The Zone of Proximal Development and the Genesis of Self-Assessment
Author(s): MATTHEW E. POEHNER
Source: The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 96, No. 4 (Winter 2012), pp. 610-622
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers
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The Zone of Proximal Development
and the Genesis of Self-Assessment
MATTHEW E. POEHNER
The Pennsylvania State University
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
159 Chambers Building
University Park, PA 16802
Email: [email protected]
Self-assessment practices have become widespread in second language (L2) education, and
while its proponents have long argued that such reflection enhances learner awareness of their
abilities and promotes independent learning (Alderson, 2005; Chen, 2008; Litde, 2007), others
have questioned its value vis-à-vis other indicators of performance (Gipps, 1994; Ross, 1998). This
article approaches learner self-assessment from a Vygotskian perspective, and specifically the
proposal of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). According to this view, development is
understood as transitioning from other-regulated to self-regulated functioning. Following
Zuckerman (2003), engaging in reflective evaluation of performance is argued to be a critical
feature of this process. Data from a study involving L2 learners of French participating in a
Dynamic Assessment (Lantolf & Poehner, 2004) program are presented to explore how this
development may occur and to examine challenges learners may experience as they endeavor to
regulate not only their use of the L2 during completion of tasks but also while evaluating
their performance. In keeping with the notion of the ZPD, it is argued that learner efforts to
self-assess must be carefully mediated as they move from a cooperative to an independent mode of
self-assessment.
THE INCREASING SHIFT IN MANY EDUCA
p. 175). Although valued in many classroom
tional systems around the world toward so-called
"progressive" and "learner-centered" pedagogies
is marked by a commitment to producing learners
settings, the accuracy of learner self-assessments
capable of monitoring their progress toward
is known about the processes through which
specified goals and directing their own learning.
In line with this objective is investment in assess
ments that recruit learner participation in diag
learners develop a capacity to evaluate their own
performances (Little, 2005).
The present article offers a conceptualization of
learner self-assessment as a feature of perfor
mance situated within mediator-learner dialogu
nosing abilities and evaluating performances
(Black & Williams, 1998; Chen, 2008). Designated
as learner self-assessments, these activities may
include "self-reports, self-testing, mutual peer
assessment, keeping of diaries, answering behav
iourally anchored questionnaires, use of global
proficiency rating scales, and responding to
so-called 'can-do' statements" (Oscarson, 1997,
The Modern Language Journal, 96, 4, (2012)
DOI: 10.1111/j. 1540-4781.2012.01393.x
0026-7902/12/610-622 $1.50/0
© 2012 The Modern Language Journal
vis-à-vis other measures has been questioned
(Gipps, 1994). It has further been noted that little
ing in Dynamic Assessment (DA). DA is an
approach to integrating teaching and assessment
as cooperative activity undertaken jointly by
teachers, or mediators, and learners (Poehner,
2008). The role of the mediator in DA is to provide
support when learners experience difficulties and
to calibrate that support so that it is useful in
helping them work through problems but not so
explicit that the mediator takes full responsibility
for the task at hand. In this way, learners continue
to struggle to meet demands of a task that is
beyond what they are able to do independently,
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611
Matthew E. Poehner
but by functioning as part of a system with the
mediator they gain instruction relevant to over
coming problems. At the same time, learner
THE PROBLEM OF SELF IN
SELF-ASSESSMENT
responsiveness to mediation during interaction
Self-Assessment: Purpose and Process
provides diagnostic insights into the range of their
Oscarson (1997) reports that self-assessment
research falls broadly into two categories: inves
abilities and how close they are to functioning
more independently (Lantolf & Poehner, 2004).
DA is based upon Vygotsky's (1987) proposal of
the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which
views social interaction as a powerful source of
development. Specifically, development is under
stood as a shift from other-regulation, in which
responsibility for performance resides primarily
tigations into classroom practices that invite
learner reflection and studies to determine their
validity and reliability. With regard to the former, it
has long been argued that learner reflection on
their own performances promotes metacognitive
awareness of performance and the processes
behind it, and this awareness is held to be
mediation (Vygotsky, 1978). As explained below,
necessary for autonomous learning (e.g., Chen,
2008; Little, 2007).1 Orsmond, Merry, and Reiling
(2002) have similarly suggested that the true value
to learners of self-assessment may reside not in
self-regulated functioning entails not only acting
but also evaluating the success and appropriateness
of actions and, if necessary, reattempting tasks.
evaluations but in the development stimulated
through the process of comparing one's perform
with another, toward self-regulation, when individu
als come to rely not only on cultural artifacts and
others for support but also on internalized forms of
Vygotskian theory, then, offers a conceptualization
of self-assessment according to which the act of
independently evaluating one's performances is
the outcome of development rather than its
starting point. That is, learner engagement in
self-assessment is a process to be mediated and one
correspondence between student and teacher
ances against established criteria. In this way, self
assessment positions students as agents rather than
subjects of assessment (see also Boud, 1990;
Little, 2005).
In contrast, testing specialists have expressed
concern over the quality of self-assessments
that is crucial to achieving more independent
stemming from the low correlations frequently
functioning. The matter for investigation becomes
how development from other- to self-regulation,
found between self-assessments and tests or other
particularly as it pertains to evaluating perform
ances, may be understood and supported. Media
measures believed to be valid and reliable
(Gipps, 1994; Patri, 2002; Ross, 1998). Some
have suggested that this lack of accord in fact
tor-learner dialoging in DA, with its strong
underscores the value of self-assessment as a
emphasis on developmental processes, affords a
source of insights not readily attainable through
other procedures (Boud, 1990; Oscarson, 1997).
That issue aside, the low correlations observed
ready context for exploring this matter.
