Maximizing the Potential of Intermediate EFL Learners' Formal Style of the WrittenLanguage through Dialogic Interaction

As a fundamental notion at the heart of dynamic assessment (DA),dialogic interaction derives from Vygotsky’s (1987) socioculturaltheory with the insight that appropriate use of mediation bloomslearners’ emerging capabilities and enables them to perform beyondtheir current level of developed abilities. The presentation of attunedmediations to the learners need through instructional dialogicinteraction provides mediators with an opportunity to assess thelearners’ current zone of actual development (ZAD) and assist them todevelop new capabilities for reaching independency into a new ZAD.The theoretical understanding of the present study involved the coconstruction of the formal written language from Vygotsky's (1978)instructional implication. Drawing on sociocultural perspective, thiscase study scrutinized the dialogic interaction of Poehner's (2008)interactionist format of DA based on Aljaafreh and Lantolf's (1994)hierarchical (implicit to explicit) presentation of mediations. Thepresent paper focused on the interaction between the learner and theteacher for optimizing the formal style of writing. Dyadic interactioncontributed to guide learners walk through the problem and to enhancelearning through the interaction. The impetus for the study came fromworking with intermediate colloquial and inaccurate writers. Exploitingthe collaborative dialogue with the learners was a follow-up to thelearners' self-awareness in the stilted style of writing. Following asociocultural perspective, this study revealed the fact that how muchteacher-student communication stretched the learners' potential level ofcompetence in writing formally. This case study is in line withSternberg and Grigorenko's (2002) interactionist approach in order toenhance the learners' Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) in theformal written language. The analysis of the interaction demonstratedthat formal writing development took place as a result of responding tothe learners' individual needs through dialogic interaction with theteacher.

Keywords:

dialogic interaction , writing , formal style