In my interdisciplinary doctoral research project (Education, Psychology and Linguistics), I study opportunities of GroupDynamic Assessment, following the Sociocultural Theory (SCT) by Vygotsky for adult education, because adult education is often overlooked by research and conventional approaches need to be complemented by the latest achievements in Pedagogy and Linguistics, which can be more effective for the development of adults. Teaching and Assessment should not be considered as two separate concepts but ONE longitudinal interwoven process, despite the traditional view of them as two different concepts in education: teaching is a process of ‘filling in the empty vessels’ and assessment is a one-time event on ‘measuring’ the results of teaching. Most contexts are focused on assessment and feedback of the product of learning (e.g., Leontjev, 2022; Mäkipää, 2021). To address this challenge, I propose the framework of Dynamic Assessment of Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory (SCT) which views teaching and assessment as an integral process (Poehner, 2008; 2009; Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994; DeBoer & Leontjev, 2020) inform assessment.

The main aim of my research is to study the process of development of listening skills in adult second language learners in group settings through the framework of Group Dynamic Assessment (G-DA).

The objectives that can lead to the answer to this main aim are the following:  

1)   If and how G-DA can contribute to the development of L2 English linguistic skills in adults.  

2)   What insights into L2 adult learners’ listening abilities and their development emerge from (a) individual and (b) group DA interactions with them. 

3)   What responsive moves to mediation exhibited by the learners during the G-DA-based pedagogical intervention, were not mentioned in previous studies (due to a limited number of these studies on G-DA) and are essential for the successful development of listening skills in SLL. 

The definition of Dynamic Assessment that I use in my work is “Dynamic assessment integrates assessment and instruction into a seamless, unified activity aimed at promoting learner development through appropriate forms of mediation that are sensitive to the individual‘s (or in some cases a group’s) current abilities.” (Lantolf & Poehner, 2004). Dynamic Assessment has not yet become a mainstream practice in educational institutions (Leontjev, 2022). However, there are research projects that incorporate it into the Language Diagnostic protocol (Dynamic Diagnostic Language Assessment (DD-LANG) project by the University of Jyvaskyla). These and many other works have been focused on individual schoolchildren or university students, there are few studies of adult development with the application of Dynamic Assessment.

Despite the development of translation and interpreting software and AI, people still need to learn languages, they change countries, they need to integrate into other cultures and languages, they need to be confident of themselves and bring their expertise to L2 learning classroom. Traditional approaches to instruction could be more effective. One of the answers is GroupDynamic Assessment (G-DA), where learners work in close collaboration with each other, bringing their own knowledge, and life experience to create a common safe ecosystem where each learner gains those skills and knowledge that they lack and need.

My bold move is to apply this SCT and its practical application G-DA to Group Adult Second Language Education. This will help to facilitate more effective learning of second languages in group settings as opposed to individual instruction and will contribute to the Group Dynamic Assessment (G-DA) within Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory.  

To achieve the aim of the study, I received data from 44 participants, 60 hours of video-recorded Group-Dynamic Assessment (G-DA) sessions as well as individual DA sessions that need further analysis and description. In my dissertation, I use mixed-method research. As DA research has often been qualitative focusing on the close cooperation of a teacher and a learner, thus qualitative data analysis is the main research method. However, in my study, I also employed quantitative methods as they give unambiguous evidence for the development of language skills. Some collected data were analysed qualitatively – group dynamic assessment sessions and individual sessions, these sessions were transcribed and need further deep analysis of patterns of mediator’s (teacher’s) moves and adult learners’ responses, and there was a reverse process as well – learners’ initiation of the learning process and mediator’s responses. The mediator’s moves and learner’s moves have been studied before and there is a scale of moves from the most explicit to the most implicit ones. This scale will be quantified for statistical analysis and will be extended based on the empirical data of the study. This will give us an idea of which moves and responses are the most common and most effective and can be recommended for the future. The study was designed in a Test-Teach-Test (sandwich) format, i.e., the participants took an FCE (Cambridge Assessment English: First Certificate in English) mock Test at the beginning of the study followed by an enrichment (Teaching) stage, which included G-DA interactions, learning in a classroom collaborative environment, where the mediator had to create a safe ecosystem for learning, as well as individual dynamic assessment sessions with 7 learners, and finished with a Test stage again. Participants signed all the necessary documents allowing the use of the video recorded for research purposes.

As the result of my doctoral research project, a typology of mediational and reciprocity (learner reactions providing a window into the degree of their responsibility for their own performance) moves in a group setting is proposed based on the G-DA interactions during the pedagogical intervention I designed, adding to the existing typologies proposed based on studies of one-on-one DA interactions. Mediational moves are put on a cline based on the explicitness of the mediational move, for example, the most implicit move is being present in the classroom and the most explicit move is providing an explanation to the learners. Reciprocity moves are put on a cline based on the idea of agency of the learners, where minimal agency is one extreme of the cline (for example, when learners are silent and not responding to the mediator) and the maximum agency extreme (for example, when learners are providing the explanation for the answer themselves). My data also allows me to see the contribution of individual dynamic assessment to Group Dynamic Assessment, and vice versa, how G-DA informed Individual Dynamic Assessment sessions.

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