Mobile-based dynamic assessment and the development of EFL students' oral fluency

Abstract

This paper reports on a study investigating the potential effect of the impact of Mobile-based Dynamic Assessment (MbDA) on improving English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' oral fluency. To fulfil the purpose of the study, 120 pre-intermediate learners of English were randomly assigned to one of three groups (two experimental groups and one control group), each consisting of 40 participants. The participants in the experimental groups completed eight communicative tasks via dynamic assessment under two different contexts: MbDA via text-chat context and MbDA via voice-chat context. The speech rate, average length of pauses, the number of repetitions and the number of reformulation served as dependent variables. The study found that the participants in the experimental groups who received MbDA improved their speaking fluency significantly compared with their peers in the control group.