Integrating Teaching and Dynamic Assessment: An Experimental Research on Developing Writing Skill of Intermediate Persian Learners in Toronto

The present study was an attempt to investigate the impact of dynamic assessment exploitation on the writing skill of North American intermediate Persian as a Second Language (PSL) learners. To do so, a quasi-experimental study was designed in which 33 participants at intermediate level in Toronto, Canada who were selected from among 46 students following the results of a Farsi proficiency test named Oxford Persian Test (OXPET) took part. Two intermediate classes were randomly selected to serve as the experimental group and another two ones were considered as the control group. A pre-test of Persian writing was administered to see if the learners enjoyed homogeneity in terms of their familiarity with writing skill prior to the treatment initiation. The experimental group dealt with Dynamic Assessment (DA) process of second language writing while the control group went through the communicative approach the course book suggested. Following ten sessions of instructions a posttest of Persian writing was administered to the learners of both groups. The results revealed that the participants benefiting from DA highly outperformed the participants receiving non-dynamic assessment (NDA) in their post-writing task. Moreover, the analysis of the findings revealed that participants receiving DA had made progress to the same degree. Furthermore, the results of the study supported that intervention did not play a significant role in the development of learners’ writing skill. PSL learners need to get acquainted with dynamic assessment for a better, native-like, more appropriate performance. The study findings could be employed by a variety of ELT community members in Iranian schools and language institutes: materials developers, Farsi language teachers, and educational policy makers dealing with extending the Persian language training.