The Routledge Handbook of Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Development

The Routledge Handbook of Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Development The Routledge Handbook of Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Development is the first comprehensive overview of the field of sociocultural second language acquisition (SLA). In 35 chapters, each written by an expert in the area, this book offers perspectives on both the theoretical and practical sides of the field. This Handbook covers a broad range of topics, divided into several major sections, including: •• •• •• •• •• •• •• concepts and principles as related to second language development; concept-based instruction; dynamic assessment and other assessment based on sociocultural theory (SCT); literacy and content-based language teaching; bilingual/multilingual education; SCT and technology; and teacher education. This is the ideal resource for graduate students and researchers working in the areas of SLA and second language development. James P. Lantolf is the Greer Professor in Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics at The Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is Director of the Center for Language Acquisition and was co-editor of Applied Linguistics and founding editor of the journal Language and Sociocultural Theory. He is Changjiang Scholar in Applied Linguistics in the School of Foreign Studies at Xi’an JiaoTong University, China. Matthew E. Poehner is Associate Professor of World Languages Education and Applied Linguistics at The Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is currently Associate Editor of Language and Sociocultural Theory. Merrill Swain is Professor Emerita at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. She was President of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) and Vice President of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA), and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Vaasa in Finland. Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics provide comprehensive overviews of the key topics in applied linguistics. All entries for the handbooks are specially commissioned and written by leading scholars in the field. Clear, accessible and carefully edited, Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics are the ideal resource for both advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students. For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/series/RHAL The Routledge Handbook of Instructed Second Language Acquisition Edited by Shawn Loewen and Masatoshi Sato The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies Edited by John Flowerdew and John E. Richardson The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace Edited by Bernadette Vine The Routledge Handbook of English as a Lingua Franca Edited by Jennifer Jenkins, Will Baker and Martin Dewey The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity Edited by Angela Creese and Adrian Blackledge The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization Edited by Leanne Hinton, Leena Huss and Gerald Roche The Routledge Handbook of Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Development Edited by James P. Lantolf and Matthew E. Poehner with Merrill Swain The Routledge Handbook of Study Abroad Research and Practice Edited by Cristina Sanz and Alfonso Morales-Front The Routledge Handbook of Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Development Edited by James P. Lantolf and Matthew E. Poehner with Merrill Swain First published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Taylor & Francis The right of James P. Lantolf, Matthew E. Poehner, and Merrill Swain to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Every effort has been made to contact copyright-holders. Please advise the publisher of any errors or omissions, and these will be corrected in subsequent editions. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lantolf, James P. editor. | Poehner, Matthew E. editor. | Swain, Merrill. Title: The Routledge handbook of sociocultural theory and second language development / edited by James P. Lantolf and Matthew E. Poehner with Merrill Swain. Description: New York : Routledge, 2018. | Series: Routledge handbooks in applied linguistics | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017059600| ISBN 9781138651555 (hardback) | ISBN 9781317229902 (web pdf) | ISBN 9781317229896 (epub) | ISBN 9781317229889 (mobi/kindle) Subjects: LCSH: Language and languages—Study and teaching. | Second language acquisition. Classification: LCC P51 .R685 2018 | DDC 401/.93—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017059600 ISBN: 978-1-138-65155-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-62474-7 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK To my grandchildren: Jack, Sam, Harrison, Henry, and Charlie.—J.L. For Priya, Bella, and Leo—My Everything.—M.E.P. To the many students from whom I’ve learned so much.—M.S. 1 Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors Acknowledgments 1 Introduction James P. Lantolf, Matthew E. Poehner, and Merrill Swain xi xiii xiv xix 1 PART I Sociocultural Theory Concepts and Principles 2 Mediation and Internalization: Conceptual Analysis and Practical Applications Alex Kozulin 3 Zones of Proximal Development: Mundane and Magical Lois Holzman 21 23 42 4 Essential Aspects of Vygotsky’s Theoretical Framework and Methodological Approach Revealed in His Analysis of Unit(ie)s Holbrook Mahn 56 5 Vygotsky on the Consciousness and the Application to Second Language Development Steven G. McCafferty 75 6 Understanding Development Through the Perezhivanie of Learning Nikolai Veresov and Nelson Mok 7 Acquisition of Scientific Concepts as the Content of School Instruction Yuriy V. Karpov 89 102 vii Contents PART II Second Languages, the Brain, and Thinking 117 8 Neuropsychology of Bilingualism Mónica Rosselli and Alfredo Ardila 119 9 Inner Speech and Its Impact on Teaching and Learning Anke Werani 136 10 Private and Inner Speech in L2 Learning: The Impact of Vygotskyan Sociocultural Theory María C. M. de Guerrero 152 11 Gesture as a Window Onto Conceptualization in Second Language Acquisition: A Vygotskian Perspective Gale Stam 165 PART III Concept-Based Instruction 179 12 Concept-Based Instruction: Investigating the Role of Conscious Conceptual Manipulation in L2 Development Próspero N. García 181 13 Concept-Based Instruction of Chinese as a Second Language Jie Zhang and Xian Zhang 197 14 Concept-Based Pragmatics Instruction: Principles and Applications Rémi A. van Compernolle 211 15 Mediated Development: Promoting Learner Internalization of L2 Concepts Through Cognitive-Process Focused Activities Paolo Infante 229 PART IV Dynamic Assessment 247 16 Probing and Provoking L2 Development: The Object of Mediation in Dynamic Assessment and Mediated Development Matthew E. Poehner 249 17 Understanding Learner L2 Development Through Reciprocity Rumia Ableeva viii 266 Contents 18 Mediator and Learner Engagement in Co-Regulated InterPsychological Activity Kristin J. Davin 282 19 Employing Dynamic Assessment to Enhance Agency Among L2 Learners Tziona Levi and Matthew E. Poehner 295 20 Dynamic Diagnosis of Second Language Abilities Marta Antón 310 21 Dynamic Assessment of Children Learning a Second Language Elizabeth D. Peña and Kai J. Greene 324 PART V Literacy and Content-Based Language Teaching 341 22 Understanding L2 Writers “At Risk”: A Sociocultural Perspective Robert Kohls 343 23 English for Specific Purposes: Engineers Learning How to Mean in English Penny Kinnear 357 24 A Sociocultural Approach to Second Language Literacy Pedagogy Kimberly Buescher 378 PART VI Sociocultural Theory and Technology 389 25 Collaborative Activity in the Digital World Gabriela Adela Gánem-Gutiérrez 391 26 Exploring the Interdisciplinary Synergy Between Sociocultural Theory and Intelligent Computer-Assisted Language Learning Haiyang Ai and Xiaofei Lu 27 The Integration of ELF and Sociocultural Theory via NetworkBased Language Teaching: Best Practices for the English Classroom Enrico Grazzi 409 422 ix Contents PART VII Teacher Education 441 28 Making L2 Teacher Education Matter Through Vygotskian-Inspired Pedagogy and Research Karen E. Johnson and Paula R. Golombek 443 29 History-in-Person: Ontogenesis and the Professional Formation of Language Teachers Richard Donato and Kristin J. Davin 457 30 Gesture as a Mediational Tool in the L2 Classroom Tetyana Smotrova 31 Concept-Based Instruction in Teacher Education Programs in Spain as Illustrated by the SCOBA-Mediated Barcelona Formative Model: Helping Teachers to Become Transformative Practitioners Olga Esteve Ruesca 32 Applying Sociocultural Theory to Prepare Teachers to Work With Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students and Families Ana Christina da Silva Iddings 472 487 505 PART VIII Sociocultural Theory and Social Change 527 33 Sociocultural Theory as Everyday Practice: The Challenge of PK-12 Teacher Preparation for Multilingual and Multicultural Learners Annela Teemant 529 34 Inclusion, “Defectology,” and Second Language Learners Peter Smagorinsky 551 35 Trends Within Sociocultural Theory, and the Utility of “Cultural Capital” for SCT Carl Ratner 565 Index 581 x Figures 2.1 2.2 4.1 7.1 7.2 8.1 9.1 9.2 11.1 12.1 12.2 12.3 13.1 13.2 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 15.1 15.2 15.3 16.1 17.1 17.2 17.3 19.1 19.2 23.1 26.1 26.2 Acquisition of the symbolic tool and its transformation into the inner psychological tool Task: Fill in what is missing Analogy of tool and sign mediation Vertebrate animals: concepts and definitions Identifying vertebrate animals Brodmann areas (BA) that show increased gray matter or cortical thickness in bilinguals compared to monolinguals Genesis of inner speech and higher mental functions Expansion of Vygotsky’s model on teaching and learning processes Example ELAN template for the coding of speech and gesture A pedagogical tool for understanding the concept of aspect in Spanish (García, 2012) Learner pedagogical representation of aspect as inside or outside of the box Pedagogical representation of aspect as in or out of focus SCOBA of V-kai compounds (J. Zhang, in progress) Materialization of the Chinese topicalization concept (X. Zhang, 2014) Diagram for self-presentation Diagram for social distance Diagram for power Flowchart from van Compernolle et al. (2016) Present perfect progressive (E5) representation Alex’s representation of E5 sentence exemplar Past perfect simple (E3) and past simple (E1) comparison activity Example of inventory of mediating prompts (adapted from Poehner, 2009) Learner reciprocity typology, Poehner (2005, p. 183) Learner regressive and progressive reciprocating moves within the ZPD Learner reciprocating moves related to the effects of DA-based instruction within the ZPD Prompt to guide students while viewing OLP recording Example format for whole-class DA intervention emphasizing evaluative reflection of performance Activity triangle and objects for Team G’s third meeting Core algorithm of the Chinese ICALL program (Ai, 2017) Web-based interface of the ICALL program 29 36 63 107 108 127 138 143 172 187 189 190 202 205 214 215 215 220 235 237 241 255 269 270 271 303 306 367 413 414 xi List of Figures 27.1 31.1 Teaching/learning activity model Core-SCOBA 1a: Holistic concept of language with text as basic communicative unit 31.2 Core-SCOBA 1b: (Trans)linguistic concepts infusing meaning into texts 31.3 Core-SCOBA 2: The didactic sequence (adapted from Carandell, 2013) 31.4 Ser/estar SCOBA (developed by Laia Sánchez jointly with Carmen Ramos, teacher-researcher at the University of Munich, Germany) 32.1 Children’s depictions of the U.S./Mexico border wall in the Nogales Headstart program (Nogales Headstart, April 2015) 32.2 Children-drawn chalk figures of dead or wounded bodies on the ground (Nogales Headstart, April 2015) 32.3 Children-drawn chalk figures depicting the constant presence of police helicopters along the U.S./Mexican border wall (Nogales Headstart, April 2015) 32.4 Community garden in the Saguaro’s school grounds 32.5 Mothers planning a kitchen as a place for gathering and action-oriented dialogue 32.6 Preparing the documentation room 32.7 Family home engagements 32.8 Literacy cafecito 32.9 Project SEED teachers engaging with the pre-service teachers across languages 32.10 Making the photobooks: connecting home literacy with school literacy practices 32.11 Karen’s photobook 33.1 Six Standards for Effective Pedagogy 33.2 Standards Performance Continuum: a classroom observation rubric for the Six Standards 33.3 Rank order of implementation for the Six Standards for Effective Pedagogy xii 429 491 491 492 495 506 507 507 514 515 516 518 519 520 521 522 534 536 539 Tables 12.1 14.1 14.2 16.1 16.2 16.3 19.1 19.2 21.1 25.1 26.1 26.2 27.1 31.1 31.2 31.3 31.4 31.5 31.6 Vygotsky’s (1986) Distinction Between Everyday and Scientific Knowledge Study Design (van Compernolle, 2012, 2014) Adaptations of the CBPI Framework for the Classroom Examples of DA in L2 Classrooms Examples of DA in Formal L2 Assessment Contexts Examples of DA in L2 Vygotskian Education Programs High and Low Descriptors of OLP in the Test Scoring Rubric Mean and Standard Deviation of Communicative Ability and Accuracy Before and After Mediation Dynamic Assessment Applied to Language Impairment Intercultural Learning Around “Street Eating in Spain” Larry’s Moment-by-Moment Changes and Mediation He Received Chris’s Moment-by-Moment Changes and Mediation He Received List of Topics Example of a Didactic Sequence Developed for German-Speaking Learners of Spanish by a Postgraduate Student Teacher at Phase 3a of a BFM-Based Teacher Education Program (cf. Table 31.2) Six-phase Structure of the SCOBA-Enhanced BFM Collaborative Reflective Cycle Excerpts From the Reflective Report by Zinka C. (a Highly Experienced Teacher at the Official Language School Barcelona-Drassanes) Excerpts From the Reflective Report by Yolanda M. (A Comparatively Less Experienced Teacher at the Official Language School Barcelona-Drassanes) Excerpts From the Reflections by Laura F. (an Experienced Teacher Educator at the Catalan Ministry of Education) Excerpts From the Reflections by Núria M. (a Comparatively Less Experienced Teacher Educator at the Catalan Ministry of Education) 182 215 218 254 257 259 303 305 333 397 415 417 431 492 496 498 499 500 501 xiii Contributors Rumia Ableeva is Assistant Professor of French at Coastal Carolina University. Her research focuses on sociocultural theory and its use in second language (L2) education. More precisely, her research explores the use of dynamic assessment for teaching L2 French and L2 Russian. Haiyang Ai is Assistant Professor of Literacy and Second Language Studies at the University of Cincinnati. His research interests include corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, intelligent computer-assisted language learning, and second language acquisition. Marta Antón is Professor of Spanish at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She has conducted research on sociocultural approaches to classroom interaction, dynamic assessment, and Spanish sociolinguistics. She is editor of The Modern Language Journal. Alfredo Ardila is a Professor at the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Florida International University, Miami, Florida. His research interests include brain organization of cognition, cross-cultural neuropsychology, historical origins of human cognition, and bilingualism. Kimberly Buescher, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at University of Massachusetts—Boston. Her research interests include second language (L2) learning and teaching, L2 literacy, teacher education preparation, French prepositions, and students’ and teachers’ use of gesture. Kristin J. Davin is Assistant Professor of Foreign Language Education at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her research is situated in sociocultural theory and focuses on second language assessment, language teacher preparation, and early language learning. María C. M. de Guerrero was Professor at Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Metropolitan Campus, for over 30 years and is now retired. During her career, she taught ESL and TESL courses and conducted research on L2 learning within an SCT approach. In addition to various publications, she authored the book Inner Speech—L2: Thinking Words in a Second Language. Richard Donato is Professor and Chair of the Department of Instruction and Learning at the University of Pittsburgh. His research includes early foreign language learning and xiv List of Contributors sociocultural approaches to instructed language learning and language teacher education He is the co-author of the book A Tale of Two Schools: Developing Sustainable Early Language Programs. Olga Esteve Ruesca, Ph.D., is a retired tenured lecturer in Department of Translation and Language Science of the University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain). She is currently advising educational institutions in the field of transformative teacher education models (pre-service and in-service). Her research interests are sociocultural perspectives in teacher professional development, concept-based instruction in the language classroom and in teacher education, and learner and teacher agency. Gabriela Adela Gánem-Gutiérrez, Ph.D., is Senior Lecturer (Applied Linguistics/TEFL) in the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Essex, UK. Her main research interests include sociocultural theory, CALL, L2 pedagogy, and explicit L2 learning. Próspero N. García is Assistant Professor of Spanish Applied Linguistics at Rutgers University, Camden. His research focuses on sociocultural psychology applied to heritage and second language acquisition and pedagogy, language evaluation and assessment, teacher’s cognition, and technology-enhanced language learning. Paula R. Golombek is Clinical Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Florida. Her research examines Teacher Learning in L2 Teacher Education, Sociocultural Perspectives on L2 Teacher Professional Development, and Language Teachers’ Narrative Inquiry as Professional Development. Enrico Grazzi is Associate Professor of Language and Translation English, at the University of ‘Roma Tre’, Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Rome, Italy. His main research interests are English as a lingua franca (ELF), educational linguistics, and sociocultural theory. Kai J. Greene, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, currently works as a bilingual speech-language pathologist for the Los Angeles Unified School District. Additionally, he teaches at the California State University, Los Angeles on topics related to linguistic and cultural diversity and bilingual language development and disorders. Research interests include assessment and intervention issues related to diverse language learners. Lois Holzman is Director of the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy and Chief Organizer of the Performing the World conferences. Her research, teaching and writing are done in tandem with grassroots community organizing to inspire human development/community development through group creativity, play, and performance. Her explorations of Lev Vygotsky and his relevance to our times include Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary Scientist, Routledge Classic Edition, and Vygotsky at Work and Play. Ana Christina da Silva Iddings is Professor of the Practice of Education and Director of the Learning, Diversity and Urban Studies at Vanderbilt University. Her research centers at the learning ecologies of linguistically/culturally diverse students. xv List of Contributors Paolo Infante is Assistant Professor of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in the Department of English at Minnesota State University, Mankato. His research employs Vygotskian theory to study processes of learner L2 development within ESL and foreign language contexts. Karen E. Johnson is the Kirby Professor of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on a sociocultural theoretical perspective on second language teacher education, the dynamics of communication in second language classrooms, and narrative inquiry as professional development. Her most recent co-authored book is Mindful L2 Teacher Education: A Sociocultural Perspective on Cultivating Teachers’ Professional Development. Yuriy V. Karpov, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Education and Associate Dean, Graduate School of Education, Touro College, New York, NY. His research interests include the implementation of Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development in teaching, assessment, and the analysis of children’s cognitive and metacognitive development. Penny Kinnear, Ph.D., currently designs and coordinates language assessment and support for Faculty of Engineering students at the