Abstract:
While accepting a layman classification of feedback into two main types (explicit vs implicit), researchers with socio-cultural background have emphasized the strategic presentation of corrective feedback. This study provides empirical evidence for the effects of strategic feedbacks inspired by Vygotsky's sociocultural theory (SCT) on second language learners' listening comprehension during group dynamic assessment (G-DA). A sample of 20 L2 learners at intermediate level ages 20 to 24 volunteered to participate in this study. Following a microgenetic design, the study lasted about two months during which the learners received G-DA feedbacks. Exemplary protocols are provided to showcase the effects of strategic feedbacks offered by the mediator on the diagnosis and development of learners' comprehension abilities. Breaking away from a dichotomous format which is typical of SLA-based feedbacks and inspired by the sociocultural principles of contingency, graduation and dialogic negotiation, the G-DA feedbacks were found to be highly variable ranging from the most implicit to the most explicit in each interactive move. Concurrent and cumulative G-DA feedbacks were observed to be conducive to the expansion of group's Zone of Proximal Development or ZPD and growing intersubjectivity. Moreover, the strategic feedbacks through G-DA-based 'proleptic' instruction which proceeded in a lockstep fashion were found highly efficient in the realization of collective scaffolding, a source of assistance that benefitted a sizable number of secondary interactants. On implication side and in the research on L2 feedbacks, the paper recommends the use of G-DA-based strategic feedbacks as a more valid assessment and instructional tool than the traditional SLA-based feedbacks to diagnose and enhance the learners' listening comprehension abilities in the classroom context.
Machine summary:
"This study provides empirical evidence for the effects of strategic feedbacks inspired by Vygotsky's sociocultural theory (SCT) on second language learners' listening comprehension during group dynamic assessment (G-DA).
The analyses were carried out to diagnose the strategic feedbacks and the effects of G-DA instruction- comprising the effects of collective scaffolding and peer mediation as well as the critical role of different types of cues on the learners' listening performance within the social microcosm of the classroom context.
Upon the learners' failure to recall the content of the sentence during the NDA phase which revealed the learners' independent performance ability, the mediator (teacher) intervened and offered his assistance in the form of leading questions, prompts, hints and explanations to mediate in their understanding of the text and, in this way, uncover their potential level of development.
In this episode, after using the mediational strategy of focusing three times and facing learners’ repeated failure to provide the correct recall, the teacher was compelled to reason that the ability to recognize the spoken form of a known word like ‘hit’ in connected speech is beyond the learners' ZPD.
This episode confirms the potential role of G-DA feedbacks in surfacing learners' inadequate grammatical knowledge as a source of comprehension problem through mediated dialogue and interaction, a property which is absent in non-dynamic assessments.
The interactions substantiated the critical role of the mediator's 'proleptic instruction', namely a problem-solving activity proceeding in a lockstep fashion (Rogoff & Gardner, 1984) in creating a joint activity in which individuals' contributions paved the way for the collective's access to the required knowledge to overcome the listening problems."