Saeideh Ahangari - Department of English, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch, Tabriz, Iran
Nader Safaei Asl - Department of English, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch, Tabriz, Iran

This study was an attempt to investigate the effect of dynamic assessment on EFL learners' performance in listening comprehension. To this end, 15 female pre- intermediate EFL learners taking a grammar and conversation course in an intact class in Pardis Language Institute in Marand, Iran were selected as the sample of the study. The participants were asked to listen to five interviews at intermediate level from American Headway 3, the process which was conducted in five successive sessions. At each session, the participants were asked to choose correct responses to four comprehension questions. The pretest-mediation-posttest design was used in the study. For the mediation, the sandwich model of dynamic assessment(DA) was applied. The participants were provided with both implicit and explicit help right after the pre-test. The help included a related vocabulary network, a reasoning -gap activity, and an opinion -gap activity about the content of the interview. The quantitative data obtained from both pretest and posttest were statistically analysed through running paired-samples t-test. The results indicated that the application of DA had a considerable effect on improving the EFL learners' performance in listening comprehension and could help them outperform their current level of proficiency

Dynamic assessment, mediation, sandwich model, Listening comprehension, EFL