In what follows, I report data from a second
language (L2) DA program involving advanced
learners of French. Part of a larger project
designed to diagnose and promote learners'
language abilities during oral narration tasks
(for full details see Poehner, 2008), the study
described here aimed to understand the extent to
which participants were able to rely upon media
tion they had internalized from prior DA inter
actions to evaluate and reformulate their own
performances. Previous L2 DA research has
examined the role of mediation in supporting
learner efforts to successfully complete tasks but
has not engaged learners in the evaluation of their
performances. This study examined the processes
through which learners identified problems and
attempted to revise their performance, processes
that were brought out dialogically. Before turning
raise questions concerning the knowledge and
experiences necessary to meaningfully self-assess,
that is, to arrive at evaluations of one's perform
ances that in turn provide the basis for further
development. In other words, what does learner
engagement in self-assessment reveal about their
current level of development and how does it
contribute to ongoing development?
To this author's knowledge, a theoretical
account of the genesis of self-assessment, as a
feature of development, has not been proposed
and systematically investigated in the L2 or general
education research literatures. Indeed, a review of
the L2 self-assessment research reveals recognition
of the need to prepare learners to meaningfully
self-assess, but little work elaborating how this
process might be mediated. For instance, Stiggins
to the details of this study, I will first address some
(2001) argues that the quality of learner self
current trends in the research on learner self
assessment is at least partially dependent upon
assessment and tacit assumptions about human
abilities.
learner understanding of assessment criteria
and opportunities to receive feedback on the
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612
The Modern Language Journal 96 (2012)
appropriateness of their self-assessments. Similar
ly, Little (2005,) has questioned the value of much
current self-assessment practice on the grounds
that self-assessment "depends upon a complex of
skills" that learners cannot be assumed to possess a
priori but that "must be mediated by the teacher,
often in very small steps" (p. 322). He notes that in
reality learners' efforts to self-assess are not
mediated and as a result they yield perspectives
that are "random, even worthless" (p. 322).
Autonomy and Mediation in Self-Assessment
Although not commenting on L2 pedagogy per
se, Kozulin (1998) argues convincingly that
Western schools, influenced strongly by Piagetian
views of development, generally attribute high
levels of autonomy to learners, even from the
earliest stages of education. Although acknowl
edging that Piaget's theory has helped to focus
educators' attention on the development of
Along these same lines, Oscarson (1997)
children's thinking abilities, Kozulin maintains
observes that a "learner's need for practice in
assessing his or her own performance tends to be
a neglected consideration. Therefore the impor
tance of learner guidance, particularly at the
initial stages, needs to be stressed" (p.184). He
individual agents capable of directing their own
learning has obscured the fundamentally social
and cultural origins of development, favoring
goes on to outline three stages for framing
learner progression from object to agent of
assessment. In the Dependent Stage, the purpose
and forms of assessment are determined by
others, and learners have no voice in setting
goals or interpreting performance. Rather, their
contribution is limited to performing the assess
ment tasks set by the teacher or tester. The
Cooperative Stage is characterized by teacher
learner negotiation of performance ratings and
grades. At this stage, learners are encouraged to
reflect upon their performance following an
assessment and asked to link their performance
to rubrics or standards. However, responsibility
for determining the quality of learner perfor
mance ultimately rests with the teacher or tester.
The Independent Stage, according to Oscarson,
foregrounds self-assessment as learners are given
autonomy to call attention to certain features of
performance as a basis for making statements
about their abilities (Oscarson, 1997).
Although Oscarson's (1997) framework draws
attention to the need for an intermediate stage
between assessment-by-others and assessment-of-self,
the stages remain purely descriptive rather than
explanatory. That is, no analysis is offered regard
that the Piagetian premise that learners are
instead an "American cultural belief that educa
tion is primarily a way of revealing individual
abilities and potentials" (p. 53).
Kozulin (1998) goes on to elaborate fundamen
tal differences between Piaget and Vygotsky with
regard to the role of the social environment—and
in educational contexts, the role of the teacher—
in impacting learner development. Although
teachers remain at the periphery in a Piagetian
system and learner development is left to unfold
primarily as a result of the learner's own initiative,
Vygotsky places teachers at the center of this
process as they mediate the environment to
learners:
For Piaget it is an individual child, who, through active
interaction with the physical and social environment,
enhances his or her own cognitive schemata. For
Vygotsky the learning process has a socioculturel
character from its very beginning.... If in the Piagetian
system the child is presupposed as a true agent of his or her
own learning, in the Vygotskian system the child becomes
such an independent agent toward the very end of the formal
learning process. (Kozulin, 1998, p. 3, emphasis added)
The view of individuals as "true agents" responsible
for their own learning carries with it the assump
tion that learners possess a priori the requisite
understanding to help set instructional goals,
ing how learners develop from one stage to
another and how this development may be
determine activities in which they will participate,
meaningfully supported by teacher-learner inter
actions, pair and group work, or other classroom
and evaluate progress. More to the point, this
kind of autonomy is held to exist independent of
activities. Oscarson appears to recognize this
the abilities that are the focus of instruction and
shortcoming, calling for research into environ
ments that support the development of learner
self-assessment rather than simply expecting
learners to be able to appropriately evaluate their
performances. The inattentiveness to actively
mediating L2 learners' engagement in self-assess
ment may in part be attributed to how learners
does not, in itself, require support to develop.
Rather, the autonomous self emerges over time,
themselves tend to be regarded in Western systems
of formal schooling.
largely or entirely independent of learner
experiences.
Following Kozulin, this essentially innatist ren
dering of learner abilities leaves very little room for
instructional intervention to affect development.
At a certain point during the course of education,
and perhaps very early on, learners will simply be
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Matthew E. Poehner
613
appropriateness and effectiveness of actions in
"ready" to evaluate their performances in a given
domain. However, as explained, research into self
order to determine their success and whether it is
assessment does not corroborate this thesis.
necessary to reorient and attempt the action again.
Rather, it appears that the quality of learner
In this case, the stages of action are iterative, as
evaluation may serve to reorient the individual,
requiring formulation of a new plan. Conversely,
assessments links to their experience with particu
lar activities, and that explicit attention must be
given to helping them form appropriate judg
ments about their performances. A potentially
useful framework for conceptualizing develop
ment toward self-regulated functioning—in which
individuals assume greater responsibility for per
formance, including its evaluation—may be found
in the work of Piotr Gal'perin, one of Vygotsky's
leading students.