University of Toronto. She is co-author of Sociocultural Theory in Second Language Education: An Introduction through Narrative. Robert Kohls is Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at San Francisco State University. His research interests include L1 and L2 writing, teacher written feedback, sociocultural theory, and qualitative research methods in TESOL. Alex Kozulin is Professor and Head of the M.Ed. Program in Special Education at Achva Academic College and an Academic Director of International Research and Training at the Feuerstein Institute. His research focuses on sociocultural theory, dynamic assessment, and cognitive education. He is an associate editor of the International Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology. James P. Lantolf is the Greer Professor in Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics at The Pennsylvania State University. He is Director of the Center for Language Acquisition and was co-editor of Applied Linguistics and founding editor of Language and Sociocultural Theory. He is Changjiang Scholar in Applied Linguistics in the School of Foreign Studies at Xi’an JiaoTong University. His research focuses on sociocultural theory and classroom second language development Tziona Levi is the Chief Inspector for English (L2) Language Education at the Ministry of Education, Israel. Her research examines the use of dynamic assessment (DA) to promote language learning in mainstream school contexts and language assessment literacy (LAL). Xiaofei Lu is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and Asian Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, where he directs the graduate programs in the Department of Applied Linguistics. His research interests include computational linguistics, corpus linguistics, technology-mediated language learning, and second language writing. He is the author of Computational Methods for Corpus Annotation and Analysis. xvi List of Contributors Holbrook Mahn is Professor in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies at the University of New Mexico and specializes in the investigation of Vygotsky’s original work. Drawing on his experience as a former high school teacher of ESL, he also specializes in second language literacy. Steven G. McCafferty is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His research has centered on applications of SCT to second language development (SLD), and of particular interest to him is the study of L2 thought and language, which includes the study of multimodal ensembles. Nelson Mok is a Ph.D. candidate in the Faculty of Education, Monash University (Peninsula), Australia. With a M.A. in applied linguistics, his research examines the potential of autoethnographic methodology, informed by the cultural-historical concept of perezhivanie, for studying self-directed second language acquisition. He is currently an associate editor of the journal of International Research in Early Childhood Education (IRECE). Elizabeth D. Peña is Professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine and a Fellow of the American Speech, Language, Hearing Association. Her work focuses on differentiating language impairment from language difference in bilingual children. Her assessment work employs a variety of methods including standardized and dynamic assessment. She is interested in how children from diverse linguistic backgrounds learn new language skills and how they lexicalize their conceptual knowledge across two languages. Matthew E. Poehner is Associate Professor of World Languages Education and Applied Linguistics at The Pennsylvania State University. His research examines sociocultural theory and its use as a basis for L2 education through frameworks such as dynamic assessment and mediated development. He is currently associate editor of the journal Language and Sociocultural Theory. Carl Ratner is currently an independent researcher in cultural psychology. He has spent his academic career developing a macro cultural theory and methodology of psychology. He analyzes and critiques political aspects of culture that inform human psychology and the discipline of Psychology. He is currently writing a book “Neoliberal Psychology” (Springer) that includes this dual political critique. Mónica Rosselli is Professor and Assistant Chair at the Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Davie, Florida. Her research interests include normal and abnormal aging, bilingualism, cross-cultural neuropsychology, cognitive development, and neuropsychological assessment. Peter Smagorinsky is Distinguished Research Professor of English Education at The University of Georgia. His research takes a sociocultural perspective grounded in Vygotskian theory to examine a variety of human development processes, including literacy teaching and learning, concept development, teacher education, and other areas. He is the faculty advisor to the Journal of Language and Literacy Education, a student-edited, online, openaccess scholarly journal. xvii List of Contributors Tetyana Smotrova is a Lecturer at the Centre for English Language Communication (CELC) at the National University of Singapore. Her research interests include SLA, TESOL, gesture and multimodality, classroom interaction, and ESP. Gale Stam is Professor of Psychology at National Louis University in Chicago, Illinois. Her research interests include language, culture, and cognition; gesture and first and second language (L2) acquisition; and teachers’ gestures. She has published articles on changes in thinking for speaking, the importance of looking at gesture in L2 acquisition, gesture and lexical retrieval in an L2, and language teachers’ gestures. Merrill Swain is Professor Emerita at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. She has published extensively on second language learning, teaching, and testing. Her most recent interests include languaging and the inseparability of cognition and emotion. She was President of AAAL and Vice President of AILA, and received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Vaasa in Finland. Annela Teemant is Associate Professor of Second Language Education at Indiana University- Purdue University Indianapolis. With funding from five U.S. Department of Education grants, she has developed curriculum and researched the use of sociocultural theory and critical pedagogy in the preparation of PreK-12 teachers of English language learners. Rémi A. van Compernolle is Associate Professor of Second Language Acquisition and French and Francophone Studies at Carnegie Mellon University. His research focuses on extending cultural-historical psychology to L2 development research, with particular focus on research methods, concept-based instruction, dynamic assessment, and classroom interaction. Nikolai Veresov is Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia. His research interests include cultural-historical theory and research methodology, child development in Early Years, and theoretical studies on perezhivanie. He is currently a co-editor-in-chief of International Research in Early Childhood Education (IRECE) Journal. Anke Werani (PD Dr.) is Senior Lecturer for Psycholinguistics in the Institute of Phonetics and Speech Processing at the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich. Her research interests include constructing cultural-historical psycholinguistics and investigating the relation between speaking and thinking, especially the role of inner speech and the interaction among processes of thinking, communication, and identity. Jie Zhang is Assistant Professor of Chinese Pedagogy and Applied Linguistics in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics at the University of Oklahoma. Her research interests include sociocultural theory, Chinese as a second language, and foreign language pedagogy. Xian Zhang is Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics at the Department of Linguistics, University of North Texas. His research interests primarily lie in second language acquisition, sociocultural theory, cognition, corpus linguistics, and language assessment. xviii Acknowledgments We would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance in organizing and formatting the chapters and auxiliary materials for the handbook provided by three doctoral graduate students in the Department of Applied Linguistics at Penn State: Seth King, Alex Magnuson, and Olesya Kisselev. Without their contributions, the task of completing this project would have been eminently more complex than it was. Special thanks goes to Seth for coordinating everything. xix 1 Introduction James P. Lantolf, Matthew E. Poehner, and Merrill Swain The publication of this handbook would have no doubt struck an observer from the early 20th century as highly improbable. That ideas formulated by a Russian psychologist in the 1920s and 30s would continue to be discussed into the 21st century and would influence so many fields, including scholarship concerned with second language (L2) development, would have almost certainly been met with incredulity. Nonetheless, the 35 chapters in this handbook are a testament to the unique vision and enduring influence of L. S. Vygotsky. Referred to in the L2 field as sociocultural theory (SCT), Vygotsky’s theory owes its name to his primary conviction that human consciousness is mediated through signs. As he explained it, the lower forms of consciousness, which humans share with other animals, in particular primates, are transformed as we engage in activities with others and come to appropriate the meanings available to us in our social and cultural (including resources that have been created and passed down in a community) environment. Our use of semiotic resources, initially through interaction with others but also subsequently internally, or through interaction with the self, is the process through which we gain control over our psychological functioning. The higher forms of consciousness, as Vygotsky (1986) described them, are the result of our internalization of sociocultural mediation. It would be redundant to delve deeply into the major constructs of SCT as Part I of the handbook includes individual papers on topics such as mediation and internalization, zone of proximal development (ZPD), and perezhivanie, among others, that were written by leading scholars of the theory who have grappled with those concepts for an extended period of time. Our Introduction instead situates Vygotsky and his theory in the historical and cultural context from which they emerged, traces the theory’s rediscovery decades later, and discusses its flourishing in the West in a number of disciplines. We give particular consideration to the theory’s adoption by L2 researchers and the strands of SCT research that have been pursued by scholars in that field. This sets the stage for the collection of papers included in this handbook, which are overviewed at the end of this Introduction. 1 James P. Lantolf et al. Background: L. S. Vygotsky and His Sociocultural Theory of Mind The unlikely story of Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Development begins with Vygotsky himself. The Russia in which Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was born in 1896 was a society on the verge of change as rapid industrialization was transforming the nation’s economy. The country would soon become embroiled in the First World War, and political movements were gaining inroads that would eventually result in revolutions, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the establishment of the Soviet state. It was an era that, as Vygotsky’s close colleague A. R. Luria (1979, p. 19) recollected, represented hope to many for a better future: The limits of our restricted, private world were broken down by the Revolution, and new vistas opened before us. We were swept up in a great historical movement. Our private interests were consumed by the wider social goals of a new, collective society . . . An entire society was liberated to turn its creative powers to constructing a new kind of life for everyone. The promise of a more egalitarian society must have been alluring to Vygotsky, given the discrimination he regularly encountered as a Jew living in the Pale of Settlement of highly anti-Semitic Tsarist Russia. Indeed, as van der Veer and Valsiner (1991, p. 6) explain, Vygotsky was almost denied entry to university when a lottery system was put into effect in order to limit the number of Jews matriculating to higher education. With his record of academic excellence rendered insufficient to secure him a seat at the University of Moscow, Vygotsky had to rely on good fortune. It is not difficult to imagine that such experiences of having one’s basic civil rights challenged would strengthen his commitment to an equitable society characterized by access to the means of personal development. This commitment would come to define his theoretical, empirical, and practical work. Two other obstacles to the formation of Vygotsky’s legacy must be mentioned: his lack of formal training as a psychologist when he first began his investigations into consciousness and the fact that as a young man he had contracted tuberculosis while caring for his dying mother. The latter meant that Vygotsky was frequently in fragile health and ultimately succumbed to his illness as he neared his 38th year of life. Despite the barriers he had to confront, Vygotsky managed to leave behind a vision of human beings and their potential that is only partly articulated, a scientific psychology that is only roughly sketched, and implications for educational practice that are tantalizing in their possibilities. The incompleteness of Vygotsky’s work, along with the far-reaching consequences of his ideas, help to explain his enduring legacy as it has been the task of others—first his colleagues and students and, later, scholars inside and outside of Russia working in a range of disciplines—to take up the challenge of elaborating the theory and its relevance for improving the human condition. It is this spirit of extending and expanding the theory, while remaining committed to its central principles, that guides the work included in this handbook. With regard to Vygotsky’s status as an outsider to psychology, this may have worked to his advantage, as he was able to arrive at a sober evaluation of the field, unhindered by allegiances to the various orientations that were in competition in the early years of the previous century. The result of his analysis, most fully explicated in The historical meaning of the crisis in psychology (Vygotsky, 1997b), provided Vygotsky an opportunity to formulate his own vision for the future of the discipline. As mentioned, Part I is devoted to in-depth discussion of the central tenets and concepts of SCT. Here we wish to note that the 2 Introduction breadth and depth of Vygotsky’s knowledge, which ranged from philosophy and literature to medicine and natural sciences, enabled him to recognize the importance of situating the study of consciousness as a specific field of inquiry in relation to science more generally. As Davydov and Radzikhovskii (1985) observed, in addition to the contributions of Vygotsky’s empirical research, he also operated as a methodologist, concerned with identifying principles and concepts that could guide investigations, analyses, and practices in every area of psychology. Unfortunately, as with many disciplines in the social sciences in particular, psychology continues to be a highly fragmented discipline with a wide array of theories, methodological orientations, and research foci. This might prompt contemporary readers to try to categorize Vygotsky as belonging primarily to a particular sub-discipline such as child psychology, educational psychology, developmental psychology, or cross-cultural psychology. His vision for a general science of psychology engages each of these areas. Moreover, his short career found him designing experiments with young children (Vygotsky, 1998), outlining how learners with various special needs could nonetheless develop their abilities by accessing mediation through alternative means (Vygotsky, 1990), and even pursuing cross-cultural research into the psychology of communities encountering schooling and literacy for the first time (Luria, 1976). Rather than limited forays into diverse areas of psychology, all of these activities, along with his clinical practice and his writings aimed at teachers, are unified by Vygotsky’s conviction that human consciousness can be properly understood through gaining access to processes of its formation over time, a key methodological notion that he adopted from Marx’s approach to the study of capitalist society. Vygotsky’s work could have easily died with him under the repressive regime of Stalin’s Soviet Union, given that research that was not perceived to support the ideology of the Communist Party was censored, and scholars who challenged Soviet orthodoxy were dismissed from academic posts, arrested, or even worse (van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991). Indeed, Vygotsky’s writings were removed from academic journals and libraries and survived through the efforts of family members and close colleagues who managed to conceal various manuscripts, reports, and lecture notes. Some of Vygotsky’s collaborators and students also managed to continue to pursue his ideas, albeit without directly referencing his name or associated concepts. Most notable in this regard are the efforts of Luria, his close colleague, who, among other things, is considered by many to be the founder of the field of neuropsychology. Luria’s clinical studies (e.g., Luria, 1973), including efforts to rehabilitate soldiers who had suffered brain damage as a result of injuries sustained during the Second World War, were directly informed by Vygotsky’s analysis of social and cultural mediation as the key to the formation and functioning of consciousness. Following Stalin’s death in 1953, there was a general easing of some of the censorship that had been in place as well as an opening up of dialogue and exchange between Soviet scholars and their counterparts in the West (Kozulin, 1998). By this time, Luria had gained international recognition and another of Vygotsky’s associates, Leontiev had risen to the Chair of the Department of Psychology at Moscow University. All of this helped to foster the discovery of Vygotsky’s work by an international, multi-disciplinary audience. Pivotal were the visits to Russia by American scholars Michael Cole and James Wertsch, who worked, respectively, with Luria and Leontiev and became acquainted with aspects of SCT and with certain of Vygotsky’s writings. An important consequence of the dialogue between the Americans and the Russians was the appearance in 1978 of Mind in Society, a select collection of Vygotsky’s writings coedited by Cole, Silvia Scribner, Ellen Souberman, and Vera John-Steiner, also considered 3 James P. Lantolf et al. among the most influential English-language interpreters of Vygotsky’s works. This volume, along with Thought and Language, the first English version of which appeared in abbreviated form in 1962, remains arguably the most well-known text associated with Vygotsky. Although the 1978 volume has been criticized due to what some consider to be the relative simplification of Vygotsky’s ideas and the lack of explicit connection between the concepts presented and Vygotsky’s broader enterprise and his philosophical and social convictions, Mind in Society nonetheless succeeded, more so than the earlier version of Thought and Language, in bringing Vygotsky to the attention of international research communities. Kozulin (1998) suggests that initial reaction to Mind in Society might be characterized as a welcome reception to what was perceived as an alternative to the near hegemony of Piaget and that simultaneously appeared somewhat familiar while also introducing a rich new vocabulary for thinking about learning and development. This familiarity may be the result of the lack of contextualization of Vygotsky’s ideas in the broader context of his theory, leaving the impression of greater affinity between his thinking and that of Piaget’s, a reading that continues to persist in some circles (see Miller, 2011). While it true that both scholars engaged in empirical research with young children and were interested in the development of consciousness and the crucial role of language in thinking, their theories are marked by fundamentally different assumptions about human psychology. Our interest here is not in exploring their respective theories in detail. However, we wish to point out that examination of the range of Vygotsky’s writings that are now available (discussed below) allows one to appreciate that unlike Piaget, Vygotsky was not concerned specifically with identifying stages of development through which children must pass on their way to adulthood. Vygotsky sought instead to apprehend the dynamic relations