RESEARCH PAPER

Applying Dynamic Assessment for English Young Learners

Diajukan untuk memenuhi salah satu tugas mata kuliah English for young learners dengan
dosen pengampu Nina Puspitaloka, S.Pd., M.Pd.

Disusun oleh:
1. Ledy Dollar (1610631060095)
2. Sifa Akmaliyah (1610631060162)

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPERBANGSA KARAWANG
2018
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the study.

Dynamic assessment (DA) is a technique of conducting a language assessment
that seeks to spot the abilities that an individual child possesses additionally as their
learning potential. The dynamic assessment procedure emphasizes the learning
process and accounts for the quantity and nature of examiner investment. it's
extremely interactive and process-oriented. the subsequent chart compares the options
of a traditional (or static) assessment procedure to the dynamic assessment procedure.

Dynamic assessment is progressively getting used by educational

psychologists around the world and is essentially seen as a valuable approach to
assessing children and providing helpful classroom suggestions to assist teachers
working with children who have learning difficulties. However, a standard complaint
regarding the approach is the difficulty in moving from theory to observe, and
specifically how to feedback the results of a dynamic assessment to teaching staff,
parents, and children in order to produce an effective programme of intervention. This
the article provides some background to a practical resource created by 2 active
educational psychologists who have developed a framework on the way to put
dynamic assessment into practice that has the potential to create purposeful gains in
children’s learning.

The term dynamic assessment (DA) refers to an assessment, by a lively

teaching process, of a child's perception, learning, thinking, and problem-solving. the
process is aimed toward modifying an individual's cognitive functioning and
observing subsequent changes in learning and problem-solving patterns among the
testing scenario. The goals of the DA are to (a) assess the capability of the kid to
understand the principle underlying an initial problem and to resolve it, (b) assess the
character and amount of investment (teaching) that is needed to teach a toddler a
given rule or principle, and (c) determine the precise deficient psychological feature
functions (i.e., systematic explorative behavior) and non-intellective factors (i.e., need
for mastery) that are responsible for failure in performance and the way modifiable
they are as a results of teaching. In distinction, the term static test (ST) typically refers
 to an even testing procedure during which an examiner presents things to a respondent
with none try to intervene to vary, guide, or improve the child's performance. A static
test sometimes has graduated levels of a problem, with the tester just recording and
evaluation the responses.

The queries behind psychological assessment have attended move far from such
concerns as ‘How will we tend to most appropriately sort and classify children?’ to ‘How will
we teach this child?’ and ‘How will we tend to facilitate classroom teachers individualize
their programmes?’ (p. 207)

Here Lidz refers to the link between psychological assessment and what
happens subsequently relating to the child’s learning. In what ways in which will
assessment inform the next steps of the child’s learning? once assessing a child,
there's often an aim to link the findings of the assessment of the child's program of
intervention; this is commonly brought up by teachers as ‘formative assessment'.
Indeed, a lot of the philosophy underlying dynamic assessment shares common
ground with the teaching approach of formative assessment (Yeomans, 2008).
Formative assessment is meant to have a subsequent, positive impact on a child’s
learning through the utilization of feedback and consultation. There has been
increasing recognition that assessment ought to be used to support learning, instead of
just reporting a child’s current, or past, achievement (known as summative
assessment; Black, 1995; Glaser, 1990; Torrance 1989).

B. Limitation of the problem and formulation research question.

1. Limitation of the problem.

Based on the explanation in the background above, the researchers limit the
problem focus on an English Teacher applying dynamic assessment for English young
learners and how the positive impact that students get after utilizing this kind of
assessment.

2. Formulation research question.

Based on the limitation of problem mention above, the problem of the research
can be formulated as follow:

a. How does an English teacher use dynamic assessment to assess the student?
 b. How is the positive impact that student get when using the teacher use dynamic
assessment to assess them?

3. Objectives of the research.

The objectives results are:

1. To seek how dynamic assessment is carried out by the teacher to assess the student.
2. To know the students' responses and the positive impact while teacher using dynamic
assessment to assess them.

4. Advantages of the research.

The result of the study can give some advantages as follows:

1. Theoretical Advantages
The result of this study is expected to be a reference to another researcher who
wants to study more about the process of using dynamic assessment to teach English
young learners.
2. Practical Advantages
a. For the students: the researcher hopes this paper will guide them to explore more
about dynamic assessment.
b. For the teacher: the result of this research can give them an alternative approach to
assess the student while teaching English for young learners.
c. For the researcher: We also hoped that the resource and ideas may also be
considered valuable by the teacher and researcher who practice assessment
approaches other than dynamic assessment.

