Corpus-informed Dynamic Assessment of Content and Language in a Business English Course

Lidan Chen

English Language Teaching, 2025, vol. 18, issue 11, 134

Abstract: Assessing both language and content has long been recognized as a central challenge in the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). This study investigates how corpus-informed Dynamic Assessment (DA) can capture learners’ development of subject knowledge and disciplinary literacy in an undergraduate Business English course taught through CLIL. Grounded in Vygotskian sociocultural theory, DA integrates assessment with mediation, enabling assessment to reveal both actual performance and developmental potential. Thirty-two undergraduate Business English majors participated in a one-semester quasi-experimental study conducted in the course “Comprehensive Business English.” Corpus keyword analysis was applied to pre- and post-instruction writing tasks to trace changes in learners’ use of disciplinary vocabulary and collocations, while corpus-informed feedback served as mediation. After one semester of instruction, results show that learners’ increased use and greater variety of business keywords indicate deeper conceptual understanding and enhanced disciplinary literacy. Collocational and pattern analyses of the focal business keyword “price” further suggest a shift from descriptive to analytical expressions, evidencing movement within learners’ zone of proximal development (ZPD). These findings suggest that corpus-informed DA provides a useful means of assessing and fostering both content learning and language development in CLIL and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) pedagogy.

Date: 2025
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