between biological processes and social and cultural forms of mediation that give rise to human consciousness. These issues aside, through the 1980s, references to Vygotsky became more frequent, particularly in educational research, where terms such as mediation, zone of proximal development, internalization, and private speech began to take hold alongside concepts that were not directly discussed by Vygotsky but were proposed by researchers drawing inspiration from his work. Among the notable concepts here are scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976), apprenticeship in thinking (Rogoff, 1990), and situated learning and communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). These ideas brought interpretations of Vygotsky into a wide range of areas of teaching and learning, including the second language field, as we discuss below. During this time, access to Vygotsky’s writings rapidly expanded, beginning with Kozulin’s (1986) detailed edition of Vygotsky’s masterwork, Thought and Language. This was soon followed by a number of other texts offering biographical details of Vygotsky’s life and the genesis of his ideas as well as overall explications of his thinking and how it developed over the course of his life (e.g., Kozulin, 1990; van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991). Through the 1990s and early 2000s, the body of Vygotsky’s published work in English grew rapidly with the six volumes of The Collected Works along with his doctoral dissertation, The Psychology of Art (1971), his textbook intended for teachers, Educational Psychology (1997a), and various other papers such as those assembled in The Essential Vygotsky (Rieber & Robinson, 2004). This work continues today with efforts to maintain an Internet archive of many of Vygotsky’s seminal writings (www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/index.htm) as well as through systematic investigation of Vygotsky’s personal archive. According to Zavershneva (2016, p. 94), cataloging the writings maintained by Vygotsky’s family allows for important corrections to publication dates of known manuscripts, which in turn permits a more accurate understanding of the development of his ideas; identification of instances in 4 Introduction which editing of his writings by translators and publishers might have altered his intended meaning; and the existence of “notebooks, scientific diaries, and scattered notes” that afford insights into both ideas that Vygotsky had considered but not pursued and directions that his work might have taken had he lived longer. As appreciation of Vygotsky’s overall enterprise, his philosophical influences, and connections between his theoretical and empirical research has flourished, so, too, have varied interpretations of his work. Debates continue over the emphasis that ought to be given to particular texts and ideas and to how contemporary scholars may most appropriately go beyond Vygotsky without distorting or abandoning the central premises of his thinking. Examples abound of Vygotsky’s enduring influence on research and practice across a range of disciplines including, for instance, efforts to uncover the mediating influence of societal institutions and political forces on our psychology (Ratner, 2012), articulation of how education may bring about social transformation (Stetsenko, 2016), creation of new selves during psychotherapy (Holzman, 2009), and the design of cognitive intervention programs (Kozulin, 1998). As the appearance of this handbook signals, SCT continues to be a theory that L2 scholars draw heavily upon. Brief History of SCT-L2 Research As explained, Vygotsky’s goal was to lay the foundation for a theory of human psychology as well as a general framework for how to approach the study of higher forms of human thinking and development as a scientific undertaking. Given that the theory is intended to encompass all aspects of specifically human mental functioning as mediated by culturespecific semiotic systems, including above all, language, some L2 researchers, linguists, and psychologists were early on intrigued by the possibility of exploring the implications of what the theory and its research orientation might mean for learning and teaching additional languages. SCT as a Theoretical Lens While a few early studies on L2 learning informed by Vygotskian theory were conducted outside of North America (see Carpay, 1974; Kabanova, 1985), the impetus for sustained SCT-L2 research arose from the efforts of North American researchers. John-Steiner (1985), for instance, reported on a project carried out in 1980 that examined the learning strategies and English language development of adult immigrants to the United States. Among the several foci of the study was the process of internalizing and integrating a new language into an individual’s already developed system of verbally based thinking. John-Steiner (1985, p. 352) provided evidence for Vygotsky’s proposal that mastery of more than one language not only improves one’s “conscious understanding” of how language functions, but it also enhances one’s ability to use language in more communicatively effective ways. At about the same time that John-Steiner’s study appeared in print, Frawley and Lantolf (1985) and Lantolf and Frawley (1984) drew on Vygotsky’s concepts of private speech and regulation to interpret and compare the performance of immersion learners of L2 English and classroom learners of L2 Spanish. They found that even though both groups of learners had difficulties narrating a picture story, the L2 Spanish learners showed little ability to regulate their performance of the task. The year 1994 saw the publication of two collections of papers that greatly expanded the scope of SCT-L2 research. One was the first special issue of a major applied linguistics 5 James P. Lantolf et al. journal (The Modern Language Journal 78, 4) dedicated to SCT-L2 research and the other was the edited volume by Lantolf and Appel (1994). Space does not allow for an extended discussion of each of the combined total of 15 articles and chapters included in these two venues. Suffice it to say that the publications both expanded on the earlier work on private speech (e.g., McCafferty, 1994; de Guerrero, 1994; Appel & Lantolf, 1994), and introduced new SCT concepts into L2 research, including the zone of proximal development (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994), and activity theory (Coughlan & Duff, 1994), and expanded the influence of the theory in classroom research (de Guerrero & Villamil, 1994; Donato, 1994; Donato & McCormick, 1994; Gillette, 1994; Platt & Brooks, 1994). The second collection of SCT-L2 works appeared in 2000 (Lantolf 2000). This volume is noteworthy because it not only continued to broaden the scope of SCT-informed L2 research, it also included contributions from several researchers who were in many ways beginning to explore the significance of the theory for their own research agendas. For instance, Ohta (2000) reported on a ZPD study in which classroom learners mediated each other during communicative activities. Sullivan (2000) argued for the need to rethink what it means for learners to engage in group work in language classrooms from the perspective of a Vietnamese educational culture where all students and the instructor are considered to be part of the group, unlike how Western education views groups as comprised of subsets of the entire class with the teacher usually excluded. Thorne (2000) provided a theoretical account of the implications of SCT for linguistic relativity in which he examined various positions on relativity, including what would later become an important framework for SCT-informed L2 gesture research (see Stam, this volume), thinking for speaking as developed by Slobin (1996). The late, and deeply missed, Leo van Lier (2000) brought Vygotsky into intimate, and what would become over the years, extensive and intensive contact with other influential thinkers in psychology, philosophy, and linguistics, including Peirce, Dewey, Mead, and above all, Gibson (1979). In melding the seminal thinking of these scholars, van Lier offered an ecologically inspired perspective on second language pedagogy and research that was a viable alternative to the mainstream viewpoint on the relationship between research and practice. Van Lier’s approach challenged many of the accepted constructs of SLA research, including the computational metaphor of input, which van Lier argued should be reconceptualized as affordance, an environmental feature available to active individuals that allows for, but does not cause, further action. In her contribution to the volume, Swain (2000) began the reframing of her general approach to SLA research along the lines of Vygotskian theory, in particular the mediating function of language in promoting L2 development. She eventually conceptualized this way of using language into the notion languaging (see Swain, 2006). Swain was also among the first SCT-L2 scholars to encourage and carry out research on perezhivanie, a notion Vygotsky focused on toward the end of his life and is considered a new unit of analysis bringing together thinking and feeling or emotion (see Swain, 2013; Poehner & Swain, 2017; Mok, 2015; Veresov & Mok, this volume). Most of the L2 research carried out through the lens of SCT is summarized in Lantolf and Thorne (2006). Rather than an edited collection, the Lantolf and Thorne monograph offered an in-depth explication of central themes and issues in SCT research, including the turn toward praxis. SCT-L2 Praxis Negueruela’s (2003) dissertation on systemic-theoretical instruction (STI) in the language classroom along with the article by Lantolf and Poehner (2004) and Poehner’s (2005) 6 Introduction dissertation on dynamic assessment marked the shift from exclusively using SCT as a lens to observe the impact of social relations on language development inside and outside of classrooms, to implementation of praxis-based approaches to L2 research—a shift that in our view has brought SCT-L2 studies more in line with the research method established by Vygotsky. Vygotsky (1997b) argued against a distinction between so-called basic and applied research, maintaining instead that the ultimate test of any theory must be situated in concrete practice and that the proper goal of research is to transform the world. Vygotsky’s position is rooted in his commitment to the Marxian proposal that the optimal way of understanding any given object of study is to change it in a systematic and principled way. STI in L2 research has more recently been referred to as concept-based instruction (CBI), a looser interpretation of the approach originally proposed by Piotr Gal’perin, an influential colleague of Vygotsky. CBI adheres to principles of internalization and development established by Gal’perin but does not follow the orthodox stepwise procedure normally associated with Gal’perin’s approach to education. Accordingly, CBI maintains that the optimal means of promoting development in educational practice is through the provision of high-quality explicit knowledge organized schematically in order to capture the essential features of a particular concept in any discipline, including language. This knowledge then must link to practical activity in order for it to become useful. In the case of language instruction, this entails an array of communicative activities related to speaking, reading, writing, and listening. SCT-L2 CBI has to date focused on Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese, and English and has addressed such language features as verbal aspect and tense (e.g., Negueruela, 2003; Yáñez-Prieto, 2014) mood (e.g., Negueruela, 2003), word order (e.g., Zhang & Lantolf, 2015), address forms (van Compernolle, 2014; Ohta, 2017), lexical development (e.g., Fernández Parera & Negueruela Azarola, 2016; Serrano-López & Poehner, 2008; Lantolf & Tsai, in press), and figurative language (Kim & Lantolf, 2016). It is important to emphasize that most of the CBI L2 research integrates a meaning-based approach to language, in particular, cognitive linguistics, with Vygotsky’s meaningbased theory of psychological development. Consequently, the majority of linguistic concepts presented through CBI are derived from research in cognitive linguistics. Nevertheless, some studies, especially those dealing with literacy development, have relied on another theory of language that also prioritizes meaning, systemic functional linguistics, in particular its concept of genre. Two of these studies focused respectively on writing (Ferreira, 2005) and reading (Buescher, 2015) development. Ferreira’s study (see also, Ferreira & Lantolf, 2008) used the instructional approach formulated by another follower of Vygotsky, Vasily Davydov (2004), while Buescher’s (2015) relied for the most part on Gal’perin’s approach but supplemented it with an innovative division-of-labor methodology in which individual students working in groups were responsible for different aspects of the reading process (e.g., lexico-grammar, discourse features, inference, etc.). An important aspect of CBI that we believe marks it as different from other approaches to development is that it understands and promotes development in two different, though interconnected domains—learner performance and the understanding that learners gain of a given concept, and how they use this concept in practical activity. The argument, put forth most forcefully by Negueruela Azarola, is that each domain of development pushes and pulls the other in a dialectical process. In other words, learner performances are more agentive and emotionally satisfying when they intentionally create and impart the meanings they wish to create, even if this is not accomplished in accordance with NS patterns and preferences. Learners engage with conceptual knowledge as a tool of the mind for meaning making rather than pattern following (Negueruela, 2008). This way 7 James P. Lantolf et al. of understanding development is characterized by Negueruela Azarola (2013) as mindful conceptual engagement. What this means for second language development, again following Vygotsky’s (1987) reasoning, is that cognitive processing does not depend on mechanisms inside of learners’ heads which are assumed to ensure that acquisition is the same no matter where it occurs (e.g., in everyday or classroom settings), but on the affordances encountered in different environments and on the nature of learners’ relations to these. Thus, for example, a longstanding assumption of SLA research is that learners adhere to constraints on development imposed by a natural internal syllabus that determines the order in which particular features of an L2 are processed and/or acquired. The study reported on in Zhang and Lantolf (2015), for instance, demonstrated that learners of L2 Chinese were able to process and therefore produce variations in Chinese word order not in accordance with the predicted sequence but as a result of explicit instruction organized in accordance with CBI principles. These principles are discussed in the handbook chapters that address CBI. Teacher education is an area that has also integrated CBI in order to enhance the quality of teacher understanding of instruction as well as classroom performance. Karen Johnson (see Johnson, 2009) and her colleague Paula Golombek (see, Johnson & Golombek, 2016, this volume) have been leaders in extending SCT and CBI to language teacher education in North America. Olga Esteve Ruesca and her colleagues in Barcelona are the most prominent figures in establishing CBI teacher education programs in Europe (see Esteve et al., 2017; Esteve Ruesca, this volume). The other branch of SCT-L2 research that has emerged from the praxis perspective is dynamic assessment (DA), an orientation to assessment grounded in Vygotsky’s notion of the zone of proximal development. The concept, introduced to Western researchers by A. R. Luria (1961), seeks to diagnose the full range of learner abilities, understood to include those that have already developed and those that are still in the process of developing. The former set of abilities are identified through observations of learner independent performance as occurs in conventional assessments. The latter range of abilities, however, is uncovered through active intervention during the assessment procedure, generally involving the provision of external forms of mediation (e.g., modeling, leading questions, prompts) as learners experience difficulties. In this way, assessing and teaching are recognized as a dialectic relation in DA. To paraphrase A. N. Leontiev, the goal of DA is not merely to discover what learners are already capable of but to help them achieve what is currently beyond their abilities (Lantolf & Poehner, 2004). Poehner’s (2005) dissertation was the first in-depth DA project undertaken with L2 learners. That project focused on learner control over verbal tense and aspect during oral narration tasks. Subsequent research has brought DA to bear on other areas of L2 knowledge and ability, including morphology and syntax (Lantolf & Poehner, 2011), listening comprehension (Ableeva & Lantolf, 2011), and writing (Rahimi, Kushki, & Nassaji, 2015). This work has been conducted with learners ranging from children to adults studying a variety of L2s. While much DA research has favored mediational possibilities during one-to-one dialogic interaction, some successful attempts have been undertaken to implement DA at the group and classroom level (see Lantolf & Poehner, 2011). The most large-scale DA project to date with L2 learners was carried out by Levi (2012) in the context of a standardized test of oral language proficiency as part of the national matriculation exams in Israel. An important contribution of that work is that it demonstrated the potential for DA to be implemented outside of instructional contexts, where it was frequently perceived as sharing affinities with formative assessment or approaches to assessment in support of learning. Levi’s work 8 Introduction indicated unequivocally the possibility to conduct DA for more formal assessment purposes in contexts associated with large-scale testing. L2 researchers have also turned to computerized approaches to DA (C-DA) to engage larger numbers of students in effective mediational interaction (Leontjev, 2016; Poehner & Lantolf, 2013). Here mediation itself is standardized and is available as part of a computer program; specific forms of mediation become available to learners as needed during the procedure. While C-DA offers the advantage that there are no limits on the number of individuals who can be assessed at any given time, the capacity to align mediation to the needs of individuals is sacrificed. To date, no way has been found to replicate in a computer format the possibilities to flexibly adopt mediation to learners that occurs in dialogic interaction. This limitation aside, C-DA research has provided empirical evidence of the different paths of development that individuals project and has highlighted the point, also recognized by Vygotsky, that “fair” treatment according to the ZPD necessitates different rather than the same quality or quantity of mediation (see Lantolf & Poehner, 2013). Differentiating mediation to meet the needs of individual learners is a goal taken up by Ai and Lu (this volume) in their work to leverage new intelligent computer technologies to create environments for L2 learners that can greatly expand the resources available to them as their abilities develop. In their view, the rapid changes in those technologies may open new possibilities for both CBI and DA, which as Lantolf and Poehner (2014) have proposed, together offer a coherent and powerful reformulation of L2 education. While it is difficult to predict with any degree of certainty what the direction of SCT-L2 research will be over the coming decades, it seems clear that the growing interest among scholars in the praxis orientation of the theory will continue to expand and intensify in regions of the world outside of North America and Europe. In 1993 a group of about 10 SCT-L2 researchers met for the first time at the University of Pittsburgh to share and critique their in-progress research. Since that initial one-and-a-half-day session, the ‘gathering’, as it was referred to, has grown into a robust three-day meeting held at various university venues inside and outside of the United States with presentations of work in progress by senior and junior scholars and graduate students from various parts of the world, including Asia, Canada, Latin America, and the Middle East. In 2018 the ‘gathering’ will celebrate its 25th anniversary. Several of these SCT-L2 researchers felt that the central construct of Vygotsky’s theory, language, had to a degree been marginalized by those working in the theory in general psychology and education. Consequently, we approached Equinox Press about the prospect of establishing a journal that focused on SCT and language, L2 as well as L1, and in 2014 the first issue of Language and Sociocultural Theory was published. To date, the journal has published seven issues containing articles from an international array of SCT researchers. One area that we are hopeful will attract the attention of SCT-L2 researchers is represented in the final part of the handbook—language and social change. This is a topic that was exceptionally important for Vygotsky and his colleagues working in the years following the Russian Revolution. They were intent on bringing the power of their theory to transforming the lives of what today we refer to as ‘at-risk’ individuals, including children as well as adults, in school, the work place, and everyday life. Overview of Handbook Chapters What follows is an overview of the remaining 34 chapters included in the handbook. As the reader will observe, some of the chapters report on research that continues to use the theory 9 James P. Lantolf et al. as a lens for examining how its concepts and principles can inform our understanding of various phenomena in everyday and in educational settings. Other chapters report on research where the theory is used to directly inform practice, especially, though not exclusively, in educational environments. Part I Sociocultural Theory Concepts and Principles This part includes chapters that address in detail central concepts and principles of the theory. 