Self-Assessment as Performance
Gal'perin (1967) elaborated a model of human
action consisting of three stages or features:
orientation, execution, and control (see Talyzina,
1981, for full discussion). Following Vygotsky,
human cognition diverges from thinking in
animals as we develop intentional control over
behavior through cultural means, and this in
it is possible to develop and execute a plan
appropriately but to be unable to determine
whether or not it was successful and to seek
consultation with someone more knowledgeable,
as when a language learner manages to produce a
correct utterance but turns to the teacher for
affirmation (see Poehner, 2008). The point of all
of this is that in this model, evaluating actions is not
a separate undertaking, removed from perfor
mance, but is in fact part of performance itself.
Put another way, self-regulated functioning is a
process that comprises continual orientation,
execution, and evaluation of action.
Development, then, concerns shifting respon
sibility for each of these features of performance
from others to the self. For instance, as Talyzina
(1981) explains, early in this process learners may
require substantial mediation to formulate a plan
as they do not understand the criteria for a
cludes the ability to inhibit responses to external
stimuli in order to first formulate a plan. This
psychological act of orienting oneself constitutes
the initial stage of action and involves systemati
cally determining the objective conditions (i.e.,
requirements of the task and available resources)
and steps necessary for completion of a given task.
necessary to take. Orientation might involve the
After establishing an orienting basis for action, the
Similarly, support may be required during the
next stage involves executing the plan through
specified external acts. It is this execution that is
more commonly construed as the entirety of the
adhere to the plan as well as during the evaluation
successful performance or the relation between
the eventual outcome and the steps that are
use of models and examples, and these may
need to be mediated to the learner in order
to draw their attention to salient features.
execution of acts to ensure that they in fact
of performance against prespecified models or
act, but as Gal'perin forcefully argues, problems in
performance may originate not only in the actual
standards.
execution but in inappropriate orientation. For
gate the evaluative dimension of performance
instance, a mathematics student might produce an
incorrect answer to a problem not through any
technical error in following an algorithm but
because the algorithm chosen was inappropriate
given the nature of the problem. Indeed, advo
mediated through what we may term evaluative
reflection. Evaluative reflection, following Zucker
man, involves understanding the goals and means
of one's own actions as well as those of others;
Zuckerman (2003) has undertaken to investi
and has elaborated how learner efforts can be
cates of Vygotskian concept-based pedagogies
consideration of the point of view of another; and
propose that the value of presenting learners
with conceptual knowledge of the core ideas in a
discipline is precisely that these concepts may be
introspection, or analysis of one's own capabili
ties for the purpose of striving to move beyond
more easily internalized and employed as tools for
reflection separated from action, that is, reflec
tion undertaken purely for understanding; rath
er, evaluative reflection in this sense is the crucial
self-regulation than discrete facts learners are
often asked to memorize or rules they are
them. What must be noted is that this is not
compelled to follow in mechanical exercises (see
Negueruela, 2003).
Just as learners may experience difficulties in
the orientation and execution stages of action,
they must also develop control over performance,
action. In other words, evaluative reflection is
that is, they must be able to evaluate the
profound implications for pedagogy. Specifically,
step in determining whether reorientation is
needed or if one may proceed to additional
not simply contemplative activity but is an
essential feature of action, and as such has
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614
The Modern Language Journal 96 (2012)
instructional practices that focus solely on
with a mediator, who was himself a teacher of
prompting learners' independent execution of
French at the same institution. Through this
process, a diagnosis was formed that included
learners' independent performance as well as
their responsiveness to mediation. Learners
met subsequendy with the mediator once per
week for individualized sessions in which they
tasks and where any sort of evaluation rests with
the teacher risks overlooking important features
of learner development. That is, interpretations
of learner abilities are limited to their execution
of actions, but their understanding of the
appropriateness and efficacy of those acts is left
unexplored. According to Zuckerman, the failure
of many students throughout the world to achieve
autonomy in learning can be traced to pedago
gies that privilege repetitive execution of memo
rized steps and that do not take account of the
degree to which learners actually understand the
intentions behind actions and the goals to be
realized. Foregrounding evaluative reflection on
actions and engaging in this process with
learners, then, is an important step toward self
regulated functioning. DA's emphasis on joint
engagement with learners in the process of
development would seem to offer a natural
context to understand how evaluative reflections
might unfold dialogically. However, as Zucker
man points out, even Vygotskian research to date
has paid relatively little attention to this feature of
performance, the dynamics of its development,
and its relation to the execution of performance.
The data presented in this article may serve as an
initial step toward addressing how evaluative
reflection can be attended to in development
oriented pedagogy.
STUDY: SELF-ASSESSMENT THROUGH L2
DYNAMIC ASSESSMENT
completed similar narration tasks and the media
tor attempted to address problems identified
during the initial sessions. For most learners
this included attention to verbal tense and
aspect, especially the distinction between the
perfective and imperfective (in French, the
passé composé and imparfait). Verbal aspect was
presented as a concept that may be used during
narration to foreground or background events
in narratives. This explanation contrasted with
the rule-driven approach to differentiating
perfective and imperfective aspect the learners
had encountered in previous courses (e.g., the
imperfect is used for multiple occurrences of a
past event, while the perfective is used for single
occurrences).