5. Definition of Terms

1. Assessment

In education, the assessment refers to the wide range of strategies or tools that
educators use to evaluate, measure, and document the educational readiness, learning
progress, ability acquisition, or educational desires of students. whereas assessments
are typically equated with traditional tests particularly standardized tests developed by
testing corporations and administered to massive populations of students educators
use a various array of assessment tools and strategies to measure everything from a
 four-year-old’s readiness for kindergarten to a twelfth-grade student’s comprehension
of advanced physics. even as educational lessons have completely different functions,
assessments are sometimes designed to measure specific components of learning—
e.g., the level of knowledge a student already has regarding the conception or ability
the teacher is aiming to teach or the ability to understand and analyze different types
of texts and readings. Assessments also are used to identify individual student
weaknesses and strengths so educators will provide specialized educational support,
academic programming, or social services. in addition, assessments are developed by
a wide array of groups and individuals, including teachers, district administrators,
universities, personal corporations, state departments of education, and groups that
include a mixture of those individuals and institutions.

The purpose of an assessment typically drives the approach it is designed, and there
are many ways in which assessments are often used. a standardized assessment may
be a high-stakes assessment, for example, however, therefore, will other types of
assessment that don't seem to be standardized tests. A portfolio of student work may
be used as both a formative and summative of assessment. Teacher-created
assessments, which can even be created by groups of teachers, are normally utilized in
one course or grade level in a school, and these assessments are almost never "high-
stakes." Screening assessments could also be created by universities that have
conducted research on a specific space of child development, like the abilities and
attributes that a student ought to have once come into kindergarten to increase the
probability that he or she is going to be successful, or the pattern of behaviors,
strengths, and challenges that recommend a child has a particular learning disability.
In short, assessments are sometimes created for highly specialized purposes.

2. Dynamic Assessment

Dynamic assessment (DA) is interactive and concerns an exploration of a

young person's actual (independent) level of development (and problem-solving)
moreover as their level of proximal (or potential) development (ie that is possible,
given support by an adult or knowledgeable person). In essence, it involves the
identification and particularization of interventions that assist and encourage the
process of learning.
 Vygotsky's term Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) relates to the gap between
what the child will learn unaided, and what he or she will be able to learn with the
help of an adult or an additional capable peer. according to Vygotsky, it is impossible
to know a child's potential intellectual development using a one-way assessment.

Dynamic assessment is an interactive approach to psychological or psychoeducational

assessment that embeds intervention among the assessment procedure. Most typically,
there is a pretest then an intervention than a posttest. this permits the assessor to see
the response of the client or student to the intervention. There are a number of various
dynamic assessment procedures that have a wide variety of content domains.
One purpose of dynamic assessment is to see if a student has the potential to learn a
new skill.
The following chart compares features of a traditional (or static) assessment
procedure to the dynamic assessment procedure.

Dynamic
Static

 Passive participants  Active participants

 Examiner observes  Examiner participates
 Identify deficits  Describe modifiability
 Standardized  Fluid, responsive

CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Descriptive English Young Learners
a. Definition of English Young Learner

English Young Learners are understudies who are considering in Elementary

or Senior High School maturing 7-15 and they are examining English as second
dialect for around one up to four years. As such, we may state that Young Learners
are English outside dialect students, aging 9-17.
 There is a big difference between what children of five can do and what
children of ten can do. Some children develop early, some later. Some children
develop gradually, other in leaps and bounds. It is not possible to say that at the age
of seven they can all do y, or that at the age of then they can do all z. But it is
possible to point out certain characteristics of young children which you should be
aware of and take into account in your teaching.

b. Characteristics of English Young Learner

Children classified into two main groups. First group is five to seven year olds
children, and the second group is eight to ten year olds children. All of them have
different characteristics. For the first group, five to seven year olds children have
some characteristics as follows:

 They can tell you about their activities.

 They can tell you about something that they have done or heard.
 They can plan activities.
 They can argue something and tell you their thought.
 They can use logical reasoning.
 They can use their imaginations.
 They can use wide range of intonation in their mother tongue.
 They can understand situation quicker than understanding the language used.
 They understand through physical word.
 They cannot differentiate the fact and fiction.
 They are very self-centered.
 They like to pretend that they understand something than to ask about it.
 They like playing.
 They are enthusiastic and positive about learning.

