Dynamic Assessment in Perspective: Demarcating Dynamic and Non-dynamic Boundaries

Abstract

Ever since the concept of dynamic assessment (also DA) was introduced into the literature on language pedagogy, it has received various interpretations in terms of its scope, meaning, purpose, and even its practical realization. This difference in interpretation, the raison d'etre of DA, however, has resulted in a burgeoning variation in the number and types of procedures and practices employed in L2 classrooms under DA programs, a fact which seems to have gone unnoticed by both the critics and advocates of DA approaches to L2. The present article, therefore, tries to define DA within the very conceptual framework it was originally introduced and to sketch the theoretical and practical scopes which serve to realize that framework. To this end, this article provides an account of the basic tenets and principles underlying DA and also examines the degree to which each of the major approaches to DA have realized those basic principles in practice.