A Study On The Application Of Group Dynamic Assessment To English Writing Instructions In Senior High Schools

The newest edition of English Curriculum Standards for High School has advocated “aligning assessment,learning and teaching in high school English teaching”.However,teachers may not know how to achieve such alignment in classroom teaching.Dynamic assessment is part of the theoretical basis of “aligning assessment,learning and teaching”.In the context of dynamic assessment,the process of assessment is also the process of teaching.During the process,teachers can find students’ zone of proximal development,provide appropriate support,collect formative learning evidence,and thus promote the development of students.Writing is not only an important form of language output,but also the weakest part of many students’ English learning.Efficient writing instructions to promote the development of students’ writing proficiency is urgently needed in high school English teaching today.In order to implement aligned teaching,learning and assessment,this research attempts to apply group dynamic assessment to high school English writing teaching,explore the working process of group dynamic assessment,and its effects on students’ English writing proficiency.In so doing,this research may demonstrate some practical methods to help teachers apply group dynamic assessment in writing teaching.Based on Vygotsky’s theory of ZPD(Zone of Proximal Development)and the theory of mediation,this research conducted a 9-week group dynamic assessment writing teaching experiment with 52 students in a class of a public high school in Hangzhou,Zhejiang Province.The author experimental lessons were video-recorded and analyzed for the mediational moves of the teacher and the reciprocating moves of the students.A total of 150 texts of writing tasks by students at three different points of time during the experiment were collected to analyze the influence of the experiment on students’ writing proficiency.Data of questionnaire survey and interviews wre used to analyze the influence of the experiment on students’ writing emotions and self-recognition of writing proficiency.The findings of this research include that:(1)teachers tend to use mediational moves like “looking for the errors” and “metalinguistic clues” with moderate degree of implicity,and the proportions tend to be balanced towards the end of the experiment;(2)level of students’ reciprocating moves is high and keeps increasing,and group interactions can help individual development in writing;(3)group dynamic assessment can improve students’ English writing proficiency and self-recognition;(4)students’ emotional experience is generally positive,and different emotional factors vary.Based on the research results above,the author suggests that high school English teachers should keep a record of their mediational moves when applying the group dynamic assessment in writing teaching,encourage students to initiate interactions,and pay attention to the changes of students’ writing emotions.