The Role of Interventionist and Interactionist Dynamic Assessment in EFL Learners’ Metadiscourse Use: Does TOEFL Independent Writing Task Fluency Improve?

Abstract

Due to the significance of assessment in language education, this investigation aimed to inspect the influence of models of dynamic assessment (DA) on intermediate EFL learners' interactional and interactive metadiscourse use regarding TOEFL independent writing task fluency. The participants were 105 EFL learners Jahad university in Ardabil. Based on the random assignment, two experimental and one control group were established. To measure TOEFL iBT independent writing task fluency, during eight sessions, the first experimental groups received interactional metadiscourse instruction using interventionist interactionist DA and the second experimental group received interactive metadiscourse instruction using interventionist interactionist DA. The control group was instructed conventionally. After the treatment, all participants were administered a modified version of the TOEFL iBT independent writing task as the post-test. The obtained data were examined through Kruskal-Wallis tests. The outcomes indicated notable variations across the different groups in terms of writing fluency. The interventionist group outperformed the other two groups showing that interactional metadiscourse contributed to writing fluency. However, regarding the contribution of interactive metadiscourse to writing fluency, both interventionist and interactionist groups performed better than the control group. This means that DA plays a facilitative role in improving TOEFL iBT independent writing task fluency considering metadiscourse use, irrespective of DA classifications. This study may suggest some implications for educators, learners, and curriculu