Mediation during these sessions was dialogic
and negotiated, with mediator and learner
working jointly to complete the narrations. This
approach allowed the mediator to flexibly
respond to moment-to-moment changes in learn
er abilities and struggles. Mediation was offered
in English, the learners' LI, to avoid creating a
potential secondary task of comprehending
prompts, feedback, and explanations delivered
in the L2.2 Most relevant to the present discus
sion, this form of mediator-learner cooperative
dialoguing included attention to each of the
stages of action outlined by Gal'perin (1967), as
Purpose
described earlier. However, the lion's share of
attention was given to the actual execution of
performance, with responsibility for evaluation
Poehner (2008) describes the implementation
of a DA program focusing on oral proficiency of
undergraduate university learners of L2 French
resting with the mediator. Typically, the mediator
as they composed narratives in the language
prompted by video clips. The focus of the
feedback in the midst of the narration task in
program was to explore how DA principles could
order to create a space for the learner to step back
be employed in structuring interactions to
from the task, reflect on performance, and
simultaneously diagnose learner difficulties and
provide instructional support to help them
reorient as needed. To be sure, learners partici
pated in evaluative reflection, and their involve
improve. Learners were enrolled in an advanced
French oral communication course, and the
probing questions, drawing attention to particu
DA program was presented as an opportunity
to engage in one-to-one meetings outside of
regular course instruction and an occasion for
additional oral communication support. The
program occurred over approximately six weeks,
beginning with an initial session in which learners
first composed an oral narrative independently
and then narrated a second clip through dialogue
identified problems and interjected questions or
ment was guided by the mediator through
lar aspects of performance, and making con
nections to models or prior examples (Poehner,
2008).
Although evaluative reflection of performance
was implicit in every DA session, it was brought
into focus during a session at the midpoint of the
program. By this time, learners had already
gained experience attempting to employ a
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Matthew E. Poehner
more conceptual understanding of verbal
tense and aspect as they created their narratives.
The intent of this session was to examine the
understanding of tense and aspect that learners
brought to bear when they were presented with
their own completed performance and asked to
evaluate it.
Procedure
ANALYSIS
Six learners participated in the L2 DA program,
including the evaluative reflection session at the
midpoint of the program. The recordings were
transcribed and analyzed to determine how
learners approached the assessment of their own
performance and specifically their use of verbal
tense and aspect. Following the work of Neguer
uela (2003), much of the program focused on
As with other sessions in the DA program,
learners were asked at the start of the session to
complete a narration of a video clip. However,
their completion of the task differed from other
sessions as they were not offered support from the
mediator. That is, the narration was performed
independently, and in this way revealed the
extent to which learners were able to self-regulate
during execution of the task. This initial narra
tion was video recorded, and provided the basis
for the subsequent evaluative reflection. Thus,
rather than stepping back from a narrative during
its construction to ascertain whether ideas or
events were represented according to their
intentions, learners returned to a narrative after
it was finished and were asked to regard it as an
object for evaluation. In this respect, the task was
analogous to examining a draft of written work
for the purpose of evaluating and revising it.
Moreover, the mediator did not intervene during
this session to direct learners to comment on
helping learners employ verbal aspect as a concept
to regulate their functioning in the L2. What has
not been examined in previous research on
conceptual mediation, however, is how conceptual
understanding may serve not only to regulate
learners' execution but also their evaluation of
performance. It was with this in mind that the data
reported here were collected.
In what follows, extracts from the sessions of
three learners are considered. The point of the
discussion is not to track learner development over
time or to outline forms of mediation that might
be made available to learners, as this has been
done in other ZPD research (e.g., Aljaafreh &
Lantolf, 1994). Rather, these extracts were select
ed to illustrate the variability among these learners
with regard to their independent execution of the
narrative task as well as the accuracy of their
evaluative reflections and the support they needed
to reformulate their performance. All learners
were assigned a pseudonym.
particular linguistic choices or to correct certain
errors but instead functioned as a dialogic
partner to help learners consider features of
Self-Assessment Beyond the ZPD
learners were invited to pause it at any point they
wished to elaborate, correct, or revise their
At the outset of the program, S relied primarily
on the simple present tense even when prompted
to describe past events. When prompted by the
mediator (M), S employed the passé composé and
imparfait but had trouble inflecting the necessary
forms and choosing which aspect best expressed
her intended meaning. Subsequent interactions
included extensive discussion of verbal aspect and
its impact on meaning as well as review of regular
and irregular verb forms. During the first three
performance or to pose questions to the media
tor. At the conclusion of the session, learners
weeks of the program, S progressed beyond
resorting to the simple present but she still
were asked to comment more generally on their
perceptions of progress up to that point in the DA
struggled to control the passé composé and imparfait,
performance that they identified. In this way, the
evaluative reflection was led by the learners but,
in keeping with the tenets of DA, learner efforts
were supported by the mediator.
An additional camera was used to capture
mediator-learner interaction as learners watched
and discussed the recording of the narration.
While viewing the recording of the narration,
program and difficulties they continued to
experience. A central question concerned the
at times producing both forms together before
settling on one.
At one point in her narration, S vacillated
extent to which learners' evaluative remarks—
between perfective and imperfective aspect of
both of their progress in general and their
specific narrative performance—reflected a
the verb dire ('to say') while portraying two
men playing tennis and casually discussing
conceptual understanding of verbal tense and
aspect, which had been a major focus of the DA
paused it at this point to comment on the
program.
performance:
relationships. Upon reviewing the recording, S
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The Modem Language Journal 96 (2012)
1 S: [laughing] I'm just really all over the place
2 M: okay was that um
3 S: I said a dise*
said*
4 M: [pause] okay [pause] so you were starting
off with imparfait and then
5 switching to passé composé?
6 S: yeah yeah yeah
7 M: and so which one would you settle on now in
hindsight?
8 S: I um I think I said at the end he told him a
specific thing [...] I think if he
9 him a specific thing I think it should be passé,
he told him this and then
10 his friend replied this or thought this
11 M: okay
12 S: il a dit que il a dit que something or the other
then I think it's fine to use passé
he said that he said that
In line 13 M asks the learner to consider how the
meaning would be altered by employing her initial
choice of imperfective aspect, and S follows the
same reasoning as before, this time elaborating
that the specificity of information related in the
quote determines whether the verb 'to say or tell'
should be rendered as perfective or imperfective.
Even when M offers a perfectly acceptable
imperfective formulation in line 17, S rejects it,
noting simply that "it just doesn't sound right"
(lines 18-19).