2. Mediation and Internalization: Conceptual Analysis and Practical Applications. Alex Kozulin considers two interrelated and fundamental features of SCT essential to Vygotsky’s account of consciousness: mediation and internalization. Kozulin explains the links between Vygotsky’s understanding of mediation in psychology and the philosophical writings of Hegel and Marx concerned with mediation that influenced Vygotsky’s thinking. He then differentiates mediation as it occurs through the use of symbolic resources, through human interaction, and during systematically designed formal education. 3. Zones of Proximal Development: Mundane and Magical. Lois Holzman engages with the concept that is perhaps most visibly associated with Vygotsky, the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Acknowledging interpretations of the ZPD that limit the concept to stages of child development or to forms of assistance, Holzman situates it in the broader context of Vygotsky’s approach to research, emphasizing it as simultaneously activity and what is created by that activity. Holzman challenges us to understand the collective character of the ZPD as well as the potential it holds for imagining and becoming. 4. Essential Aspects of Vygotsky’s Theoretical Framework and Methodological Approach Revealed in His Analysis of Unit(ie)s. Holbrook Mahn makes the case for the need to appreciate the methodological framework that Vygotsky established in opposition to the framework imported by psychology from the natural sciences. Most important in this regard were his proposals for new units of analysis comprised of dialectical unities of thinking, on the one hand, and languaging, on the other. 5. Vygotsky on the Consciousness and the Application to Second Language Development. Steven G. McCafferty pursues further the matter of unit of analysis for the examination of what for Vygotsky is the central object of study in psychology: human consciousness. McCafferty considers some of Vygotsky’s later writings as well as recently uncovered manuscripts from the Vygotsky family archive in which it is documented that Vygotsky was trying to formulate a more robust unit of analysis for researching consciousness that incorporated emotions as well as meaning. Vygotsky referred to this new unity with the Russian term perezhivanie, sometimes translated into English as ‘lived experience.’ 6. Understanding Development Through the Perezhivanie of Learning. Nikolai Veresov and Nelson Mok focus specifically on perezhivanie. They situate the concept in Vygotsky’s efforts to analyze the relations between individuals and their environments and his growing interest in the dialectic relation between cognitive and affective features of experience. As Veresov and Mok explain, Vygotsky’s position on perezhivanie challenges the tendency in Western science to separate the cognitive and the affective and opens up exciting new possibilities for L2 research and practice. 10 Introduction 7. Acquisition of Scientific Concepts as the Content of School Instruction. Yuriy Karpov addresses the systematic approach to education and educational development known as theoretical learning. This educational framework was established through decades of research carried out by Piotr Gal’perin and his most well-known student, Nina Talyzina, in which theoretical information is dialectically intertwined with concrete practical activity in the school setting. Karpov also considers differences in the way SCT-L2 educational praxis referred to as concept-based (language) instruction has implemented Gal’perin’s framework and his original proposals. Part II Second Languages, the Brain, and Thinking This part includes chapters that consider neuropsychological research on bilingualism, psychological and psycholinguistic L2 research on inner and private speech, as well as research on the dialectical unity of speech and gesture in L2 thinking for speaking that brings Vygotskian theory into contact with Slobin’s weak version of linguistic relativity. 8. Neuropsychology of Bilingualism. Mónica Rosselli and Alfredo Ardila follow in the footsteps of A. R. Luria, Vygotsky’s long-time colleague, considered by many to be the founder of modern neuropsychology. They survey research on the effects of bilingualism on cognition across the life span as well as the effects of aphasia and dementia in bilinguals. They also consider higher psychological processes involved in the formation of consciousness and in particular the involvement of both of a bilingual’s languages in regulating thinking processes through private and inner speech. 9. Inner Speech and Its Impact on Teaching and Learning. Anke Werani provides a historical sketch of research on inner speech within as well as beyond Vygotskian theory. She then considers the relationship of inner speech to teaching and learning and offers recommendations for how teachers might be able to integrate inner speech activities into their classroom practice in order to enhance student learning. Most of the research considered in the chapter has been carried out in Eastern Europe, whereas the chapter that follows, by de Guerrero, draws on private and inner speech research conducted in North America. 10. Private and Inner Speech in L2 Learning: The Impact of Vygotskyan Sociocultural Theory. María C. M. de Guerrero addresses the matter of whether or not learning an additional language as an adult has an impact on one’s private or inner speech. The research considered shows that learners appear to be able to use their L2s in a private or inner speech function to regulate their thinking processes, something that has long been the object of a good deal of speculation. De Guerrero also looks at the role of the L1 in the formation of L2 private and inner speech. 11. Gesture as a Window Onto Conceptualization in Second Language Acquisition: A Vygotskian Perspective. Gale Stam discusses the research that addresses the topic of whether or not it is possible to adopt a new perspective on how one communicates movement through space in an L2. Most of the relevant research is framed by Slobin’s thinking for speaking framework as well as by McNeill’s notion of ‘growth point,’ that is, the dialectical unity of speech and gesture (symbol and image). Research on thinking for speaking that does not incorporate co-speech gesture will have a difficult time accurately determining the extent to which learners can shift their thinking for speaking behavior from their L1 to their L2. 11 James P. Lantolf et al. Part III Concept-Based Instruction The chapters in this part focus on concept-based instruction grounded in Gal’perin’s model of theoretical learning (or developmental instruction). 12. Concept-Based Instruction: Investigating the Role of Conscious Conceptual Manipulation in L2 Development. Focusing on instruction in L2 Spanish, Próspero N. García makes connections between the transformative function of learner ability to manipulate conceptual knowledge, characterized by Negueruela as mindful conceptual engagement (see the editors’ overview of SCT-L2 above) and internalization of meaning categories to mediate communicative activity in the L2. Rather than Negueruela’s terminology, García uses the term conscious conceptual manipulation (CCM), which he believes is more descriptive of what is entailed in the way learners engage with conceptual knowledge. The author also discusses some of the historical background of CBI as it emerged from Gal’perin’s STI model as relating to L2 instruction. 13. Concept-Based Instruction of Chinese as a Second Language. Jie Zhang and Xian Zhang propose that CBI of Chinese might be a way of resolving the ongoing debate within the field of Chinese as a second language regarding the relationship between research and pedagogical practice. This is because CBI, following Vygotsky’s argument that applied research is not a separate domain from basic research, considers the language classroom as a space for simultaneously promoting language development and researching that very development. In their discussion of the issue, the authors review the CBI research on Chinese L2 teaching and learning, including the design and scope of relevant studies. 14. Concept-Based Pragmatics Instruction: Principles and Classroom Applications. Rémi A. van Compernolle extends research on CBI to the area of pragmalinguistics, bringing into focus how meanings are created in communication. Van Compernolle explains that research in socio-pragmatics documents the ways in which speakers select particular language forms from a range of possibilities in order to convey nuanced and specific meanings. He reviews how this work can inform the selection of concepts presented to learners and discusses studies of concept-based pragmalinguistic instruction in intact classrooms as well as in technology-enhanced learning environments and during study abroad. 15. Mediated Development: Promoting Learner Internalization of L2 Concepts Through Cognitive-Process Focused Activities. Paolo Infante discusses a new area relevant to CBI—mediated development (MD). MD is a framework for interaction aimed at guiding learners toward understanding of the meanings carried by symbolic tools in a concept-based instructional program and modeling for learners how those tools can be employed to regulate one’s use of language. Part IV Dynamic Assessment Each of the chapters in this section addresses some aspect of dynamic assessment (DA), which as explained has emerged as an important strand of SCT praxis. 12 Introduction 16. Probing and Provoking L2 Development: The Object of Mediation in Dynamic Assessment and Mediated Development. Matthew E. Poehner provides an overview of L2 DA theory and research specifically with regard to the commitment to avoid simply helping learners to improve their performance on a particular task and instead to engage them in cooperative interaction to reveal and promote their language abilities. The context in which L2 DA occurs—formal testing, through partnership with classroom teachers, or as part of an experimental intervention program—has implications for how development is understood and how mediation is to be approached. 17. Understanding Learner L2 Development Through Reciprocity. Rumia Ableeva considers how reciprocity can be taken account of during the mediation that occurs between mediators and learners during DA interactions. Rather than a dichotomous correct-or-incorrect labeling of learner responses to mediation, the concept of reciprocity underscores learners’ active role in shaping mediation during interactions as they request specific forms of support, negotiate mediation, refuse offers of help, and attempt to imitate the performance of more capable speakers. Ableeva also surveys research on reciprocity, highlighting the insights it can provide into learners’ emerging abilities. 18. Mediator and Learner Engagement in Co-Regulated Inter-Psychological Activity. Kristin J. Davin proposes that studies of mediation and reciprocity broaden their scope beyond discursive moves to attend to features of interaction such as body position, eye gaze, and gesture. She also argues that it is possible to obtain insights into learner understanding of mediating and reciprocal moves through prompted reflection in which teachers and learners comment on their experiences in DA. 19. Employing Dynamic Assessment to Enhance Agency Among L2 Learners. Tziona Levi and Matthew E. Poehner also incorporate the notion of prompted reflection into their chapter on DA. Drawing on the findings of a large-scale application of DA in Israeli secondary schools, the authors consider how the nature of cooperation and reflection on language that characterizes L2 DA practice may serve to promote not only language proficiency but also learner agency, discussed in terms of learner appraisal of their language needs and abilities and identification of appropriate goals and plans to move development forward. 20. Dynamic Diagnosis of Second Language Abilities. Marta Antón discusses connections between the aims of DA and L2 diagnostic assessment. Reviewing the research in this latter area, she proposes that the theoretical underpinnings of DA, and the central role it assigns to effective mediation in promoting development, uniquely position DA to contribute to the future of L2 diagnostic assessment, given its concern with feedback quality aimed at improving learner ability. 21. Dynamic Assessment of Children Learning a Second Language. Elizabeth D. Peña and Kai J. Greene report on DA research conducted with English language learners in U.S. public schools. This population of students is subject to over- and under-identification of special needs, often resulting in exposure to inappropriate instruction. The authors explain how DA can be used to distinguish learners with a language difference (vis-à-vis their monolingual English peers) from those with language-related impairments. They identify ongoing challenges and areas for future research oriented to helping English learners realize their potential. 13 James P. Lantolf et al. Part V Literacy and Content-Based Language Teaching The three chapters included in this part address some aspect of L2 literacy. Two of the papers, by Kohls and Kinnear, respectively, focus on L2 writing and the third, by Buescher, considers how L2 reading can be taught through a genre-based division-of-labor pedagogy. 22. Understanding L2 Writers “At Risk”: A Sociocultural Perspective. Robert Kohls uses SCT as a lens to better understand, and indeed to challenge, the notion of “at-risk” L2 writers. He brings together activity theory and the ZPD with social networking theory in an effort to highlight differences between novice and expert writers and to assist students in developing an enhanced awareness of the writing process and their own identities as writers. Kohls calls for future research to focus on the social support systems of L2 writers. 23. English for Specific Purposes: Engineers Learning How to Mean in English. Penny Kinnear also employs SCT, together with activity theory, as a lens to gain insights into English L2 writing for academic purposes. She argues that analyzing English for academic purposes (EAP) writing from the perspective of activity theory leads to deeper insights into the complexities involved in the writing process, which can be uncovered if writing practices are viewed as emerging from social relations instead of as discrete variables. Kinnear illustrates her orientation to EAP writing with research from a pedagogical study. 24. A Sociocultural Approach to Second Language Literacy Pedagogy. Kimberly Buescher first reviews the L2 literacy research from the perspective of SCT, which shows that the major focus has been on assessment, learner collaboration, and language during the reading process. She then presents an overview of a longitudinal study on L2 reading informed by principles of CBI and a division-of-labor pedagogy that she implemented with intermediate-level university learners of French. The study used the concepts of genre and story grammar as units of instruction Part VI Sociocultural Theory and Technology This part includes three chapters that discuss SCT pedagogical research that integrates technology as a means of mediating learner development. While the chapters could have been included in other parts, given the various SCT principles and concepts they discuss, the editors felt it would nevertheless be appropriate to group them under the heading of technology to draw attention to the fact that researchers have been interested in supporting SCT-L2 praxis through reliance on new and emerging technologies. 25. Collaborative Activity in the Digital World. Gabriela Adela Gánem-Gutiérrez discusses how popular digital environments, including 3D games and virtual worlds, and wikis, have been and can be used in the future, to promote intersubjective, goal-oriented collaborative language learning activity aimed at internalizing L2 conceptual knowledge. 26. Exploring the Interdisciplinary Synergy Between Sociocultural Theory and Intelligent Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Haiyang Ai and Xiaofei Lu discuss and 14 Introduction illustrate the potential intelligent computer-assisted language learning (ICALL) has for rapidly delivering mediation in large-scale DA assessments. They review the design and findings of a DA ICALL study in which mediation was provided to L1 English learners of L2 Chinese with regard to an especially complex construction used in Chinese word order variants: ba-construction. Specifically, the ICALL program, supplemented by a tutor, offered learners effective graduated mediation regarding their use of ba- and related features of the language, resulting in their ability to self-identify and self-correct inappropriate uses of the construction. 27. The Integration of ELF and Sociocultural Theory via Network-Based Language Teaching: Best Practices for the English Classroom. Enrico Grazzi outlines an instructional model grounded in SCT principles that also integrates a telecollaborative component in which learners of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) from different countries, and thus different cultural and linguistic backgrounds interact with each other via computers. Analyzing data from two studies, Grazzi documents how learners from the different cultures (Italian and Finnish) used ELF to negotiate understanding despite lexicogrammatical transfer from their respective L1s. Part VII Teacher Education The chapters in this part consider the relevance of SCT for L2 teacher education. While each chapter highlights different aspects of the theory, they are nevertheless interconnected through the importance they assign to mediation and the role that dialectical interaction plays among the unities implicated in teacher education and instructional activity. 28. Making L2 Teacher Education Matter Through Vygotskian-Inspired Pedagogy and Research. Karen E. Johnson and Paula R. Golombek examine the challenges and possibilities that arise in bringing principles of SCT to bear on L2 teacher education. The authors review available research on uses of SCT to support the development of teacher professional expertise before outlining considerations for ongoing work in this domain. For Johnson and Golombek, the dialectical logic that was so central to Vygotsky’s thinking opens possibilities for understanding relations between teacher development and student learning and between teacher education and teacher cognition. 29. History-in-Person: Ontogenesis and the Professional Formation of Language Teachers. Richard Donato and Kristin J. Davin explore the dialectical role of a person’s history (i.e., ontogenesis) in shaping the experiences of both practicing and novice teachers. In this regard, they argue that the instructional experiences teachers had while they themselves were students strongly influences their orientation to instruction as well as their own pedagogical practices. 30. Gesture as a Mediational Tool in the L2 Classroom. Tetyana Smotrova reviews the research on the role of the speech/gesture dialectic in language instruction. She argues that teachers need to become aware of the importance of their own and their students’ gestures not only as a component of communication but also as an important mediational tool in the pedagogically focused interaction that unfolds between teachers and students as each imitate and appropriate the gestures of the other. 