Dynamic assessment: The dialectic integration of instruction and assessment

This presentation is situated within the general framework of Vygotsky's educational theory, which argues that development in formal educational activity is a fundamentally different process from development that occurs in the everyday world. A cornerstone of Vygotsky's theory is that to be successful education must be sensitive to learners' zone of proximal development. This requires the dialectical integration of instruction and assessment into a seamless and dynamic activity. The presentation includes a discussion of how the integration is systematically achieved in the process known as dynamic assessment and illustrates through analysis of data from advanced learners of French how this functions in second language education.