During the remainder of the session in which
they reviewed the recording, S paused only to
comment on lexical issues even though the
performance itself included additional inappro
priate uses of aspect. At the end of the session,
when prompted to reflect on her overall perfor
mance as well as her general oral abilities in the L2,
While S took the initiative to pause the
recording, she did not immediately offer either
an evaluation or reformulation. She makes a
general comment in line 1, apparently referring
to the straggle she experienced with the verb
dire, and notes in line 3 the form she had settled
on, a disé* ('said'). Although this is incorrectly
formed, as the verb dire has the irregular past
participle dit, S's selection of perfective aspect
is certainly appropriate. When S does not
proffer an explanation for pausing the record
ing, M questions her in line 5 to verify that
she had changed from imperfective to perfective
aspect. After receiving confirmation, M probes
the reasons behind her choice. This reaction
reveals that S's decisions regarding verbal
aspect were not based upon a fully developed
understanding of how aspect affects meaning.
Indeed, S links her aspectual choices in report
ing dialogue to the content of what was
recounted:
to communication. When asked specifically about
her use of verbal tense and aspect in this narration,
she responded:
22 S: it seems to make sense to me all the mistakes
23 M: yeah?
24 S: yeah and I can definitely catch them
they're just yeah yeah of course of course
25 [rolling her eyes] and I'm surprised
S's remarks indicate that engaging in mean
ingful evaluation of her performance to identify
and redress problems was beyond her ZPD at this
point in her development. As evidenced by her
narration, S did not have full control over verbal
aspect, and even when prompted by M she
failed to recognize errors. During their interac
tion, the issue that led S to pause the recording
was not, in fact, her choice of aspect but rather
her hesitation to make a choice. Moreover,
13 M: okay, what if it was imparfait?
14 S: um [pause] um if it's if it's [pause]
il disait que um il disait que um I guess
he was saying that he was saying that
15 if it's talking about something it's fine but if it's
specific information [pause]
16 il disait que...
he was saying that...
17 M: okay so for example if he uh il disait que
Rebecca était enceinte is that okay?
he was saying that Rebecca was pregnant
18 S: [to self] il disait que Rebecca était enceinte?
[pause] [aloud] it just doesn't
he was saying that Rebecca was pregnant
19 sound right. Il a dit que
he said that
20 M: you would use il a dit que?
he said that
21 S: [nods]
S first commented on the need to expand her
vocabulary, as she felt this was a major impediment
her comments at the end of the session reveal
confidence in identifying errors, which she
further noted were elementary in nature.
Framed according to Gal'perin's (1967) model
of action, S's lack of a conceptual understand
ing of aspect resulted in both orientation and
evaluation problems. That is, she did not
understand how to appropriately employ aspect
while developing her narratives and so was not
able to discern acceptable from unacceptable
performance. Self-assessment of her oral narra
tions was not within S's ZPD as she first needed to
develop the requisite understanding of relevant
features of the L2. This contrasts with another
learner, A, who had developed a conceptual
understanding of aspect but was not yet able to
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617
Matthew E. Poehner
independently employ this concept to regulate
her functioning in the language.
33 M: because I agree with what you said about
imparfait I think that works that
A's progress during the first weeks of the
34 makes sense but what about the passé composé?
35 A: I just... would think that it would... [to self) I
don't know how to explain
36 [aloud] it just sounds a lot more specific than
just a general piece of advice
program was marked in that she was no longer
selecting verbal forms impulsively but instead
through deliberate, careful consideration (often
in consultation with M) of nuances in meaning
resulting from aspectual choices. The next inter
her earlier explanation (lines 27-29) that imper
fective makes no commitment to completion of
Self-Assessment Through Mediated Interaction
action is representative of A's exchanges with M at
that point in the program—her use of verbal
aspect was generally appropriate and the reasons
for her choices indicated her understanding of
how aspect may be used to relate events in
discourse. Despite a solid orienting basis to per
formance, A still required mediating support, as
evidenced in the following.
We pick up the interaction between A and M
when she has paused the recording to verify
37 [to self] yeah or [aloud] or that...
Interestingly, in lines 35-37, A did not refer to
an act. She was unable to successfully draw
upon her conceptual understanding, which pro
vided an appropriate orienting basis for her
narration, to support the execution of a new act,
namely, interpreting M's perfective construction.
M intervened by reminding her of a contrasting
imperfective-perfective example they had dis
cussed during an earlier session in order to
help her connect that distinction with the current
one:
that her construction, il lui a dit qu'il devait parler
avec Rebecca ('he told him that he had to speak
with Rebecca'), was appropriate. Her use of
aspect here involved the perfective of dire ('to
say,' 'to tell') and the imperfective of devoir ('to
have to'), and these choices fit the context.
Rather than confirming, M elicits an explanation
from A, and her response reveals that her choices
were not impulsive or random but were inten
tional and were based upon her understanding of
aspect:
38 M: well remember in that one example that we
saw that we talked about
39 where with someone being
malade we said that il était malade versus
sick he was sick
40 il a été malade right where it's basically the
same exact sentence but you're
he was sick
41 using imparfait in the one case and passé
composé in the other case do you
42 remember what we were saying was sort of the
different effect of those two
26 M: so why imparfait rather than passé composé
or present tense or whatever?
27 A: um it's something that he should do he
didn't really indicate a specific time
28 period but lui a dit because he said something
to him very specifically at that
said to him
29 time but that he should talk to him is kind of
like open-ended did he do it or not
43 sentences?
44 A: with the passé composé there's a distinct
beginning and end so a distinct
45 time period that it encompasses and the
imparfait is looser
46 M: so in this case if you were talking about
someone being sick okay
47 il était malade versus il a été malade?
he was sick he was sick
48 A: so il a été malade now it's already happened
M pursued her choice of imperfective with the
verb devoir, proposing an alternative perfective
construction and asking A to interpret its meaning.