31. Concept-Based Instruction in Teacher Education Programs in Spain as Illustrated by the SCOBA-Mediated Barcelona Formative Model: Helping Teachers to Become 15 James P. Lantolf et al. Transformative Practitioners. Olga Esteve Ruesca describes the highly successful Barcelona formative model (BFM) for language teacher education that relies on principles of CBI to empower language teachers in the public schools of the Barcelona region to transform their practices as well as the school curriculum that guides language instruction. This is achieved by making teachers aware of their own current practices as well as knowledge of the language they teach and offering them alternative ways of conceptualizing language along with Gal’perin’s model for delivering effective instruction. 32. Applying Sociocultural Theory to Prepare Teachers to Work With Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students and Families. Ana Christina da Silva Iddings discusses how teacher education programs aimed at helping culturally and linguistically diverse children can be improved through implementation of a funds-of-knowledge approach to education. This approach, pioneered in the work of Luis Moll, is grounded in Vygotskian principles of education and as such calls for a nexus of interaction between families, communities and schools in order to enhance children’s literacy abilities as well as to empower them as agents who can function effectively in diverse environments, including public institutions. Part VIII Sociocultural Theory and Social Change The chapters in the final part of the handbook orient the reader to the relevance of SCT for social change, something Vygotsky himself was committed to through his educational work. To date, most of the SCT-L2 research has not paid sufficient attention to the power of the theory to evoke change in the pursuit of social justice. Our hope is that SCT-L2 researchers will take inspiration from these chapters for future research. 33. Sociocultural Theory as Everyday Practice: The Challenge of PK-12 Teacher Preparation for Multilingual and Multicultural Learners. Annela Teemant brings out connections between SCT and critical theory aimed at disrupting status quo perceptions of English language learners and practices designed to meet their needs through radical transformation of schooling and conceptualizations of multilingual and multicultural individuals. For Teemant, teachers play a pivotal role as drivers of such change. She describes initiatives in teacher professional development that recognize the centrality of language but that endeavor to prepare all teachers—not just language teaching specialists—to meet the needs of English language learners. 34. Inclusion, “Defectology,” and Second Language Learners. Peter Smagorinsky approaches SCT activism from concern over the ways in which L2 learners, particularly immigrant and diaspora populations, are vulnerable to being marginalized, or worse. 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Natural or artificial: Is the route of second language development teachable? Language Learning, 65(1), 152–180. 20 Part I Sociocultural Theory Concepts and Principles 2 Mediation and Internalization Conceptual Analysis and Practical Applications Alex Kozulin Introduction The concept of mediation plays a central role in sociocultural theory (SCT). This centrality, however, does not ensure either a common interpretation or a general agreement about specific contributions of this concept to the theory. Such state of affairs is related to a certain ambiguity of the term itself (Oposredstvovanie in Russian, Vermittlung in German) as well as the fact that the concept of mediation acquired a wide range of meanings in the works of Vygotsky’s followers (e.g., Davydov, 2008 and other researchers affiliated with a sociocultural tradition (e.g., Wertsch, 1991; Miller, 2006). To start with, the term mediation can be understood in a very general sense as an involvement of a third factor (mediator) into the interaction between two objects, events, or persons. The Russian word oposredstvovanie literally translates as “[acting] as means of . . .” So a legal settlement between two parties can be reached by means of a lawyer who conducts the process of mediation. A bottle of wine can be opened by means of a tool called a cork-screw that mediates between our hands and the cork. Mediation, however, takes place not only between objects and people but also between concepts. And here the picture becomes more complicated because the issue of mediation between concepts is closely related to a so-called dialectical method in philosophy that in its Hegelian and Marxist versions had been actively discussed in Russia at the time when Vygotsky started developing his theory. In a very simplified form, the following is an example of a dialectical discussion. Let us consider the relationships between the Master and the Slave. The Slave is the Slave only because he/she was enslaved by the Master. In this sense, the Slave is defined through his/her Master. However, at the same time the Master is defined through his/her ability to enslave the other, in this sense, the Master is actually defined through the Slave. In other words, the definition of the Slave is mediated by the Master, but the definition of the Master in his/her turn is also mediated by the Slave. (For more examples, see Kojeve, 1980.) The relevant philosophical discussions for developing the concept of mediation and its relevance to psychology took place not only in the 1920s, when Vygotsky started developing his theory, but also during the 1960s and 1970s as Russian psychologists 23 Alex Kozulin (e.g., Davydov, 2008) actively collaborated with dialectical philosophers such as Ilienkov (1977). When one reads about these discussions, it is not always possible to understand whether the participants were considering mediation in a philosophical or in a psychological context. This ambiguity was reinforced by the tendency of philosophers such as Ilienkov to bring specific psychological cases (e.g., experiences of blind-and-deaf students) in defense of their philosophical claims. The lack of a clear demarcation between philosophical, ideological, and psychological discourses regarding mediation was destined to create serious conceptual problems within SCT. For example, the place of work activity as a possible mediator between human understanding of the world and the world itself was actively discussed as a philosophical and an ideological issue in Russia both in the 1920s and in the 1970s (Mikhajlov, 1980). One may ask to what extent discussions of this philosophical issue served, in some cases, as a substitute for psychological research into possible implications of work activities as mediators of human cognitive processes. As will be explained, this question preoccupied Vygotskian scholars in different countries many years after its origin in the discussions of the 1920s (see Kozulin, 1990; Miller, 2006). What Is Mediated? In what follows, the concept of mediation will be used in its psychological, rather than philosophical or ideological sense. Within the psychological domain, mediation is always a process related to the formation, development, enhancement, or deterioration of human mental functions. The following dilemma served as a starting point for Vygotsky’s (1997) discussion of mediation: To what extent can human mental functioning be explained by a direct, or unmediated, interaction with external stimuli as suggested by Russian Reflexologists and American Behaviorists, or is some additional mediating factor required? Vygotsky’s response to this dilemma was twofold: on the one hand, he proposed to distinguish between lower (“natural”) and higher (“cultural”) mental functions, and on the other, he claimed that while “natural” functions may indeed develop through maturation and direct interaction with external stimuli, higher functions are developed via cultural mediation. Taking this position as a starting point we will discuss such key questions as What is mediated? What kind of mediators do we know? How does the process of mediation take place? and What is the result of mediation? As indicated above, Vygotsky’s answer to the question “What is mediated?” was mental functions. In this respect, one should be aware that the position that mental functions are mediated is central to Vygotsky’s distinction between natural and cultural mental functions, although this contrast is not always evident in the terminology employed by researchers. The “same” mental act, for example, the perception of visual stimuli, can apparently be carried out as a natural or as a cultural mental process. Modern brain imaging research has demonstrated that the processing of even a simple visual image is carried out in different brain areas of literate and illiterate people (Dehaene et al., 2010). Thus, use of terms such as “perception,” “memory,” “attention,” etc. for mental functions that may have very different mediational histories can be quite misleading. Evolution of Mediation Vygotsky proposed to study the mediational histories of various mental functions on three different planes: evolutionary, historical, and ontogenetic (Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/1993). 24 Mediation and Internalization On the evolutionary plane, the central issue is the transition from the mental functioning in non-human primates to human mental functioning. Vygotsky (1934/2012) emphasized that while non-human primates have both communicative abilities and some intellectual problem-solving skills, these two domains remain dissociated. Communicative abilities do not mediate problem solving, while problem solving does not shape the interpersonal interaction. In a human child, an intensive interaction between these two domains leads to the situation when speech becomes intellectual while problem solving acquires the quality of verbal intelligence. This line of research has been more recently advanced by Tomasello (1999) and his colleagues (Herrmann, Hernandez-Llorida, Call, Hare, & Tomasello, 2009), who demonstrated through a number of cognitive tasks such as spatial memory, rotation of objects, and estimation of quantities that chimpanzees demonstrate performance comparable to and sometimes exceeding that of two-and-a-half-year-old children. The areas in which children had an obvious advantage were the tasks related to gestural communication, observational learning, and understanding of human intentions. From Tomasello’s point of view, the distinctive feature of human cognition is that a child perceives other human beings as intentional agents similar to him/herself. This feature is associated with the child’s participation in joint attentional situations that provide an opportunity for symbolic communication. Children learn how to reverse the roles with adults, and they “return” to the adults those forms of symbolic communication that originally were directed at them. As a result, joint interpersonal symbolic conventions are created and start impacting on children’s cognitive functions. Tomasello (1999, p. 213) concluded: Language does not create new cognitive processes out of nothing, of course, but when children interact with other persons intersubjectively and adopt their communicative conventions, this social process creates a new form of cognitive representation – one that has no counterpart in other animal species. History of Mediation The historical plane of the development of mental functions was of a particular interest for Vygotsky (1997), thus the designation of his theory as “cultural-historical.” Vygotsky’s hypothesis was that mental functions have not stayed the same throughout human history but underwent significant change as a result of developments in human activities and through the acquisition of the new symbolic tools associated with literacy, numeracy, graphic representations, etc. One may assume that the historical transformation of mental functions also paved the way for the development of more sophisticated symbolic tools, so that the relationships between symbolic tools and mental functions acquired a reciprocal character. Because direct cognitive-historical experiment is impossible (i.e., one cannot compare actual problem solving of ancient Greeks and modern Greeks), Vygotsky and Luria (1930/1993; Luria, 1976) suggested comparing the performance of people from so-called “traditional” cultures with those from modern technological cultures. Such a comparison became possible through a field study in Central Asia in the early 1930s where the Vygotsky–Luria team examined a range of mental functions of people from the same ethnic group who had various degrees of access to literacy, schooling, and modern technology. The main conclusion reached by Vygotsky and Luria was that informants who retained a traditional, non-literate culture and way of life tended to solve problems via functional reasoning reflecting their everyday practical experience and rejected the possibility of looking 25 Alex Kozulin at classification, generalization, or drawing conclusions from another, e.g., more abstractive, point of view. Exposure to modern technology increased the subjects’ readiness to solve problems both in functional and in verbal-logical ways, although it was also found that individuals rather easily reverted to purely functional reasoning. Nonetheless, informants who received some form of formal education demonstrated a clear preference for the verbal-logical form of problem solving (Luria, 1976). Thus, the mediational role of literacy and formal education became a central element of Vygotsky’s interpretation of the historical development of mental functions. The historical change in human mental functioning associated with the acquisition of different types of literacy was further explored by Olson (1994, p. xiii): Our literature, our science, our philosophy, our law, our religion, are, in an important way, literate artifacts. We see ourselves, our ideas and our world in terms of these artifacts. As a result, we live not in the world so much as in the world as it is represented to us in those artifacts. By continuing this line of reasoning, Olson demonstrated how human perception and understanding of the world is mediated by such symbolic artifacts as texts, maps, graphs, and mathematical notations. It would be a mistake, however, to think that literacy has a uniform and global impact on human mental functioning. In their Central Asia study, Vygotsky and Luria seem to put in the same basket a wide range of “modernization” factors such as an acquisition of literacy, formal classroom learning, and exposure to modern technology (Luria, 1976). As demonstrated by later research, each of these factors may have a different impact on the development of cultural mental functions and should be investigated separately. Scribner and Cole’s (1981) research in Western Africa demonstrated that literacy and schooling may have a differential cognitive impact. By conducting their research in an African society where literacy in three different languages is acquired and used in different contexts (school, home, and religious institution), Scribner and Cole were able to demonstrate that literacy does not have an overall impact on problem solving but affects specific cognitive functions corresponding to each one of the contexts. Formal education proved to have an impact on solving cognitive tasks that resemble those used in school. While Scribner and Cole focused on literacy and schooling, they did not tackle the possible mediational impact of changing work activities or technology. The latter question was addressed in a more recent study carried out by Greenfield, Maynard and Childs (2003). Examining problem solving among Mayan children in a rural Mexican community, the authors compared data collected in the 1970s, when the predominant form of economy was subsistence and agriculture, with data from the early 1990s, when wage economy and commerce became predominant. The authors were able to identify the transition from subsistence and agriculture to wage economy and commerce as the main factor leading Mayan children from more concrete to a more abstractive form of problem solving. In more complex tasks, however, access to schooling proved to have the strongest relationship with the choice of a more abstractive and less imitative strategy, with the involvement in the “new” economy coming second. The elaboration of the possible historical changes in the higher mental functions has led us to the conclusion that the picture is much more complex than initially envisaged by Vygotsky and Luria. Various aspects of modernization appear to differentially impact mental development; each of them should be studied separately and then their possible interactions should be taken into account. For instance, the contexts of acquisition and use of 26 Mediation and Internalization literacy practices are important. Different types of formal schooling should be taken into account, as well as transitions in labor activity from manual forms of work to jobs that use information technology. One of the still hotly debated issues related to the concept of mediation should be mentioned here. This is the question of a possible similarity between mediation via material tools and mediation via symbolic tools. Vygotsky (1981b, p. 140) characterized the latter phenomenon in terms of symbolic tools gaining a psychological status and serving as psychological tools: The most essential feature distinguishing the psychological tool from the technical tool is that it directs the mind and behavior whereas the technical tool, which is also inserted as an intermediate link between human activity and the external object, is directed toward one or another set of changes in the object itself. Miller (2006) claimed that many of the Vygotskian scholars in the US misinterpreted the theory of mediation exactly because they assumed that material mediation (use of the physical, or as Vygotsky said, technical tools to mediate physical activity) is similar to symbolic mediation. It seems, however, more important to recognize the rapidly changing borderline between what traditionally was considered material action and symbolic action. The laborer of the past was more often performing some manual action, e.g., attaching car parts to the frame at the assembly line. Today the action is often shifted to the symbolic field with an employee’s responsibility being the design of a user-friendly computer interface that helps another employee to control the performance of robots that assemble cars. In both cases, the end result is the production of cars, but the importance of symbolic mediation is very different (see Sternberg & Preiss, 2005). The following vignette might be helpful for understanding the complexity of symbolic mediation even when there is no “interference” of material tools. According to the initial proposal of Vygotsky and Luria, all adults exposed to formal schooling are expected to solve problems using cultural mental functions mediated by symbolic tools. In contrast, neo-Piagetians still insist that gradual maturation plays the major role in the acquisition of what Vygotsky called higher mental functions (Marti & Mayordomo, 2003). In Kozulin’s (2008) study of teachers belonging to an ultra-religious community who engaged in creating instructions for the use of a simple communication device (mobile phone), it was found that these teachers demonstrated sufficient mastery of such “genre” as lists of operations, but they performed on the level of eight-year-old secular children in what concerns the use of schematic representations. It was not an overall exposure to formal schooling that shaped their higher mental functions but much more specific symbolic tools (written lists vs. graphic schema). Some of these tools (in this case graphic representations) simply were not a part of the teachers’ own learning experiences. As a result, their mental functions related to creating representations and using them for instruction became “skewed” in favor of those dependent on lists at the expense of those shaped by graphic schemata. Ontogeny of Mediation The above vignette provides us with a useful connection between the cultural-historical and the individual-developmental perspective on mediation. If in the cultural-historical perspective mediation is primarily associated with the historical process of creation and proliferation of new symbolic tools and activities associated with them, such as literacy 27 Alex Kozulin and formal education, in the individual-developmental perspective a child is born to the pre-existing cultural world populated by symbolic tools and by adults knowledgeable of these tools. Thus the key processes in the child’s development are the acquisition of the available symbolic tools mediated to the child by adults and, as a result of this, the transformation of the child’s so-called “natural” psychological processes into “higher” or cultural mental functions. The interaction of the child with the world from the very early age is therefore not only direct but