Dynamic Assessment Approach in Language Teaching: A Review

Estado del arte o revisión bibliográfica Dynamic Assessment Approach in Language Teaching: A Review Evaluación dinámica para la enseñanza de lenguas: una Revisión LIZETH KATHERINE VERGARA CABARCAS1  , JOSÉ LUIS LÓPEZ CARABALLO2  , DILSON JAVIER CASTELLÓN BARRIOS3  , CARLOS ALBERTO VÁSQUEZ ROSSI4  , ERIC ARTURO BECKER ARROYO5  1Magíster en Enseñanza del Inglés como Lengua Extranjera, Universidad Internacional Iberoamericana. Especialista en Enseñanza del Idioma Inglés y Licenciada en Educación Básica con énfasis en Inglés, Fundación Universitaria Colombo Internacional. Docente investigadora del programa de Licenciatura en Educación Énfasis en Inglés de la Fundación Universitaria Colombo Internacional. Correo electrónico: Código ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0153-6870 CvLAC: http://scienti.colciencias.gov.co:8081/cvlac/visualizador/generarCurriculoCv.do?cod_rh=0001416821 2Magíster en la enseñanza de inglés de la Universidad del Norte (Barranquilla, Colombia). Cuenta con más de veinte años de experiencia como formador de profesores y maestros en el Centro Colombo Americano y Unicolombo (Cartagena, Colombia). Se desempeñó como coordinador del programa de la Licenciatura en Educación con énfasis en Inglés de la Fundación Universitaria Colombo Internacional (Cartagena, Colombia). Correo electrónico: CvLAC: http://scienti.colciencias.gov.co:8081/cvlac/visualizador/generarCurriculoCv.do?cod_rh=0001432398 3Licenciado en Educación Básica con énfasis en Ingles, Fundación Universitaria Colombo Internacional. Correo electrónico: 4Licenciado en Educación Básica con énfasis en Ingles, Fundación Universitaria Colombo Internacional. Docente de inglés con un año de experiencia en la enseñanza del idioma Inglés. Correo electrónico: 5Licenciado en Educación Básica con énfasis en Inglés, Fundación Universitaria Colombo Internacional. Docente universitario con 2 años de experiencia en la enseñanza del idioma Inglés. Correo electrónico: ABSTRACT Several forms of assessment have been implemented in order to satisfy the need of evaluating students' development in the teaching and learning process; the most commonly used is Static Assessment (SA), better known as traditional assessment. However, there is an alternative form to assess students' learning, called Dynamic Assessment (DA), which is based on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. This study presents an overview of Dynamic Assessment and its application in language teaching, especially in the improvement of reading and writing skills. As a main result, the literature reveals that the implementation of DA in writing and reading skills is effective and it works as a functional complement to traditional assessment, but some factors such as context, number of hours, teachers' competences and training have to be considered to ensure the effectiveness of this approach to assessment. Key words: Dynamic Assessment (DA); Static Assessment; Zone of proximal Development (ZPD); Vygotsky's Socio Cultural Theory; Language Teaching RESUMEN Distintas formas de evaluación se han implementado para satisfacer la necesidad de evaluar el desarrollo de los estudiantes en los procesos de enseñanza aprendizaje; la más utilizada es la evaluación estática o también conocida como evaluación tradicional. Sin embargo, existe otra forma de evaluar el aprendizaje de los estudiantes llamada Evaluación Dinámica, la cual está basada en la teoría sociocultural de Vygotsky. Este estudio presenta una revisión del tema Evaluación Dinámica y su aplicación en la enseñanza de lenguas, especialmente en la mejora de las habilidades de lectura y escritura. Como resultado principal se encontró que la implementación de la Evaluación Dinámica para las habilidades de lectura y escritura es efectiva, y funciona como un complemento de la evaluación tradicional, pero se deben considerar factores como el contexto, el número de horas, las competencias y la formación del docente, para asegurar la efectividad de este enfoque. Palabras-clave: Evaluación dinámica; Evaluación estática; Zona de desarrollo próximo; Teoría Sociocultural de Vygotsky; Enseñanza de lenguas INTRODUCTION The evaluation of student's learning constitutes a very important role in the field of education since its purpose is to corroborate the achievement of the objectives previously set. It is then possible to analyze the process of teaching and learning through evaluation and then, address these issues and give them a possible solution. Nevertheless, establishing the causes of student's learning problems, and working on them, might be a very complex task. Traditionally, the most common method to evaluate students has been Static Assessment (henceforth SA), which is usually implemented at the end of the learning process and separates testing from teaching. Considering the necessity of evaluating student's performance based on the whole learning process, Dynamic Assessment (henceforth DA) is proposed. DA is a new concept in the field of language learning, it emerges as a way to change the traditional assessment with the idea that assessment and teaching are inseparable entities. Nazary (2012) states that "assessment and instruction are firmly integrated as part of a single activity as can be seen in DA" (p. 57). SA indicates what students have already learned, in contrast DA helps to identify students' performance based on what they are learning or they can learn through interaction. (Tabatabaei & Bakhtiarvand, 2014). Taking the previous ideas into consideration, the objective of this paper is to describe Dynamic Assessment and its possible applications in language teaching, especially in the improvement of reading and writing skills. The study begins by reporting the historical framework and different author's definitions of this concept; then a description of the teacher's role and DA application in second and foreign language teaching is presented. Finally, the study concentrates on reading and writing assessment processes. METHODOLOGY A thematic review was carried out in education databases such as Eric, DOAJ, JStor, Scielo, Dial-net and Redalyc; web pages such as Readcube, and articles from specialized journals. The articles were in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and they were published between 2000 and 2015, with the following descriptors: Dynamic Assessment, Teaching and Learning English. Fifty documents were collected and organized in alphabetical order by author(s) and title, highlighting the methodology, abstract, results, relevant quotes and references. Titles and abstracts were reviewed separately, and references considered relevant were selected subjectively. Finally, the documents that allowed to achieve the purpose of this review were completely analyzed. HISTORICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC ASSESSMENT To introduce the concept of DA, it is necessary include a historical exploration of traditional assessment. Gould (1996) (...truncated)