Comprehending language is, of course, a neces
sary part of performance and it is here that A
began to struggle:
he was sick
49 M: right there's some kind of completion there
50 A: yeah
51 M: so in this case you said um what
il devait parler versus il a dû parler?
he had to speak he had to speak
52 A: so the passé composé il a dû parler...
he had to speak
30 M: uh-huh yeah well now what if they used passé
composé what if someone
31 said il a dû parler avec Rebecca? What about
that?
he had to speak with Rebecca
32 A: [does not respond]
53 M: it's kind of similar right?
54 A: so I guess like he needed to talk to her and he
did talk to her in a specific
55 period of time and it's over now
56 M: right you're looking at it as something that's
completed
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618
The Modern Language Journal 96 (2012)
M and A's respective contributions during this
exchange merit close attention. It is A who
provided interpretations of the French construc
tions of being sick (lines 44-45) and of having to
speak, il a dû parler (lines 27-29). Moreover, it is A
and not M who explained the difference in
meaning between the contrasting imperfective
perfective examples in lines 54—55. M, in contrast,
posed a series of questions to prompt the learner
to first revisit the examples from their earlier
sessions before returning to the problem at hand.
In other words, M mediated A's act of interpreting
the perfective construction—and thereby offering
confirmation of the learner's evaluation that her
use of imperfective matched her intended mean
ing—by guiding her through leading questions to
connect the devoir construction with a problem
they had encountered earlier.
In comparison with S, A clearly had a more
highly developed understanding of verbal aspect
For A, the concept of aspect functions as a tool
for mediating how she constructs her narrative as
well as determining how effectively she has
expressed her intended meanings. That she was
not yet able to do this completely independently
but was successful with support from M indicated
that control over verbal aspect was within her ZPD.
As A has progressed toward full control over this
feature of the L2, she has developed a concomitant
awareness of her performances and the processes
underlying them. In other words, her develop
ment toward autonomous functioning was inter
related with her emerging capacity to evaluate her
functioning.
Before moving on, another feature of A's
engagement in reviewing her video recorded
performance merits some attention. Specifically,
there is evidence that her interaction with M during
experience some difficulties in evaluating her
this session supported her development toward
more independent self-assessment. Recall that
while S paused the recording to comment on her
performance following her exchange with M, she
only produced remarks about her lexical choices
choices (i.e., in assessing this feature of her
and made no mention of the various instances of
performance). Although A was not functioning
problems pertaining to verbal aspect. A, in contrast,
completely independently, she avoided impulsivity
did comment on her use of aspect following her
discussion with M and, moreover, she explicitly
and made more appropriate aspectual choices
during narration. She was, however, continuing to
and is attempting to employ the concept of
aspect as a tool for mediating her use of the
language. Indeed, she commented at the end of
the session:
57 A: I was trying to think about it as I was doing it
which was such a difference
58 from before and just I don't know maybe it's
this so even though I didn't get them
59 all right I was trying to go through it in some
way and come up with the right
60 tense
Thus, while her observable performance—that
is, her execution—may have still contained errors,
as when she was asked to interpret M's suggested
perfective construction, the process through
which A arrived at her choices was fundamentally
different from before. Interestingly, A recognized
that the procedure of reviewing a recording of her
oral narration afforded the possibility to intensive
ly engage in evaluative reflection:
61 A: it's much harder to think about it when
you're speaking and you can't just
62 stop. Here it's like writing it because you can see
the progression of your
63 sentences and actually talk it out but when
you're there and talking [referring to
64 the narration] it's much more immediate.
framed her remarks in relation to their discussion.
Toward the end of the film clip A narrated, it is
revealed that one of the characters has forgotten
an important appointment. In describing this, A
produced the construction il a oublié son rendez-vous
('he forgot his meeting'), using the perfective form
of the verb oublier ('to forget'). Upon seeing this in
the video clip, A paused the recording but
remained silent for several moments. M then
prompted her to share her thoughts:
65 M: okay so what's happening here? What's
going on?
66 A: [pause] well I'm just thinking that actually it's
fine but like I was just thinking
67 that I used passé composé there and
68 M: for il a oublié you mean?
he forgot
69 A: yeah
70 M: and now you're not sure?
71 A: no it's just that I'm thinking about what we
were saying about, so is this thing
72 completed or isn't it? because if you think about
it like that it really does make
73 sense
74 M: you mean uh
75 A: so he forgot and that's completed, it's not
that he was forgetting it or
76 something like when you said he was sick and
we're talking about it going on,
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619
Matthew E. Poehner
77 this is he forgot it and then he realized it and
was like oh no, you could see it, you
78 could see it that way really clearly
79 M: so you're okay using passé composé here?
80 A: yeah I mean it's like we were saying it's not
that you have to, you could put it
81 another way if you wanted to be like he was
talking and talking and he was
82 forgetting about his appointment and all the
other things going on and then
83 whatever, but I just think the way you see it in
the movie using passé really works
More so than in her previous exchange with M,
A took responsibility for evaluating the perfor
mance. In fact, M's only contributions were to
verify that he was following her explanation (lines
68, 70, and 79). A's analysis of the performance
there were few instances when she paused the
recording while reviewing her narration with M.
When these did occur, they invariably involved the
learner seeking confirmation that her perfor
mance was appropriate. At one point in her
narration, D produced the construction il jouait au
tennis et il a devenu* frustré ('he was playing tennis
and he became frustrated'). This employs an
imperfective form of the verb jouer ('to play') and
renders devenir ('to become') as a perfective. The
only problem with her construction, which is
minor and would not impede comprehension, is
that D selected the wrong auxiliary verb for devenir,
which takes être rather than the more common
avoir. Upon hearing her utterance, D appeared to
recognize that there is a problem. She paused the
recording and turned to M:
made direct references to their earlier discussion,
as when she posed the question of whether the
action was completed and when she mentioned
the example of being sick. The question of how to
portray an event in the narrative (i.e., whether or
not to make any commitment to the completion of
actions or events) appears to be foremost in A's
84 D: okay the past participle of devenir is?
to become
85 M: uh-huh
86 D: um de- uh [pause] hang on de- it is devenu
87 M: right it works like venir right
to come
88 D: yeah
mind as she considered her portrayal of this part of
89 M: so venu and this is devenu
the film. While this criterion for evaluating her use
90 D: right
of aspect was included in the earlier discussion of
her performance, it was more clearly being
employed by A as a point of reference for
determining the appropriateness of her choices.
