Dynamic Assessment in Synchronous Computer Mediated Communication (SCMC)

Abstract The theoretical motivation behind dynamic assessment (DA) emerges from Vygotsky’s theory of the mediated mind. This study represents a web-based qualitative inquiry employing interactionsist DA which follows Vygotsky’s preference for cooperative dialoging by integrating SCMC features of the visual salience, self-paced setting of written discourse and web 2.0 applications of web links , sticky notes and highlighting to shed light on microgenitic development of learners’ L2 grammatical structure in writing. It also addresses the inadequacy of proficiency levels obtained in the psychometric-based DIALANG in pinpointing learners’ future potentials for development. Microgenisis as a general analytical framework is used for data analysis. The results of the study indicated that through microgentic analysis in DA via web 2.0 based tools of Google Wave and Skype, it is possible to obtain a richer and more accurate understanding of students’ potential level of L2 grammatical development.