Implications of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory for second language (L2) assessment

Dynamic assessment (DA) research, still in its infancy, takes its roots from Vygotsky's concept of zone of proximal development (ZPD) to account for learner's developmental process. Breaking away from a static, incomplete and, thus, unethical assessment of learner's abilities, DA came to the fore to better crystallize learner's levels of abilities in terms of both independent (present) and assisted (potential) abilities. The main foci of this paper are fourfold: first, to discuss DA not as alternative but complementary to traditional psychometric assessment; second, to highlight main distinguishing features of two dominant DA procedures, interventionist, and interactionist in second language (L2) assessment; third, to discuss three debatable psychometric properties of assessment namely validity, reliability, and generalizability in the context of DA and, finally, to call for a change in teacher's overall approach to the concept of L2 assessment and aspire to a more "ethical" assessment procedure.