Indeed, in their previous exchange, it was M who
used the word "completed" (line 56), but here A
was using it more independently to evaluate her
performance. Moreover, she drew upon another
element of her interaction with M—considering
changes in meaning if a different aspectual choice
was made (lines 80-83). Although this trend had
previously emerged dialogically, as she jointly
evaluated the performance with M, in this instance
the evaluation was considerably more monologic.
As Vygotsky would put it, evaluating performance
is shifting from the interpsychological to the
intrapsychological plane.
Before concluding, we will consider M's inter
action with another learner, D. As we will see, D has
nearly reached a level of self-regulated perfor
mance with regard to her use of tense and aspect.
Despite, or perhaps as a result of, her emerging
capabilities D also finds that evaluating her
performance has become increasingly complex.
Toward Greater Autonomy: Discomfort and Complexity
Although D detects a problem, she initially
assumed that it involved the past participle devenu
rather than the auxiliary. In line 85, M did not
respond to her query and in the following line D
herself realized that she had in fact produced the
correct form. Only then did M confirm this,
noting that devenir, like the higher frequency verb
venir, followed an irregular pattern. Because D
had paused the recording at this point, M
pursued the construction to determine whether
the learner would perceive and correct the actual
error with the auxiliary. He began simply by
repeating the construction, and when D did not
respond he again drew a connection to the verb
venir.
91 M: but you said il a devenu* right?
he becam^
92 D: yeah
93 M: okay so remember it works like venir in the
passé composé you remember?
94 D: [no response]
95 M: so venu is the part participle but there's the
other part of the passé -
96 D: il est devenu! Yes yes it's
one of those odd ones être
in Self-Assessment
he became to be
Midway into the program, D made few errors in
her use of verbal tense and aspect. Consequently,
97 M: yeah
98 D: that's right?
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620
The Modern Language Journal 96 (2012)
99 M: yeah okay and you used passé composé
because?
100 D: because he became he just became he all
of a sudden got really
101 frustrated from one moment to the next he
changed he was playing tennis
102 and he got really angry at least that's how
I see it does that make sense?
103 Or maybe I'm just thinking about this too
much?
104 M: no no I think this is good good because
you're trying to figure this out
Initially, M's effort to link the verb devenir to
venir is not successful, and so in line 95 he specifies
that the verbs are similar with regard to formation
prescriptive rules or conventions, D understands
that use of the passé composé and imparfait is
dependent upon what she intends to express, and
in her words, this has caused her to "slow down" to
determine whether she is in fact saying what
she means to say. While having no roadmap to
reach "the right answer" is clearly indicative of
a high level of awareness of both the L2 and
oneself as a speaker of that language, such a
realization could be disconcerting rather than
liberating for learners accustomed to simply
following rules outlined in textbooks. D's discom
fort at this point in her development may be
interpreted as characteristic of her emerging
independence.
of the past participle as well as the other element of
passé composé constructions. Before M mentions
that this other element is the auxiliary, D
interrupts (line 96), exclaiming the corrected
version, il est devenu. That is, she realized that the
issue involved the auxiliary verb and that devenir is
"one of those odd ones" that takes être. As
mentioned, choice of auxiliary is a relatively minor
issue. In general, D's use of verbal aspect was
appropriate, and the few structural problems that
she discussed with M during this session were
resolved with very little prompting, as in the
previous exchange.
Although D functioned at a high level, she
explained at the end of the session that, as her
understanding of aspect developed, the matter of
evaluating her performances was rendered more
complex:
105 D: I feel like um maybe even my confusion is
increasing maybe I used to
106 use the wrong tense but I used to be fairly
comfortable and sure about
107 using [laughs]
108 M: [laughs] about using the wrong tense?
109 D: I just feel like maybe I used to be much less
self-conscious about the
110 tenses I was choosing um and um I'm glad I'm
thinking about this more as
111 I go through it but it's making me it's making
me slow down in my ability
112 to communicate because I really want to say it
and get the idea out there
113 but I need to make sure I'm doing it the right
way
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
As a form of pedagogy, DA has been cast within
the L2 field as a framework for organizing
interactions to simultaneously assess learner
development and move it forward. In Vygotsky's
(1978) terms, it is activity on the intermental plane
created through interaction between mediator
and learner that gives rise to learners' capacity to
function intramentally, relying on internalized
forms of symbolic mediation to self-regulate.
Attention to learner evaluative reflection has not
previously been brought into focus in L2 DA
research. However, considered as a part of
development, it is crucial that mediators work to
position learners to take over responsibility for this
feature of performance.
The point of course is not simply that learners
can be helped to reflect on performance when
supported by a teacher. Rather, cooperative
dialoguing, as occurs in DA, can bring to light
how learners orient to performance and their
understanding of criteria for appropriate perfor
mance, while simultaneously creating a space for
further probing and for working through prob
lems and reformulating. In essence, evaluative
reflection on performance is simultaneously a
condition for and consequence of development.
That is, it initially involves learner participation in
an evaluation that may be heavily directed by a
mediator but the aim is to move toward what is
typically understood to be (autonomous) self
assessment. Thus, it may be appropriate to
distinguish cooperative self-assessment and independent
The discomfort D expressed resulted from her
understanding that choice of aspect is neither
arbitrary nor a purely structural matter. She has
come to realize that aspect offers her possibilities
for thinking and talking about events in parti
cular ways. Rather than being bound to a set of
self-assessment. Both forms of self-assessment posit
an agentive learner. However, while the former
occurs dialogically between learner and mediator
(i.e., intermentally), the latter involves intramen
tal functioning, that is, dialogue between the
learner and him/herself.