also mediated. Mediation is provided both by the adults who “interpret” the world to children and by the symbolic tools that, being internalized, become inner psychological tools to regulate the children’s mind. This is how Vygotsky (1981a) described the role of adults as mediators of the meaning of children’s own behavior, using the child’s indicatory gesture as an example. The indicatory gesture of the child initially appears as a simple and direct attempt at grasping some object. In this sense, it is not a gesture but a simple unmediated action triggered by the sight of the desired object. It is the child’s mother who interprets this movement as a gesture, as a request of the child addressed to her. In this way, gesture-in-itself becomes a gesture-for-others. By taking into account the mother’s response, the child gradually changes the structure of his/ her movement—it acquires all the typical features of the deliberate gesture. The gesture-forothers thus finally becomes a gesture-for-myself, i.e., for the child. Of course, adults not only interpret various behaviors or draw children’s attention to specific objects or their properties. According to Vygotsky, one of the main functions of adults is to introduce children to symbolic tools and in this way create a new structural center of their psychological operations: Thus in the instrumental act, a new intermediate link – the psychological tool, which becomes the structural center (i.e. the feature that functionally determines all the processes that form the instrumental act) – is inserted between the object and the psychological operation toward which it is directed. (Vygotsky, 1981b, pp. 137) One may imagine the above process in the following way. Let us assume that the child is confronted with a certain task, for example, the task that requires classification of objects or events. This task can be performed using the lower-level cognitive functions, such as direct memorization. At the same time, the task can be solved by using a symbolic artifact (e.g., a table for organizing information). We might create one condition then where the classification task is mediated by the availability of a given symbolic artifact in the child’s environment. We might further create a second condition marked by the presence of an adult who is ready to teach the child how to use the table as a tool for the organization and manipulation of data. Thus, the first stage in the mediation process is the acquisition of a symbolic artifact (e.g., the table) by a child as an external symbolic tool capable of performing certain operations (see Figure 2.1). Already at this stage, there are several possibilities that may eventually lead to the differential cognitive development of children. For example, a child might be born to a sub-culture in which such symbolic artifacts as a table are unavailable. Alternatively, even if these symbolic artifacts are available, there might be a lack of adult mentor willing to introduce the child to a table. Moreover, sheer acquaintance with tables does not guarantee children’s mastery of them as tools capable of assisting operations of comparison and classification (see Schur & Kozulin, 2008). Finally, if children have special needs associated with, for example, learning disorders, then even a well-intentioned teacher may still be unable to teach them the proper use of tables as symbolic tools. 28 Mediation and Internalization Symbolic artifact  (acquisition)  Symbolic tool (e.g., learning how to use a table as an external symbolic tool) Symbolic Tool  (internalization)  Psychological Tool (e.g., thinking about data in a “tabular” form) Figure 2.1 A cquisition of the symbolic tool and its transformation into the inner psychological tool The above processes, however, constitute only the first, that is the acquisition, stage of the mediation process. The second, the internalization stage, requires the transformation of an external symbolic tool into the inner psychological tool. It would be a mistake to imagine that a psychological tool is just a mental copy of the external symbolic tool. When properly mediated, the core features of the table, such as its columns and rows structure and the use of superordinate concepts for headings become internalized as a generalized psychological tool that can be used for the analysis, comparison, and classification of a wide variety of data. In other words, instead of just using a particular table, a child starts using “tabular” thinking when confronted with the task of data organization. Vygotsky (1994, p. 155) formulated the process of transformation of external symbolic tools into the inner psychological tools in the following way: The process of “interiorization” of cultural forms of behavior, which we have just touched upon, is related to radical changes in the activity of the most important psychological functions, to the reconstruction of psychological activity on the basis of sign operations . . . The operation per se of the use of external signs is also radically reconstructed. The inwardly instrumented process begins to make use of entirely new connections and methods unlike those that were characteristic of the outward sign operations. The process here undergoes alterations analogous to those observed in the child’s transition from “outward” speech to “inward.” Internalization of Speech Probably in their most elaborate form, the processes of transformation and internalization were described by Vygotsky (1934/2012) in application to the development of child language. Schematically, we can outline Vygotsky’s theory of the development of language in the following way. The initial form of child language is a primitive communicative speech aimed at establishing contact with adults and expressing the child’s feelings and desires. This early speech does not have much connection to the child’s thinking, but it is already symbolic because its sounds verbally encode feeling, desires, and objects of the child’s interest. Gradually this primitive communicative speech becomes connected to the child’s thinking and starts moving in two opposite directions: the direction of mature communicative speech and the direction of silent inner speech. This intermediate stage is associated with the so-called “egocentric” or “private” speech described by Piaget (1923/1959). Vygotsky (1934/2012) confirmed Piaget’s observations of private speech but provided his own explanation of this phenomenon, an explanation that has been supported by later studies (Winsler, Fernyhough, & Montero, 2009). From Vygotsky’s point of view, a child’s private speech that apparently is not addressed to anyone actually contains the seeds of the future silent inner speech directed by the child at 29 Alex Kozulin him or herself. Private speech thus provides us with a clear example of the transformation of an external symbolic action (primitive communicative speech) into a psychological tool of inner speech. In our conception, egocentric speech is a phenomenon of the transition from interpsychic to intrapsychic functioning, i.e. from the social, collective activity of the child to his more individualized activity – a pattern of development common to all the higher psychological functions. Speech for oneself originates through differentiation from the speech for others. (Vygotsky, 1934/2012, p. 241) The process of transformation and internalization is marked by significant changes in the structure and function of speech. Speech directed at oneself is much more abbreviated than communicative speech, it allows for agglutination (merger) of words, and it ultimately leads to the so-called “influx of sense” of the entire sentences into one word. This one word becomes a concentrated symbol for an entire train of verbal thought: “To unfold it into overt speech, one would need a multitude of words” (Vygotsky 1934/2012, p. 262). Vocal speech is thus one of the symbolic artifacts acquired by children with the help of adults. This artifact then becomes an external symbolic mediator—a tool of interpersonal communication. After that comes the phase of internalization—what initially appeared as an external communicative tool is transformed into the inner psychological tool of verbal thought (Adelson-Day & Fernyhough, 2015). As with other symbolic tools, each stage in this process may have its problems and complications leading to differential child development. To start with, children develop in dramatically different oral language environments. Some children are exposed to and acquire a limited range of communicative speech forms, while others grow in a much richer verbal milieu. Speech forms to which children are exposed constitute only those symbolic artifacts that have yet to be shaped into symbolic communicative tools by the child for his own use. A long line of research demonstrated that there is a considerable difference between high- and low-socioeconomic-status parents in the type of verbal communicative patterns that they develop in their children (Ginsborg, 2006; Hirsh-Passek et al., 2015). In other words, the quality of the language environment and the quality of mediation provided by parents play an important role in turning children’s speech into a tool of their oral communication. Then this external tool should undergo transformation and internalization to become an inner tool of verbal thought. Though there is currently no consensus among researchers regarding the “normative” passage from private to inner speech, it appears that children with learning disorders may have a delayed process of internalization (Winsler, 2009) Private speech for a longer time remains their semi-external tool of self-regulation and problem solving. One should take into account, however, that even when the process of internalization is accomplished, under certain conditions, for example when faced with particularly difficult tasks, both children and adults revert to private speech utterances. Though the majority of private speech studies focused on its contribution to the development of children’s self-regulation, some of them explored a possible contribution of private speech to L2 learning. A well-known phenomenon of the “silent period” in children who find themselves in the new language environment appears to include a sub-vocal practice of the new language by children who to the outside observer remain silent. Adults who learn a new language often engage in a deliberate inner dialogue during which they practice 30 Mediation and Internalization newly acquired language forms. In more formal language learning environments, such as university courses, students often switch to private speech in their L1 when confronted with particularly challenging tasks (see Berk 2001, Chapter 3; de Guerrero, 2005). Transformation of Verbal Thought As with other symbolic artifacts, children do not discover words but receive them from adults in a “ready-made” form. In this context, Vygotsky (1934/2012) wrote about the important phenomenon of the apparent coincidence between words used by children and adults, the coincidence that often masked a profound difference in the underlying meaning of the words. For example, in a concrete situation of observing the playful behavior of dolphins at “Sea World,” both children and adults may refer to the same creature called dolphin. Thus the referent of the word dolphin is the same. The meaning of “dolphin,” however, might be quite different for children and adults because adults think of a dolphin as a member of the family of aquatic mammals, while for children it is a “big fish” somewhat similar to smaller fishes they saw in their aquarium. Children may then ask their parents if they can train their aquarium fishes to perform the same tricks as dolphins do. The above “coincidence” of words used by children and adults has two important consequences. On the one hand, this coincidence allows children to gradually develop an understanding of the concepts used by adults because in many concrete situations the functional use of the words is the same. Functionally and contextually, children use words appropriately much earlier than they understand their full meaning. On the other hand, the above coincidence may result in the illusion of the similarity between a conceptual understanding of the same phenomena by children and adults, an illusion often shattered only much later when in the course of formal education children start demonstrating what are called misconceptions (Vosniadou, 2008). We will return to this issue when discussing the educational applications of Vygotskian theory and the distinction made in this theory between everyday and academic concepts. The above “coincidence” is relevant not only for children who learn their mother tongue (L1) but also for any situation when a novice is entering a new cultural and linguistic environment. The adaptation of the novices to the new system is hardly independent; because their needs are mainly functional and communicative, novices use the pre-existent system of terms and expressions, often remaining unaware of the underlying conceptual structures. Just imagine a family of new immigrants to the US who came to the bank with a purpose of obtaining what they heard is called “mortgage.” For some of them, e.g., immigrants from the pre-perestroika Russia, not only did the word “mortgage” not exist in their native language but also the referent itself was nonexistent. Conversation between the bank representative and the immigrant family is possible because of the partial functional overlap between the meanings used by both sides; at the same time, this overlap does not guarantee that the newcomers actually grasp the complete meaning of the concept of mortgage and the practical consequences of taking one. One may say that, though the process of language acquisition in L1 and L2 are very different, in what concerns the acquisition of conceptual meaning, there is a certain similarity between the development of children’s L1 and the acquisition of meanings by immigrant adults in their L2. In both cases, the acquisition of language is supported by the partial overlap between the meanings held by novices and veterans, but the underlying system of verbal concepts remain different for a long time. This is one of the reasons why so-called “authentic” L2 instruction that embeds lexicon and grammar into pragmatic situations is preferable to approaches relying on simple 31 Alex Kozulin word lists that learners are expected to memorize. Far from being the end point of an L2 learner’s appropriation of a word’s meaning, learning a word’s “dictionary meaning” is just a starting point, in the same way as the initial overlap between “the same” concepts used by children and adults. Authentic L2 acquisition in everyday situations, should, however, be distinguished from conceptual L2 teaching that deliberately constructs “authentic” situations and texts as a part of formal L2 teaching. While L2 word meanings gradually acquired in everyday situations are similar to what Vygotsky defined as “everyday concepts,” the word meanings learned in specially constructed “authentic” situations correspond to “academic concepts” (Vygotsky, 1934/2012). We will return to this issue later while discussing mediation via specially constructed formal learning activities. The functional “understanding” accompanied by the gap between underlying systems of meanings is also relevant for the analysis of dialogues conducted between different social and cultural groups. As in the earlier examples, the very possibility of a dialogue hinges on the use of shared referents and on the functional overlap of the terms used by both parties. At the same time, the appearance of mutual understanding might be illusory because the underlying systems of meanings remain very different. The most obvious illustration of this point is the intercultural dialogue (during conferences, political meetings, or casual encounters) that is conducted almost exclusively in European languages, increasingly in English. Non-European participants in particular may use “the same” expressions as their European counterparts, but the underlying system of meanings may remain very much culturally specific. One of the graphic examples of such a situation is the use of English expressions “peace agreement” or “peace process” in international negotiations. Both sides of a conflict may use the same English expression, but one may legitimately suspect that the underlying conceptual systems of the negotiating parties are quite different. The underlying concepts may range from “temporary suspension of overt military actions” to “creating conditions for mutual recognition, commerce, and exchange of people and ideas.” The same issue of functional “coincidence” of meanings should be considered when we discuss dialogues between genders, generations, and socioeconomic groups (for more about inter- and intra-gender dialogue, see Coates, 2016). Mediation via Classroom Activities So far, we have mentioned two main forms of mediation—mediation via symbolic tools and human mediation. In Vygotskian theory, however, there is the third form of mediation, which subsumes the former two but cannot be reduced to them—mediation via specially designed learning activities (see Kozulin, 1995). This third type of mediation is theoretically based on Vygotsky’s assumption that for each period of child development in a given culture there is one so-called leading activity. The latter claim does not mean that children are engaged in only one type of activity but rather that there is one activity that “leads the way” during the given period and is responsible for the development of critically important mental functions. This model is explicitly culturally specific—leading activities in pre-literate, traditional cultures are assumed to be different from the leading activities in technological cultures with compulsory public education. The primary school period is perceived by Vygotskians as particularly appropriate for positioning formal learning as the leading activity of children’s development. When Vygotskians write about learning as a leading activity, they do not mean a generic type of learning that appears as a subordinate element in such human activities as play, practical activity, or interpersonal interaction. What they have in mind is a specially designed activity 32 Mediation and Internalization of formal learning that aims at turning a child into a self-regulated learner (Karpov, 2005; Zuckerman, 2014). The key element in this process is the development of children’s reflection or metacognition. Zuckerman (2004) identified three main aspects of reflection: 1) Ability to consider the goals, methods, and means of one’s own and other people’s actions and ideas; 2) Ability to understand other people’s points of view and to approach things from a perspective other than one’s own; 3) Ability to understand and examine oneself, identifying one’s own strong points and limitations. Each one of the above aspects of reflection can be developed using a corresponding set of educational activities. The development of the ability to consider goals, methods, and means of action is supported by the use of symbolic tools (signs, symbols, models, and other schematic representations) that help to transform external actions into internal mental schema. The process of learning how to use schematic representations starts already during the kindergarten period, but only in primary school is it fully realized. That is why some elements of algebra, for example, are taught in Vygotskian schools much earlier than in other educational systems—children in these schools are already fully familiar with the advantage of using various symbolic representations for forming inner mental schema of the problem (Schmittau, 2005). The development of the ability to see things from the point of view of others is supported by peer tutoring, collaborative learning, and teaching younger pupils. In all these activities, the emphasis is on the need to look at the object, process, or problem from the perspective of a different person. Teaching younger students, for example, helps older children to articulate some assumptions that for them are “obvious” but exactly for this reason poorly articulated. Collaborative learning creates conditions for comparing different problemsolving strategies and developing argumentation skills. Zuckerman (2004) emphasized that while actions with objects (words, shapes, numbers, signs, etc.) are explicitly taught to primary school children, the ability to view the problem from the perspective of others is created indirectly by shaping classroom situations requiring collaboration, understanding of an alternative point of view, and its critique. The ability to examine one’s own performance is developed by activities that include choosing criteria of evaluation, building evaluation scales, and considering the “weight” and importance of each performed task. These activities help to demystify the issue of evaluation. Evaluation