For the second group, eight to ten year olds children have some characteristics
as follows:
 They can differentiate the fact and fiction.
 They like to ask questions.
 They understand through spoken words and physical words.
  They aren’t too self-centered (can work with others).
 They understand abstract.
 They understand symbols.

Eight to ten year olds children are relatively mature children. They can decide
what to learn when the five to seven year olds children cannot. Children like
learning something through movements and games, because they like playing and
understand physical words more than spoken words.1

2. Descriptive Assessment
a. Definition of Assessment

In education, the term assessment refers to the wide variety of methods or tools
that educators use to evaluate, measure, and document the academic readiness,
learning progress, skill acquisition, or educational needs of students.

While assessments are often equated with traditional tests—especially

the standardized tests developed by testing companies and administered to large
populations of students—educators use a diverse array of assessment tools and
methods to measure everything from a four-year-old’s readiness for kindergarten to
a twelfth-grade student’s comprehension of advanced physics. Just as academic
lessons have different functions, assessments are typically designed to measure
specific elements of learning—e.g., the level of knowledge a student already has
about the concept or skill the teacher is planning to teach or the ability to
comprehend and analyze different types of texts and readings. Assessments also are
used to identify individual student weaknesses and strengths so that educators can
provide specialized academic support, educational programming, or social services.
In addition, assessments are developed by a wide array of groups and individuals,
including teachers, district administrators, universities, private companies, state
departments of education, and groups that include a combination of these individuals
and institutions.

1
Wendy and Lisbeth, Teaching English to Children, (London: Longman), p.1
 While assessment can take a wide variety of forms in education, the
following descriptions provide a representative overview of a few major forms of
educational assessment.

b. Variety of Assessment

Assessments are used for a wide variety of purposes in schools and education
systems:

 High-stakes assessments are typically standardized tests used for the

purposes of accountability—i.e., any attempt by federal, state, or local
government agencies to ensure that students are enrolled in effective schools
and being taught by effective teachers. In general, “high stakes” means that
important decisions about students, teachers, schools, or districts are based
on the scores students achieve on a high-stakes test, and either punishments
(sanctions, penalties, reduced funding, negative publicity, not being
promoted to the next grade, not being allowed to graduate) or accolades
(awards, public celebration, positive publicity, bonuses, grade promotion,
diplomas) result from those scores. For a more detailed discussion, see high-
stakes test.
 Pre-assessments are administered before students begin a lesson, unit,
course, or academic program. Students are not necessarily expected to know
most, or even any, of the material evaluated by pre-assessments—they are
generally used to (1) establish a baseline against which educators measure
learning progress over the duration of a program, course, or instructional
period, or (2) determine general academic readiness for a course, program,
grade level, or new academic program that student may be transferring into.
 Formative assessments are in-process evaluations of student learning that
are typically administered multiple times during a unit, course, or academic
program. The general purpose of formative assessment is to give educators
in-process feedback about what students are learning or not learning so that
instructional approaches, teaching materials, and academic support can be
modified accordingly. Formative assessments are usually not scored or
graded, and they may take a variety of forms, from more formal quizzes and
assignments to informal questioning techniques and in-class discussions with
students.
 Dynamic assessment is an interactive approach to psychological or
psychoeducational assessment that embeds intervention among the
assessment procedure. Most typically, there is a pretest then an intervention
than a posttest. this permits the assessor to see the response of the client or
student to the intervention. There are a number of various dynamic
assessment procedures that have a wide variety of content domains.
  Summative assessments are used to evaluate student learning at the
conclusion of a specific instructional period—typically at the end of a unit,
course, semester, program, or school year. Summative assessments are
typically scored and graded tests, assignments, or projects that are used to
determine whether students have learned what they were expected to learn
during the defined instructional period.