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621
Matthew E. Poehner
Each of the L2 learners discussed in this article
to self-assess must be mediated. The research
was at a different point in terms of their ability to
reported here represents an initial attempt to
employ the concept of verbal aspect to mediate
their aspectual choices during narration and to
answer his call for research into how this process
might unfold.
subsequently evaluate the appropriateness of
More research is needed to better understand
those choices. More importantly, it was not the
case that if a learner understood the concept she
could unproblematically employ it as a tool to
regulate both her execution and evaluation of the
narrative task. Rather, learners encountered
how opportunities may be created with learners
to meaningfully engage in this kind of coopera
tive self-assessment. As with any assessment, it is
difficulties in each stage of performance that
they worked through dialogically with M. For S,
her lack of a conceptual understanding of verbal
aspect led her to produce constructions that did
not reflect her intended meanings and also left
her unable to distinguish the criteria for deter
mining the quality of her performance. That is,
she was not able to identify or correct problems
with regard to her use of aspect, even when
offered support. This view is reinforced by the
clear misperceptions in S's overall evaluation of
her performance.
Although both A and D also experienced
difficulties, they differed from S in that they
intentionally attempted to employ the concept of
aspect to regulate their use of the L2. With
prompting, A was able to connect her later
performance with the one she and M had
evaluated together. Over the course of the
session, responsibility for evaluating performance
appeared to shift, initially unfolding through
dialogue between A and M, but later A displayed
greater independence in self-assessing. For D's
part, she found that as she oriented to selecting
essential that learners understand the attributes
for successful performance. In the case of this L2
DA program, attention remained tightly focused
on the use of the passé composé and the imparfait
and discussions were organized around the
concept of verbal aspect and how this may be
used to foreground and background events in
narration. To be sure, this is a very specific feature
of functioning in the L2, and it should not be
taken to mean that the value of engaging learners
in evaluative reflections is limited to improving
their control over discrete properties of the L2.
On the contrary, taken as a component of
classroom activity organized around the ZPD,
evaluative reflection would appear to be central
to advancing learners' communicative abilities
in the target language across modalities. Re
search undertaken collaboratively with teachers is
needed to determine how evaluative reflections
with learners may be negotiated within the
constraints of a L2 classroom to help them
develop both specific and more global abilities
in the language.
In this regard, an additional limitation of the
present study is that the DA program was
implemented outside of regular class time, in a
verbal forms according to her understanding
one-to-one format. Such an arrangement is
of aspect rather than simple grammar rules, the
task of evaluating performance was rendered
for constructing meanings expanded, the task
obviously difficult to achieve in most classroom
contexts. One promising line of research that has
begun to be explored concerns the co-creation of
a ZPD with a group or even entire class of learners
was no longer as simple as "getting it right."
She consequently continued to benefit from
M's presence as a dialogic partner as she
individuals share responsibility for a classroom
activity, and mediation may be directed to the
more complex. For her, as the possibilities
stepped back from her performance to consider
possibilities before settling on perfective or
imperfective.
The importance of the foregoing examples is
(e.g., Poehner, 2009). In this approach, all
class as a whole or to specific individuals to
support their contributions. Following the argu
ments proposed in this article, it is not merely
the group's completion of the pedagogical task
that they compel us to consider how development
that must be mediated but also their reflect
toward self-regulated functioning requires not
ion on the processes involved as well as the
only mediating learners' execution of a task,
outcomes. From a Vygotskian perspective, one
would expect that participation in cooperative
but also their engagement in evaluative reflec
tion. It is through this latter process that
additional opportunities are created to under
stand the sources of difficulty learners experience
and how these may be overcome. At the same
time, these DA interactions add support to
Oscarson's (1997) insistence that learner efforts
assessment of the group's work would have
consequences for individuals' capacity to engage
in self-assessment, perhaps further mediating
their development from a cooperative to more
independent mode of self-assessing. This is a
topic for future research.
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622 The Modern Language Journal 96 (2012)
Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (2004). Dynamic
NOTES
assessment: Bringing the past into the future.
Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1, 49-74.
1 Unless otherwise noted, discussion of self-assessment
throughout this article pertains directly to learner
evaluations of particular performances rather than
generalized reflections on their abilities. Moreover, it is
recognized that some forms of self-assessment involve the
additional step of not only reflecting on performance but
also relating performance to external frameworks,
rubrics, or rating scales. The focus in the present article
is on the activity of reflecting on performance for the
purpose of evaluating it, as this is common to all forms of
self-assessment (Little, 2005; Oscarson, 1997).
2 The question of whether to offer mediation in the
target language or the learners' LI is an important one to
consider and explore in future DA research. On the one
hand, recent research into learner self-assessment
suggests that when learners evaluate themselves through
the L2 there may be added metalinguistic advantages
(Little, 2007). However, from a Vygotskian perspective, a
learner's LI provides a powerful resource for self
regulation, and there is evidence that the LI functions
as a default language of private speech even among
highly advanced language learners (e.g., Centeno-Cortés
& JiménezJiménez, 2004).
Little, D. (2005). The Common European Framework
and the European Language Portfolio: Involving
learners and their judgments in the assessment
process. Language Testing, 22, 321-336.
Little, D. (2007). Knowledge about language and learner
autonomy. Inj. Cenoz & N. H. Hornberger (Eds.),
Encylopedia of language and education. Knowledge
about language (Vol. 6, pp. 247-260). Berlin:
Springer.
Negueruela, E. (2003). A sociocultural approach to teaching
and researching second languages: Systemic-theoretical
instruction and second language development (Unpub
lished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania
State University, University Park, PA.
Orsmond, P., Merry, S., & Reiling, K. (2002). The use of
exemplars and formative feedback when using
student derived marking criteria in peer and self
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Oscarson, M. (1997). Self-assessment of foreign and second
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