CALPER: Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research

Dynamic Assessment of L2 Development
Authors: Matthew E. Poehner and James P. Lantolf
Type: PDF Year: 2003 Size: 25 pp.
CALPER Working Paper Series, No. 1 The present paper outlines a theoretical framework for a research program on Dynamic Assessment (henceforth, DA) within in the fields of L2 research, pedagogy and language testing. To achieve this, we will first discuss the theoretical basis of DA in the work of L. S. Vygotsky; next, we will contrast DA with more traditional static approaches to assessment (henceforth, SA) in the general educational and psychological literatures; we will then review the few studies that have been carried out to date on DA and L2 learning and instruction; we will next consider some of the critiques leveled against DA, in particular in its clinical orientation, by those concerned with psychometric principles; finally, we will consider the implications of some recent theoretical and empirical research calling for a closer connection between L2 assessment and instruction in light of our discussion of DA.


	Monday, November 23, 2009