be used by theleaders in leading the group discussion?3) How is the effect of meditation prompts inDA perceived by students? The results showed that the leader in the experimentalgroup can facilitate students to use more critical thinking skills, especially abilities ofexplanation and inference. And the study suggests that both negotiation andscaffolding are found to be quite effective in eliciting students’ critical thinking skillsin the experimental group. Characteristics of interactionist DA mediations used by thestudent leader of the experimental group are found in:1) mediation with strongintentionality;2) mediation based on students’ responses;3) mediation for leavingspace for students;4) mediation with L1. Both students and leader hold very positiveattitude towards the interactionist DA approach to group discussion. The benefits areperceived by the students that skills of critical thinking can transfer to other activities,think deeper, affective support and the ability of leading group discussion. Usinginteractionist DA approach also changes the way of discussion leading. The leaderbelieves that it can help her lead group discussion well.