A Study On The Application Of Dynamic Assessment To English Writing Teaching In A Junior High School

The present assessment for English writing in junior high school are mainly the summative tests which focuses much on the test results but ignores the students' writing process.However,dynamic assessment(DA hereafter)is not only a method to assess students' present language ability but also a teaching method to explore students' potential language ability.The integration of assessment and instruction in the process of dynamic assessment makes it different from non-dynamic assessment because traditional assessment only focuses on the method to assess.This thesis gives a systematic introduction of DA and designs a framework of dynamic assessment in teaching English writing in junior high school.In this framework,three stages are conducted: pre-writing,while-writing(mediation)and post-writing.During the stage of while-writing(mediation),timely feedback and assessment should be provided for students to rethink and revise their writing.However,in traditional summative tests,feedback or assessment only comes after the process of writing instead of during the process of writing,which fails to encourage students to rethink and revise their writing pieces efficiently.Luckily,in the writing mode based on DA,teachers' interventional activities,which are designed to give directions for students' activities,aim to maximize the communication between students and students and the interaction between students and the teacher.What's more,students are trained to reflect on and revise their writing.The author designs the Framework of Dynamic Assessment in Teaching English Writing in Junior High School to investigate whether the application of DA benefits students' writing.The study mainly employs quantitative and qualitative research to explore the following two questions:(1)Does the application of DA improve students' attitude to writing(in terms of confidence,interest and strategy)?(2)Does the application of DA help to improve students' writing ability(in terms of three dimensions: organization,content and language accuracy)?The author conducted an experimental research in two classes.According to the data collected in this study,it can be concluded that the application of DA benefits students' writing in both attitude and ability.Based on the findings,the study provides some pedagogical implications and suggestions for future study.To some extent,there are some limitations in this study but it is a new attempt integrating assessment in English writing teaching in junior high school to improve students' writing ability.