Project MultiDynAssess-India
Multilingual Dynamic Assessment for Language and Content learning: Addressing Sociolinguistic Diversity in India’s Primary schools
The project designs, implements, and evaluates multilingual dynamic assessment (DA) in Indian primary government schools where English is taught in a context characterised by high sociolinguistic diversity and widespread code-mixing practices. It investigates how multilingual versus English-only DA affects Grade 4 students’ language and content learning over time, drawing on classroom observations and a longitudinal comparison with traditional static assessment in schools in New Delhi and Guwahati. By aligning assessment with learners’ full linguistic repertoires, the project aims to promote equity in education and offers implications for multilingual assessment practices in India and other linguistically diverse contexts in the Global South.
This project evaluates multilingual assessment in primary government schools in India, where English is taught either as a subject or as the medium of instruction. Children attending these schools grow up in a highly linguistically diverse society that embraces individual multilingualism, primarily in oral language use, with code-mixing and translanguaging as natural modes of communication. School-based assessment, however, has traditionally been unilingual.
The project aims to promote continuity among teaching, learning, and assessment through the active engagement of learners’ entire linguistic repertoires. A key step in this direction is the use of dynamic assessment, which provides a more fine-grained picture of students’ language and content abilities than traditional static assessments by considering both actual learning outcomes and learning potential. In doing so, dynamic assessment also creates opportunities for learning by making assessment more equitable.
Selected publications:
- Torregrossa, J., Bongartz, C., & Eisenbeiß, S. (2025). Does “translanguaging” equal “reasoning in multiple languages?” Back to the basics of translanguaging as a way forward. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 15(1), 92–97. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.24068.tor
- Torregrossa, J., & Carbonara, V. (2025). Exploring the benefits of translanguaging pedagogies on secondary-school students’ metalinguistic awareness: the role of language learning aptitude and vocabulary knowledge. Language Awareness, 34(4), 862–885. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2025.2608085
- Torregrossa, J., Tsimpli, I., Mukhopadhyay, L., & Patil-Ingle, V. (submitted). Multilingual assessment of reading comprehension among primary school children in English-medium schools in India.
Funding