 Formative assessments are commonly said to be for learning because

educators use the results to modify and improve teaching techniques during
an instructional period, while summative assessments are said to
be of learning because they evaluate academic achievement at the conclusion
of an instructional period. Or as assessment expert Paul Black put it, “When
the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative assessment. When the customer
tastes the soup, that’s summative assessment.”
 Interim assessments are used to evaluate where students are in their
learning progress and determine whether they are on track to performing well
on future assessments, such as standardized tests, end-of-course exams, and
other forms of “summative” assessment. Interim assessments are usually
administered periodically during a course or school year (for example, every
six or eight weeks) and separately from the process of instructing students
(i.e., unlike formative assessments, which are integrated into the instructional
process).
 Placement assessments are used to “place” students into a course, course
level, or academic program. For example, an assessment may be used to
determine whether a student is ready for Algebra I or a higher-level algebra
course, such as an honors-level course. For this reason, placement
assessments are administered before a course or program begins, and the
basic intent is to match students with appropriate learning experiences that
address their distinct learning needs.
 Screening assessments are used to determine whether students may need
specialized assistance or services, or whether they are ready to begin a
course, grade level, or academic program. Screening assessments may take a
wide variety of forms in educational settings, and they may be
developmental, physical, cognitive, or academic. A preschool screening test,
for example, may be used to determine whether a young child is physically,
emotionally, socially, and intellectually ready to begin preschool, while other
screening tests may be used to evaluate health, potential learning disabilities,
and other student attributes.

3. Description of Dynamic Assessment

a. Definition of Dynamic Assessment
 Dynamic assessment is defined as “an interactive approach to conducting
assessments within the domains of psychology, speech/language, or education that
focuses on the ability of the learner to respond to intervention.” Others have defined
it variously, but the constant aspect of the definition is active intervention by
examiners and assessment of examinees’ response to intervention. Haywood (1992b)
suggested that dynamic assessment is a subset of the more generic concept of
interactive assessment. He further suggested that “It might be useful to characterize
as interactive any approach to psychological or psychoeducational assessment in
which the examiner is inserted into an active relationship with a subject and does
more than give instructions, pose questions, and record responses. ‘Dynamic’ should
probably be reserved for those approaches in which the interaction is richer, in
which there is actual teaching (not of answers but of cognitive tools), within the
interaction and in which there is conscious, purposeful, and deliberate effort to
produce change in the subject” (Haywood, 1992b, p. 233). Haywood and Tzuriel
(2002) defined 1 P1: JZP 0521849357c01 0 521 84935 7 printer: cupusbw October
13, 2006 10:49 2 Dynamic Assessment in Practice dynamic assessment as “a subset
of interactive assessment that includes deliberate and planned mediational teaching
and the assessment of the effects of that teaching on subsequent performance” (p.
40).

