The Effect of Interventionist Dynamic Assessment through WhatsApp and Bigbluebutton on Learning Grammar by Iranian EFL Learners

Dynamic assessment (DA) is an effective strategy to combine teaching and testing and it is even more enjoyable through digital devices such as computer and moblie devices. The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether the effect of interventionist dynamic assessment through WhatsApp, Bigbluebutton, and face to face classes had significant impacts on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ learning of grammar. The participants of this quasi-experimental study were seventy-five male intermediate EFL learners studying English in one of the English language institutes in central Iran. Three intact pre-intermediate level classes were chosen based on non-random convenience sampling and assigned to the three groups of WhatsApp, Bigbluebutton, and traditional group. The instruments that were used in this study were the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) and a multiple-choice grammar test. Over the course of six sessions, all three groups received interventionist DA strategies in teaching countable and uncountable nouns and determiners. The results of statistical data analysis showed that all three groups had significantly progressed over the study since there was significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores of each group. However, no statistically significant differences were found among the three groups’ means on the posttest of grammar. The findings have implications for language teachers and researchers of second language acquision.