ceases to be seen as a subjective act of the teacher’s or other students’ judgment and becomes a process based on clearly identifiable principles and parameters. Children learn how to build different scales and other evaluating devices and use them for self-evaluation. The vague feeling of “I am good at” and “I am poor with” is replaced by much more articulate evaluation of specific skills and performances. This aspect of a Vygotskian educational approach has a certain affinity with students’ self-evaluation as described in the assessment-for-learning model (Black & Wiliam, 2009). Lessons in the Vygotskian classroom always aim at identifying some general principles and the limits of their applicability. Already in the first grade, 6–7-year-old children who study Russian are encouraged to formulate some general principles rather than just memorize the correct spelling. The teacher provides them with several words and asks them to identify a spelling problem common to all the words. (Russian spelling is more complicated than, for example, German or Spanish.) Children then formulate the general rule applicable to all the words and present this rule as a graphic model. The next stage of the lesson is the application of the formulated model to additional words. Using information from all these stages, children are expected to convince their peers that the model they have developed is correct. The main change between the first and fourth grade can be observed in children’s 33 Alex Kozulin attitude toward the proposals of their peers. In the first grade, children are still “centered” on their own opinion. If the proposal of other children is different, it automatically is regarded as a wrong one. By the fourth grade, children are ready to accept the initial proposal of other children and analyze it in terms of the available data. So, when they reject the proposal made by their peers, they do this by comparing the initial hypothesis with additional language data that was not taken into consideration by their peers. The learning activity approach helps children to develop so-called “scientific” or “academic” concepts that Vygotskians rather sharply distinguish from “everyday” concepts that are formed by children through their everyday experiences. Academic concepts presuppose conscious awareness of their origin, organization, and limits of applicability. A given academic concept always belongs to a certain system of concepts; it cannot just reflect one item of information or experience unrelated to others. In this context, Vygotsky (1934/2012, p. 206) contrasted children’s spontaneous acquisition of their native language with their formal study of a foreign language. In one’s native language, the primitive aspects of speech are acquired before the more complex ones . . . With a foreign language the higher forms develop before spontaneous, fluent speech . . . The child’s strong points in a foreign language are his weak points in his native language and vice versa. In his own language, the child conjugates and declines correctly, but without realizing it. He cannot tell the gender, the case, or the tense of the word he is using. In a foreign language, he distinguishes between masculine and feminine genders and is conscious of grammatical forms from the beginning. As an illustration of such a conceptual approach to teaching L2, one may consider a study by Poehner and Infante (2015) on acquisition of tense and aspect in English by a Farsi-speaking university student. Following other studies of conceptual approaches to L2 teaching (see, for example, chapters by Garcia, Zhang, and van Compernolle, this volume), the authors deliberately introduced the notion of tense and aspect as an “academic” concept in the same way as a new mathematical or biological concept might be introduced. They also used graphic organizers as a symbolic tool that facilitated the student’s attribution of events in exemplar sentences and in sentences created by the learner herself to different “time zones” and helped to identify their temporal relationships and boundaries. The L2 learning process described by Poehner and Infante indeed resembles children’s learning of academic concepts. As children’s spontaneous conceptualization of natural phenomena often clash with academic concepts in the science classroom, spontaneous knowledge of language arrived at through L1 acquisition often clashes with the requirements of studying an L2. For example, for native Hebrew speakers, there is no intuitive way to understand “present perfect” or “past progressive” in English because Hebrew has only three simple tenses: past, present, and future. What is needed is a conceptual introduction of the notions of tense and aspect as they exist in English. An important difference, however, seems to exist between conceptual teaching of an L2 as a spoken language and teaching academic concepts in curricular subjects. In curricular subjects, similar to writing in L2, the fluency and automaticity requirement is not very strong. What is important is to use a proper concept or language form, the processing speed being secondary. In the situation of oral communication, however, fluency and automaticity become crucial. Many L2 learners are quite aware of the proper L2 form but are unable to retrieve it in “real time” (see Kormos, 2011). The process of L2 internalization thus acquires an important additional dimension—not only the proper L2 forms and their use for 34 Mediation and Internalization conveying meanings should be internalized but their retrieval and conversational use should become automatic. Finally, following Vygotsky (1934/2012, p. 207), formal study of a foreign language also offers another benefit as it enhances children’s understanding of L1: A foreign language facilitates mastering the higher forms of the native language. The child learns to see his language as one particular system among many, to view its phenomena under more general categories, and this leads to awareness of his linguistic operations. Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) Unlike Vygotskians who make a sharp distinction between formal learning activities and spontaneous learning, Feuerstein placed greater emphasis on the quality of human mediation irrespective of the type of learning activity (Feuerstein & Rand, 1974; Feuerstein, Rand, Hoffman, & Miller, 1980, Chapter 2). For him, the major difference was between situations in which an adult serves as an active mediator standing “in between” the world and the child, and situations of direct, unmediated learning. To operationalize the quality of human mediation, Feuerstein offered a set of criteria, the most important of which are intentionality and reciprocity of interaction, its transcendent nature (leading beyond the here-and-now situation) and the mediation of meaning. If even one of these criteria is missing, the situation does not qualify as MLE. MLE is perceived as a pre-condition for the enhanced cognitive modifiability of the child and as a result becomes a basis for the child’s future self-regulated learning. The concept of internalization is interpreted in this model as a gradual transition from mediation provided by adult mentors to self-mediation by children themselves. Though Feuerstein’s MLE model did not contain any explicit references to symbolic tools, his applied cognitive education program called “Instrumental Enrichment” (Feuerstein, Rand, Hoffman, & Miller, 1980) contained one of the richest collections of symbolic tools (signs, tables, graphs, etc.). One may thus find a certain contradiction between Feuerstein’s claim regarding the universality of MLE, on the one hand, and a strong emphasis in his applied system on symbolic artifacts typical of formal school learning, on the other. Feuerstein and his colleagues argued that If it is agreed that neither specific content nor the modality of expression is crucial to the mediating process, then it becomes possible to conceive of MLE as a universal phenomenon. Irrespective of culture, levels of technological development, differences in semantic encoding, and variations in levels of skills, a capacity to become modified and to adapt to new situations is common to all individuals exposed to some kind of MLE. (Feuerstein, Rand, Hoffman, & Miller, 1980, p. 24) On the other hand, some of the “Instrumental Enrichment” tasks are similar to the following one (Figure 2.2). The task aims at developing such cognitive skills as identification of the problem in the absence of elaborate instruction, analysis of the items, use of the table as a symbolic tool, comparison between sub-tasks (in sub-task A there is one possible answer—color, while in sub-tasks B and C there are several possible answers), etc. One may argue that both the mediation of this task and the resultant cognitive change will be very different from the mediation of everyday tasks without any representational 35 Alex Kozulin Item Parameter of change New item Adjective “white house” A B C Figure 2.2 Task: Fill in what is missing modality and without any symbolic tool apart from communicative speech. In other words, though MLE most probably exists in every culture, one cannot claim that the type and quality of mediation do not depend on the available representational and symbolic tools. In his own research on the use of “Instrumental Enrichment” programs with immigrant and minority students, Feuerstein claimed that the enhancement of the students’ cognitive functioning was due to mediation of tasks rich with such symbolic tools as graphic representations, charts, diagrams, etc. (Rand, Tannenbaum, & Feuerstein, 1979). One cannot but agree with Feuerstein, however, that the exposure to a symbolic artifact in itself does not guarantee the enhancement of cognitive skills. This has been dramatically revealed in the implementation of the “Instrumental Enrichment” program in Puerto Rico (Alvarez, Santos, & Lebron, 1994). The authors not only tested the change in cognitive performance of students in the experimental (“Instrumental Enrichment”) classes in comparison to the control (regular curriculum) classes but also evaluated the quality of mediation provided by “Instrumental Enrichment” teachers. It turned out that there was practically no difference between the change in cognitive performance in control classes and those experimental classes in which mediation was judged to be “non-sufficient.” On the other hand, the difference between experimental classes with “sufficient” mediation and control classes was rather dramatic. Thus it appears that Feuerstein pointed to an important additional aspect in the process of acquisition and internalization of symbolic tools. It is essential not only for the tools to be available, but an adult mentor must also be ready and willing to teach them to the child, and the teaching process itself must have a sufficient MLE quality. One of the possible, though still insufficiently researched applications of “Instrumental Enrichment” is its use as an instrument of academic language instruction for immigrant students. It was demonstrated, for example, that new immigrant children from Ethiopia in Israel rather quickly acquired conversational Hebrew, but experienced serious difficulties with more academic language (see Kozulin, 1998, Chapter 5). Primary school immigrant students showed no difficulty telling (in Hebrew) which one of the two objects is “bigger” and which is “smaller.” However, when asked, “These two objects are different in their . . .?”, they struggled using the right term “size.” The same difficulty was observed with other superordinate concepts, such as “shape,” “material,” “function,” etc. One of the possible reasons for such a difficulty is related to the fact that in the children’s native language, Amharic, the use of superordinate concepts is less prominent than in Hebrew or English. For example, in Amharic, there are three different words to express the notion of “depth” in “deep valley,” “deep lake,” and “deep voice,” while in Hebrew the same word will be used in all 36 Mediation and Internalization three phrases. “Instrumental Enrichment” tasks include many terms and expressions widely used in practically all school subjects. Moreover, these words and expressions appear in the context of problem-solving tasks that also contain many non-verbal elements (see Figure 2.2 above). So, instead of just memorizing words of the new language, students learn them in the context of an authentic problem-solving activity. Another applied program based on Feuerstein’s concept of MLE is a dynamic assessment program called the Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD) (Feuerstein, Rand, & Hoffman, 1979). The topic of dynamic assessment and its use with L2 learners is explored in other chapters in this volume (see for instance chapters by Ableeva, Davin, and Poehner). For the present discussion, it is the role of mediation in dynamic assessment (DA) that is important. In this regard, a review of DA approaches reveals that, while some form of learning activity is always included as an integral element of DA procedures, only LPAD and Tzuriel’s (2001) Cognitive Modifiability Battery for young children require the presence of MLE criteria elaborated by Feuerstein. In other words, a generic dynamic assessment procedure may begin with a standard pre-test, followed by some intervention aimed at student learning or a set of tasks solved jointly by the student and assessor, and conclude with standard post-test. LPAD, in contrast, requires the assessor to use MLE throughout his or her interaction with the student. This requirement has rendered LPAD a highly individualized and flexible assessment procedure. This same requirement has simultaneously exposed LPAD to criticisms of subjectivity and lack of standardization (see Kozulin, 2014). DA proponents are aware of such criticisms and have offered various responses. For example, the issue of human mediation in L2 assessment has been explored by Poehner (2011), who suggested considering two types of validity associated with mediated interactions: micro validity and macro validity. Micro validity examines particular actions made by a mediator during L2 assessment and/or instruction and their contribution to the quality of mediation available to learners. One may assume that micro validity defined in this way reflects the criteria of MLE elaborated by Feuerstein and Rand (1974) and identifies their presence in specific teacher–learner interactions. Macro validity, on the other hand, poses the question of the overall effectiveness of mediation in revealing and guiding learner development. The problem of how to evaluate the overall effectiveness of mediation has been haunting dynamic assessment researchers for a long time. Budoff (1987), who introduced the concepts of “gainers” and “non-gainers” to account for responsiveness of students to dynamic learning interactions, pointed to the difficulties in defining the effectiveness of dynamic assessment. On the one hand, learning material itself, either verbal or non-verbal, might be of a different modality and complexity. For example, a gain in understanding simpler L2 speech forms is not equal to progress with more complex L2 reading tasks. On the other hand, there is an overall sensitivity and responsiveness of a student to mediation during the entire assessment. The high level of sensitivity at the beginning of assessment might be reduced at the later stages. The question is how to estimate an overall responsiveness. Finally, there is a contribution of a mediator that includes not only the quality of mediation, but also the amount and intensity of mediation. In other words, the “same” L2 development observed in a student might be a result of a rather complex combination of the above factors. Conclusion and Future Directions It is time now to conclude our conceptual analysis and to point out some possible future directions in which Vygotskian concepts of mediation and internalization may develop, particularly in the field of language learning. 37 Alex Kozulin The central claim of Vygotskian theory is that higher mental functions cannot be adequately developed only by maturation and direct interaction of a person with the environment, and so some form of external, intentional mediation is necessary. The above analysis demonstrated that there are several candidates for the role of mediators and that various researchers assign different “weight” to different mediators. One may consider mediation via material tools, symbolic tools, human mediators, and via specially constructed activities, formal educational activities being the most prominent of them. The process of mediation of symbolic tools includes two major phases—acquisition of the symbolic artifact available in a given cultural environment and its mastery as an external symbolic tool. The process of mediation is followed by that of internalization. The external symbolic tool is transformed into the inner psychological tool, which in its turn is instrumental in the formation of higher mental functions. The process of human mediation, at least according to the Feuerstein model, leads to a gradual internalization of the mediation provided by the adult mentor into internal self-mediation of learners themselves. Mediation of formal learning activities includes a number of factors, some of them dependent on symbolic tools and human mediation, but some are “built into” the activities themselves. The internalization of formal learning activities leads to the development of students’ metacognition and supports the formation of academic concepts. Almost every aspect of the different types of mediation and internalization requires further research. In what concerns symbolic tools and learning activities, the issue that requires further elaboration is the relative contribution of different types of literacy and schooling for the development of students’ cognitive functions. Recently, for example, it became popular to claim that bilingualism is beneficial to the enhancement of cognitive executive functions (Kroll, Bobb, & Hoshino, 2014). It would be important to have more elaborate research distinguishing the possible cognitive impact of different literacy levels in both languages and comparing cognitive performance of more-educated fluent bilinguals with the performance of less-educated fluent bilinguals. In what concerns human mediation, Feuerstein’s claim regarding its universality and its relative independence of the type of culture and available symbolic tools requires additional investigation. The first steps in this direction have been taken by Tzuriel (1997) who showed that some parameters of MLE are more prominent in the interactions of Israeli mothers and their young children while other MLE parameters are more prominent in the interaction of immigrant mothers. It would be important to conduct a systematic longitudinal study of the quality of mediation in the communities of varying levels of literacy and formal education and then track the impact of this early mediation on children’s learning performance in both formal and informal contexts. Finally, the concept of mediation through specially constructed learning activities (Zuckerman, 2014) should be contrasted, in a more systematic way, with activities of everyday learning especially in what concerns the acquisition of an L2. As we saw above, the advocates of mediation via formal learning activities insist that academic concepts can be acquired only in this way. Though a considerable amount of research in the field of the Russian language, mathematics, and science have been amassed by Russian Vygotskians, their findings should be replicated in other educational systems. The L2 is particularly challenging because it contains both the elements of what Vygotsky called “everyday” concepts and “academic concepts” and because it entails not only conceptual knowledge but also the use of that knowledge during communicative use of the L2, which requires a degree of automaticity (especially when speaking). While some research on conceptual approaches to L2 teaching has already been conducted, it has so far focused mainly on foreign language study 38 Mediation and Internalization at the university level. Future research in this area might undertake to implement a comprehensive conceptual L2 curriculum across primary and secondary levels of schooling, with an aim toward studying interaction between learners’ intuitive L2 concepts and “academic concepts” as they reach higher levels of proficiency. As one can see, the psychological concepts of mediation and internalization that originated more than 80 years ago continue to provide a fertile theoretical basis for current and future research. References Adelson-Day, B., & Fernyhough, C. (2015). Inner speech: Development, cognitive functions, phenomenology, and neurobiology. Psychological Bulletin, 141(5), 931–965. Alvarez, V., Santos, J., & Lebron, F. 