Case Study On Influence Of Interventionist Approach To Dynamic Assessment On Oral English Abilities Of Slow Learners

College Oral English (COE) instruction for large class size could not met special learning needs of slow learners (SL) in COE in recent years. And SL of COE usually failed in the traditional COE test mode, which was called static assessment mode, and emphasized students’learning results. As a resuilt, SL’s oral English abilities ccould not attain the "Basic Requirements" in College English Curriculum Requirements. There is few empirical research on teaching SL in COE in accordance with their aptitudes in domestic literatures. International literatures report new research trend on teaching SL of second language speaking in accordance with their aptitudes, that is, dynamic assessment(DA) was adopted to pridict students’Zone of Proximal Development ZPD) in second language speaking abilities, and the Mediated Learning Experience(MLE) was used for promoting SL’s second language speaking abilities within their ZPD. There isn’t any report on employing Interventionist Approach to Dynamic Assessment (IADA) to help SL, whose foreign language is English, with their oral English learning at home and abroad. So the present author tried to probe the influence of IADA on English speaking abilities of SL in COE and reasons for that, and discuss the possibilities of applying IADA to teaching SL of COE in accordance with their aptitudes.It was a case study. And qualitative approach was employed. The subjects were four SL in COE, who were matched in two pairs. The research instrument was two sets of Oral English Test Paper and a Half-closed questionnaire for interview. On the basis of literature research, the present author integrated the merits of IADA abroad and drew lessons from the goodness of the Graduated Prompt Approach (GPA) adopted by Campione&Brown, and then designed the standardizedly GPA—that is, IADA—used in the study. The "pretes—training—posttest" mode was employed in this study, which lasted for three months. The standardizedly GPA designed by the present author was used in the process of "pretest","posttest" for the four subjects. During the training phase, the present author chose oral English materials for the subjects’training according to their ZPD of English speaking abilities predicted on the results of their pre-test. The two experimental subjects was respectively trained ten times (that is, once per week,45minutes for each subject) in the way of standardizedly GPA designed by the present author, while, through autonomous learning system, the two control subjects were asked to leran autonomously the same training materials with which their matched pair used weekly, and their autonomous learning time was no less than45minutes per week, which lasted for10weeks. The present author checked weekly through autonomous learning system if the two control subjects met the requirement of autonomous learning time and content, and answered any questions related to their autonomous learning content from them online. After the experiment, the four subjects were interviewed by the present author.Three research questions of the study were as follows:(1) Does I AD A influence the SL of COE on their oral English abilities?(2) If so, what’s the influence of IADA on the SL’s COE abilities?(3) Why can IADA impact the SL of COE on their COE abilities?In order to answer the first two questions, data from the four subjects’pretest and posttest were analyzed. In order to avoid the unit difference, all data were converted into ratio for quantization, and compared within the same kind. By comparing respectively the ratio of the same kind of prompt and the accuracy ratio of independent performance in solving the same kind of problem in the pre-test and post-test, the four subjects’ZPD of COE abilities were predicted, and whether or how their oral English abilities changed were considered. And then possible reasons for that were discussed. Results showed that the paired subjects’ZPD of oral English and oral English abilities were the same before the experiment. But after the experiment, the two experimental subjects’oral English abilities were developed and improved within their ZPD, and the two control subjects’ oral English abilities didn’t change within their ZPD. The possible reason was that the two experimental subjects got mediated training10times in the way of standardizedly GPA during the experiment, that although the two control subjects learned the oral English material for training autonomously through the autonomous learning system for10weeks, the effect of their autonomous learning was not good.In order to answer the third questions, data from the interview on the four subjects was sorted and analyzed. Results showed that IADA could be used to predict ZPD of COE abilities for SL of COE, and the mediated training, which was niche targeting, interactive and face to face, helped the two experimental subjects develop and improve their COE abilities within their ZPD, and the lack of abilities and qualities in autonomous learning was why the two control subjects’COE abilities didn’t change. And an interesting finding was that IADA was better than the traditional static test in assessing COE abilities of SL in COE.Finally, by synthesizing the results of the experimental and interview data, three pieces of findings from the study were concluded and four pieces of suggestions were provided by the present author on the application of IADA to teaching SL of COE in accordance with their aptitudes.