Article critique

Shuting Shen

Colorado State University

 Summary

In the article “Group Dynamic Assessment: Mediation for the L2 Classroom,” Poehner

(2009) conducted the experiment of having a primary school scientific terminology teacher

teaching in English and in Spanish to determine the efficiency of Dynamic Assessment (DA).

The results of 5 exchanges show that (1) the primary and secondary interactions benefit the

L2 learners; (2) the most effective away to conduct DA with students is through an approach

in which the prefabricated mediating prompts are ranked from most implicit to most explicit

and by assigning a numerical value to each; (3) from the perspective of cumulative group-DA

(G-DA), the mediating potential of the exchange for the rest of the class is of critical

importance, since the whole class participates in the exchange as secondary interactants. The

author concludes that G-DA contributes to L2 education by creating classroom interactions in

a more systematic and attuned way, in order for the learners to improve their emergent

abilities.

Critique

As mentioned by Poehner (2009), the results of the experiment can be viewed simply as

an example of good teaching, in that when the teacher takes a lead role in guiding the

student’s development, students are more likely to respond in the way that the teacher wants.

Comparing the teacher’s questions in Exchange 1 and Exchange 2, it is obvious that when the

teacher asks a more specific question, the student may answer in a more satisfying way. This

is true not only for L2 learners, but almost all learners in all subjects that they learn. The

professor’s role is crucial in the experimental setting, meaning the result of the experiment
can be manipulated.

Meanwhile, the examples chosen are not perfect. The research is aimed at finding out

the impact of using G-DA on the learning outcomes of L2 learners, but the first example is

about whether young Australian English learners may use their ability in learning scientific

terminologies. On one hand, it is unclear whether the learners are L1 English learners or L2

English learners; on the other hand, even though all the learners are L2 English learners,

testing their ability in remembering scientific terminology is far from proper. For instance,

when a Japanese-speaking student first comes to the U.S., he/she might try to remember

many words of daily life, such as food, transportation, or hotel vocabulary, yet the ability of

trying to remember such words do not represent his/her ability in learning, in that as long as

the learner makes enough effort, the terminology can be remembered. However, the research

is aimed at finding out whether G-DA may help students really learn. In this case, really learn

means not only their ability to remember single words, but also their ability to totally

comprehend such words, knowing when and where to use such words, and the ability of

learning the second language. Clearly, these are some areas that L2 teachers should be

responsible for and should be supporting students in, rather than just helping L2 learners to

remember terminology.

Another issue with the two examples in the article lies in the fact that both experiments

are based on the performance of young learners, who are in kindergarten or primary school. It

is undeniable that the number of young L2 learners is increasing recently and they should be

carefully studied, yet the learning and comprehending ability may influence their learning

outcomes of the second language, meaning the effect of G-DA on L2 learners can be biased.
Image a comparison between an adult graduating from Ivy League with a straight A transcript

and a kindergarten student. Even though the latter may or may not be more cooperative in L2

classes, there is certainly a higher possibility that the former should be a quick learner in a

second language, in that his/her knowledge, experience and excellent learning ability could

ease the process of L2 learning. Since there are no experimental results of middle school or

higher education learners, it is hard to conclude that G-DA may benefit the learners’ L2

learning process.

Moreover, as indicated in the conclusion part, the G-DA effect cannot be distinguished

from individual learning outcomes. This means through the teachers’ supportive effort, even

though the performance of the whole class of L2 learners might improve, it is still unclear

whether single students may take advantage of this process. Optimistically, each L2 student

in the group/classroom should pay attention to the L2 teacher’s instructive process and gain

something from it. However, the truth is, many students naturally cannot pay as much

attention when they are not the student being questioned. Imagine a classroom in a primary

school where one teacher may try to be nice by instructing the struggling student in the class

and using a long instructive process as an example for the whole class, yet the process might

take longer than it needs to and the not struggling students may not be patient. Or when the

whole class is stuck on a tough question, the teacher may want the smartest student to solve

it, which means the struggling students cannot gain anything from the instructive process. In

either case, the role of the instructor might be weakened, meaning even though the

questioning scorecard shows that the whole group is making some progress thanks to G-DA,

most students are either wasting their time or gaining nothing from it. In short, even though
group-based and one-on-one DA follow the same general principle of offering learners

mediation to help them co-construct the learning outcomes, it is noticeable that the

performance of students should consider the group effect.

Conclusion

As a future teacher, I will use Group Dynamic Assessment in my teaching because

students in the class can help each other. The more competent peers can gain confidence

when they provide the mediation for the peers, and other less competent peers can accept the

mediation.