b. Concepts, Assumptions, And Theoretical Basis of Dynamic Assessment

Some fundamental concepts and assumptions appear to underlie virtually all
approaches to dynamic/interactive assessment. They include the following: 1. Some
abilities that are important for learning (in particular) are not assessed by normative,
standardized intelligence tests. 2. Observing new learning is more useful than
cataloguing (presumed) products of old learning. History is necessary but not
sufficient. 3. Teaching within the test provides a useful way of assessing potential as
opposed to performance. 4. All people typically function at less than their
intellectual capacity. 5. Many conditions that do not reflect intellectual potential can
and do interfere with expression of one’s intelligence.
The notion that some important abilities are not typically assessed by
normative, standardized intelligence tests is not worth much unless one can identify
ways to assess those fugitive abilities. Dynamic Assessment in Practice look for
conditions that may be limiting a person’s access to his or her intelligence, minimize
or remove those limiting conditions, and then assess abilities again. This strategy is
exactly the one that led Vygotsky to his now-famous concept of the “zone of
proximal development”:
Most of the psychological investigations concerned with school learning
measured the level of mental development of the child by making him solve certain
standardized problems. The problems he was able to solve by himself were supposed
to indicate the level of his mental development at the particular time. But in this
way, only the completed part of the child’s development can be measured, which is
far from the whole story. We tried a different approach. Having found that the
mental age of two children was, let us say, eight, we gave each of them harder
problems than he could manage on his own and provided some slight assistance: the
first step in a solution, a leading question, or some other form of help. We
discovered that one child could, in cooperation, solve problems designed for twelve-
year-olds, while the other could not go beyond problems intended for nine-year-olds.
The discrepancy between a child’s actual mental age and the level he reaches in
solving problems with assistance indicates the zone of his proximal development; in
our example, this zone is four for the first child and one for the second. Can we truly
say that their mental development is the same? Experience has shown that the child
with the larger zone of proximal development (ZPD) will do much better in school.
This measure gives a more helpful clue than mental age does to the dynamics of
intellectual progress. (Vygotsky, 1986/1934, pp. 186–187)
Although there have been some improvements recently in intelligence testing
(e.g., Das & Naglieri, 1997; Woodcock, 2002), it remains true that much of
standardized intelligence testing relies on assessment of the products of presumed
past learning opportunities. Vocabulary tests, for example, are common, and these
by their very nature reflect past learning. Comprehension of social situations, humor,
and absurdity shows up often in such tests and similarly has to be based on prior
learning, as does knowledge of mathematics and skill at calculating. Comparison of
any individual’s score on such tests with the average score of similar persons in a
normative sample requires the logical assumption that all persons of a given age,
gender, race, and social circumstance (e.g., urban vs. rural residence) have had the
same opportunities to learn – an assumption that is patently untenable. Although old
learning is highly correlated with success in new learning (the venerable “principle
of postremity” in psychology: the most likely response is the most recent response,
or the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior), the correlation is far from
perfect and P1: JZP 0521849357c01 0 521 84935 7 printer: cupusbw October 13,
2006 10:49 Dynamic Assessment: Introduction and Review 9 often becomes a self-
fulfilling prophecy. An obvious example is the deaf child who comes to school
without having had the benefits of training in specialized communication. That child
will score poorly on normative tests because he or she will have learned less than
have age peers, but the score will not reflect the potential of the child to learn given
appropriate communication methods. In such a case, attempts within the test to
overcome experiential deficits will yield better estimates of the child’s ability to
learn, given appropriate teaching. Teaching within the test should bear greater
resemblance to the criterion situation, in this case classroom learning in a person-
appropriate class. If, on the other hand, such a child is given normative tests, scores
low, and is placed in learning situations with low expectations and without
appropriate communication methods, the prophecy of the normative score will be
fulfilled because the assessment and criterion situations are similar.
All proponents of dynamic assessment appear to be more interested in
determining potential performance than in assessing typical performance. They
recognize that all people typically function at levels far below their capacity, at least
in terms of their neural capacity. Assessment of typical performance is invaluable
for prediction of future performance. If one wishes, however, to assess what is
possible or what would be possible under more optimal conditions – in other words,
how to defeat pessimistic predictions derived from assessment of typical
performance – then a testing strategy that involves intervention and the seeking of
potential is essential.
From the beginning of psychological science, psychologists have been careful
to distinguish between “intellective” and “non-intellective” variables. Early
psychologists, for example, divided “consciousness” into the three dimensions of
cognition (knowledge, thinking), conation (feeling, emotionality, perhaps
motivation), and volition (will) (Boring, 1950). Whereas such a division makes for
good science in the search for pure effects, uncontaminated by “irrelevant”
 variables, it does not make for good clinical assessment, especially when assessment
of intelligence is based heavily on performance on tests that require prior learning.2

2
Carl and Carol, Dynamic Assessment in Practice, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 1
 CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Research Approach and Method
1. Research Approach

In this study the researchers use a qualitative approach to achieve the

objective of the research. According to Ashley (2018) defined that qualitative
research is a type of science research that collects and works with non-
numerical data and that seeks to interpret meaning from these data that help us
understand social life through the study of targeted populations or places.

2. Research Method

In this research, the researchers use descriptive qualitative method

because the researchers want to know the students' responses and the positive
impact while teacher using dynamic assessment to assess them.

Descriptive studies are aimed at finding out “what is,” so observational

and survey methods are frequently used to collect descriptive data
(Borg&Gall, 1989).

B. Research Subject
In this study the subject is ten students who a few months ago were
participating in English tutoring in Dusun Kerajan RT 02/01, Sirnabaya
village. The reason for choosing this subject is because during the English
language tutoring a few months ago, the researcher conducted an assessment
only through giving a question (summative assessment). The researchers use
purposive sampling. According to Ashley (2018) stated that “a purposive
sample is a non-probability sample that is selected based on characteristics of
a population and the objective of the study.”

C. Collection Technique
In this researchers use the observation to collect the data and
documentation such as recorder and video.
a. Observation
 Observation is the systematic description of the events, behaviors, and
artifacts of a social setting.3 According to Barbara (2012) stated that
“observation is social science as a method for collecting data about
people, processes, and culture.”
b. Documentation

According to Richard (2018) stated that “in a report or research

paper, documentation is the evidence provided (in the form of endnotes,
footnotes, and entries in bibliographies) for information and ideas
borrowed from other. That evidence includes both primary sources and
secondary sources.”

3
Marshall&Rossman, (1989), p. 79.