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Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 39 Alex Kozulin Kormos, J. (2011). Speech production and second language acquisition. New York: Routledge. Kozulin, A. (1990). Vygotsky’s psychology: A biography of ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kozulin, A. (1995). The learning process: Vygotsky’s theory in the mirror of its interpretations. School Psychology International, 16, 117–129. Kozulin, A. (1998). Psychological tools: A sociocultural approach to education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kozulin, A. (2008). Sociocultural paradigm. In J. Clegg (Ed.), The observation of human systems (pp. 9–28). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Kozulin, A. (2014). Dynamic assessment in search of its identity. In A. Yasnitsky, R. van der Veer, & M. Ferrari (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of cultural-historical psychology (pp. 126–145). New York: Cambridge University Press. Kroll, J., Bobb, S., & Hoshino, N. (2014). 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Valsiner (Eds.), The Vygotsky Reader (pp. 99–174). London: Blackwell. 40 Mediation and Internalization Vygotsky, L. (1997). The problem of the development of higher mental functions. In R. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 4: The history of the development of higher mental functions (pp. 1–26). New York: Plenum. Vygotsky, L., & Luria, A. (1930/1993). Studies on the history of behavior. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Wertsch J. (1991). Voices of the mind: A Sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Winsler, A. (2009). Still talking to ourselves after all these years: A review of current research on private speech. In A. Winsler, C. Fernyhough , & I. Montero (Eds.), Private speech, executive functioning, and the development of verbal self-regulation (pp. 3–41). New York: Cambridge University Press. Winsler, A., Fernyhough, C., and Montero, I. (Eds.). (2009). Private speech, executive functioning, and the development of verbal self-regulation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Zuckerman, G. (2004). Development of reflection through learning activity. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 19, 9–18. Zuckerman, G. (2014). Developmental education. In A. Yasnitsky, R. van der Veer, & M. Ferrari (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of cultural-historical psychology (pp. 177–202). New York: Cambridge University Press. Further Reading Kozulin, A., Gindis, B., Ageyev, V., & Miller, S. (Eds.). (2003). Vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context. New York: Cambridge University Press. This book provides a systematic analysis of different aspects of Vygotsky’s theory and its application in various educational contexts. Poehner, M. (2008). Dynamic assessment: A Vygotskian approach to understanding and promoting L2 development. New York: Springer. The book connects Vygotsky’s theory of language and thought to the task of dynamic assessment of second language learning. Vygotsky, L. (1934/2012). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. A classical work of Vygotsky in which he formulated his theory of the relationships between thought, language, and speech. 41 3 Zones of Proximal Development Mundane and Magical Lois Holzman Introduction If the concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) is familiar to you, chances are you associate it with scaffolding or other ways of supporting someone learning something through the assistance of another person who has expertise in that something. You are likely to understand successful educational practices to be ones in which a more capable “other” guides someone less capable through a learning process in which the interaction between the more and less capable is of utmost importance. And that such interaction is premised on knowing the difference (the ZPD) between what the less capable can do “alone” and with help. This is, more or less, the way the ZPD is described in textbooks and the vast majority of research studies. My goal in this chapter is to show you a more radical, complex, and broadly practical ZPD than that one. “My ZPD” stems from two sources. First, from a refusal to pigeonhole its discoverer, Lev Vygotsky, as a learning theorist or cognitive psychologist and, likewise, to not reduce his discovery to an instrumental tool applicable to the school-like acquisition of knowledge and skills. Second, “my ZPD” stems from what is now forty years of practical, on-the-ground educational, therapeutic, and cultural community-building work I have been involved in—always in conjunction with reading and re-reading the volumes of Vygotsky’s writing that are translated into English. This way of working is not putting Vygotsky’s theory into practice. It is, instead, an attempt to actualize his call for a non-linear, nontemporal relationship between theory and practice, which he expressed in a new conception of method. Vygotsky called it a “search for method,” and this is what I have tried, with my colleagues, to creatively imitate all these years. The search for method becomes one of the most important problems of the entire enterprise of understanding the uniquely human forms of psychological activity. In this case, the method is simultaneously prerequisite and product, the tool and the result of the study. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 65) 42 Zones of Proximal Development Vygotsky is here asserting the uniqueness of human psychological activity, and recognizes that we will not be able to understand such activity without a new method designed specifically for that task. This is a radical departure from the scientific paradigm in which human beings and non-humans are investigated in the same manner—namely, with method being a tool that is used to yield results. For Vygotsky, understanding human life requires that we create a method different in kind from the existing instrumental one. Most important, the activity of doing so (“the search for method”) will generate both tool and result at the same time and as continuous process. This unity—method as tool and result—is something to be practiced, not applied. To capture the dialectical relationship of this new conception, Fred Newman and I called this tool-and-result methodology, in contrast to the instrumental tool-for-result methodology of psychology, other social science, and educational research (Newman & Holzman, 2013/1993). My understanding of the ZPD has emerged, in tooland-result fashion, as part of my ongoing search for method. It’s a ZPD, Not a ZPL The ZPD has been framed by educationalists and psychologists as a phenomenon to explain and ultimately support learning. In my view, if Vygotsky had meant the ZPD to be a feature solely of learning, he would have called it a ZPL (zone of proximal learning). But he didn’t. He coined the phrase zone of proximal development. And he did so because what interested him was development, specifically, the process of children’s psychological development. Learning as a thing in itself was not of interest, but learning in its relationship to development fascinated him. Vygotsky explored possible relationships between learning/instruction (in Russian there is one word for both—obuchenie) and development. He rejected the view that was prevalent in his day and remains so today—that learning follows and is dependent upon development— and was critical of teaching that was based in this belief: “Instruction would be completely unnecessary if it merely utilized what had already matured in the developmental process, if it were not itself a source of development” (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 212). Learning/instruction is a source of development, he proposed, because it “leads” development: “The only instruction which is useful in childhood is that which moves ahead of development, that which leads it” (p. 211), “pushing it further and eliciting new formations” (p. 198). As I understand it, what Vygotsky is proposing here is a new kind of relationship between development and learning/ instruction. This new relationship is one in which development and learning are not temporally related, but are in a dialectical relationship of unity or totality, with learning “leading.” Activating or bringing into existence this unity (learning-leading-development) is a qualitative transformation of the whole child (Newman and Holzman, 2013/1993; Holzman, 1997). Here is where the ZPD comes in or, more precisely, the ZPD as I have come to understand it. Vygotsky used the phrase in different ways at different times in his writings and lectures and, as Glick (2004) has noted, different translations of his work complicate the matter even further. By far the most common understanding of the ZPD is that it is a characteristic or property of an individual child. This understanding is on display in Vygotsky’s discussion of the ZPD in the context of general abilities testing among children entering school and has stimulated considerable research in the domain of “dynamic assessment” (see chapters by Kozulin, Poehner, and others, this volume). Depictions of the ZPD as a property of individuals can be found in passages from Vygotsky’s writing such as the following: 43 Lois Holzman The psychologist must not limit his analysis to functions that have matured. He must consider those that are in the process of maturing. If he is to fully evaluate the state of the child’s development, the psychologist must consider not only the actual level of development but the zone of proximal development. (Vygotsky, 1987, pp. 208–9) However, at other times, Vygotsky wrote of the ZPD as one of the ways that learningleading-development is a social, not an individual, phenomenon. ZPDs are created through joint, cooperative activity in children’s daily life, as we read in the following passage: What we call the Zone of Proximal Development . . . is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving, and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86) Most empirical research that studies joint activity in the ZPD looks neither at peers nor at collaboration, but rather at a child’s interaction with a single, more capable individual who is most often an adult, someone who is termed “expert” in contrast to the “novice” child. This dyadic (as opposed to group, whether ensemble or collectivist) interpretation of the ZPD is also the common one given to Vygotsky’s oft-quoted statement of the social nature of development: Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first on the social level and later, on the individual level; first between people (interpsychological), and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to all voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher mental functions originate as actual relations between people. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 57) There is nothing here that should limit “between people” to a child and one other person. Moreover, other passages in Vygotsky’s writings directly emphasize that the socialness of learning-leading-development is collective, and that what is key to the ZPD is that people are doing something together. For example, “Learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is interacting with people in his environment and in cooperation with his peers” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 90). Vygotsky also emphasized the collective activity of the ZPD in his writings on children with “special needs” such as those with retardation, deafness, or blindness (Vygotsky, 1993; 2004). He believed that such children were held back primarily due to the secondary stigma they were heir to, that of being related to as limited, less than, and deficient. They should not be written off, remediated, or segregated and placed in schools with only children like themselves because none of these practices allow for learning-leading-development. Development (qualitative transformation) is a collective accomplishment—a “collective form of ‘working together’” he called it in an essay entitled, “The Collective as a Factor in the Development of the Abnormal Child” (Vygotsky, 2004, p. 202). In this same essay he characterized the social, or interpsychological, level of development as “a function of collective behavior, as a form of cooperation or cooperative activity” (p. 202). 44 Zones of Proximal Development I read Vygotsky here as saying that the ZPD is actively and socially created, rather than it being an entity existing in psychological-cultural-social space and time. For me, the ZPD is more usefully understood as a process rather than as a spatio-temporal entity, and as an activity rather than a zone, space, or distance. In my own work, which I discuss later, I approach the ZPD as an activity. ZPD activity is at once the socio-cultural activity of people together creating the “zone” (the learning-leading-development environment) as well as what is created (learning-leading-development). The method, in this case, is simultaneously tool and result. How Are ZPDs Created? What kind of socio-cultural activity produces learning-leading-development? How do social units (collectives, ensembles, groups, dyads, triads, etc.) create ZPDs? How do babbling babies and their families together create developing “languagers” (speakers, listeners, writers, readers, etc.)? How do human beings become who we are not (qualitatively transform) in all the ways that we do? Non-Knowing Growing Here is where the magic and the mundane enter center stage—together. Families of very young children create ZPDs without knowing that they are creating them. They create ZPDs without knowing how to create them. Indeed, when we are very little, we do not even know that knowing is something to do, let alone aspire to. And yet, we do become knowers. Every day, children become epistemologists without employing epistemology. Vygotsky himself recognized this mundane and magical characteristic of human life. He identified “the child’s potential to move from what he is able to do to what he is not” as the central characteristic and creative activity of learning-leading-development (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 212). The question of how children, as well as adults, can move from what they are able to do to what they are not raises, for me, the broader question, how can we become what we’re not? It challenged me to think long and hard about what I learned as a developmental psychologist and psycholinguist. It encouraged me to study philosophy, especially philosophy of science and language and the philosophical writings of Marx (Marx, 1967; 1974; Marx & Engels, 1974). It helped me to make a shift from the prevailing everyday, scientific, and educational ways of thinking and seeing people and environments. This entailed a shift from understanding the world as products to processes; from linearity and chronology to dialectics; from parts to wholes. It was also a shift from understanding people as isolated, self-contained individuals to people as socio-cultural actors and creators of our lives, and a shift from understanding development and learning as characteristics and behaviors of individuals to transformative activities of social ensembles. These shifts have led me to the understanding that we are able to become who we are not because we always are who we are not. People are not merely who they are at a particular moment (developmental level, age, identity, etc.). People are simultaneously and dialectically who they are (which includes who they were before this moment) and who they are becoming or can become. This challenges Western logic (which underlies social science and educational practice) in which something is either A or not A—it cannot be both. Most social institutions (including schools, science, the media, and politics) work overtime to socialize people to the “truth” that “everything is what it is and not another 45 Lois Holzman thing” (a statement supposedly made 300 years ago by the British theologian and philosopher Bishop Butler and oft repeated). And yet everyone who spends time with infants, babies, or toddlers defies the A not A, either-or rule. As soon as infants are born, they enter a physical-social-cultural world in which, barring extreme devastation or deprivation, the people in their lives immediately begin relating to them as simultaneously who they are and who they are not/who they are becoming, i.e., as helpless infants and as members of and participants in the family, community, culture, and the world. Caregivers and relatives carry on conversations with infants, babies, and toddlers before the little ones know how to talk, they play games with them before they know what a game is or its rules, they listen intently to the sounds they make and respond to them. I suspect that if asked to stop and think about what they are doing, nearly all parents and others would say that they know that linguistic understanding is not taking place and offer reasons that they do it anyway. What is magical is that they do it: in their everyday lives, they suspend the everyday life rule of either-or and relate dialectically to little children. What is magically mundane and mundanely magical is that this is precisely how linguistic understanding becomes possible. Learning/instruction leads development because and as people are related to as simultaneously who they are and not who they are. It is a beautiful thing. Playing and Performing Neither Vygotsky’s ZPD nor mine is complete yet. One element of the dialectical equation is missing—play. For just as learning/instruction is a source of (i.e., leads) development in the ZPD, so too is play: Though the play-development relationship can be compared to the instructiondevelopment relationship, play provides a much wider background for changes in needs and consciousness. Action in the imaginative sphere, in an imaginary situation, the creation of voluntary intentions, and the formation of real-life plans and volitional motives—all appear in play and make it the highest level of preschool development. (Vygotsky, 1978, pp. 102–3) For Vygotsky, play creates an imaginary situation, and even the most imaginative, fantastical play contains rules. What makes play developmental is the interplay of imagination and rules. Imagination frees us; rules constrain us. Creating an imaginary situation frees the players from situational constraints and, at the same time, imposes constraints (rules) of its own. Vygotsky noted that in free or pretend play, the rules are of a special kind. They do not exist prior to playing, but come into existence at the same time and through the creation of the imaginary situation. In Vygotsky’s words, they are “not rules that are formulated in advance and that change during the course of the game but ones that stem from an imaginary situation” (1978, p. 95). That is, they are rules created in the activity of playing. For example, when a young child takes a pencil and makes horse-like movements with it, s/he is simultaneously creating this imaginary situation and the “rules” of the play (keep jumping, make whinnying sounds, don’t write on the paper). When children are playing Mommy and baby, the new meaning that the imaginary situation creates also creates the “rules” of the play (for example, the ways that Mommy and baby relate to each other “in character”). In these examples, everything—the children who are playing, the pencil, horse, Mommy, and baby—are what/who they are and, at the same time, other than what/who they are. 46 Zones of Proximal Development Here is how Vygotsky captured the dialectical “otherness” and “becomingness” of the ZPD created in children’s play: “In play a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself” (1978, p. 102). The “head taller” metaphor brings us back to the question I raised earlier, “How can we become who we are not?” and my proposal that the answer lies in the human capacity to do things without knowing either how or that we are doing them. Vygotsky was well aware that the opposite of the “know, then do” adage is key to development in early childhood. His identification of free play as playing without pre-existing rules just discussed is a description of doing without knowing how. Additionally, he noted that young children actively participate in their development without knowing that they are doing it. As he put it: before a child has acquired grammatical and written language, he knows how to do things but does not know that he knows. . . . In play a child spontaneously makes use of his ability to separate meaning from an object without knowing that he is doing it, just as he does not know he is speaking in prose but talks without paying attention to the words. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 99) The similarity Vygotsky is pointing to here between speaking in prose and play is important because it suggests continuity between learning/instruction and play. It is the case that Vygotsky regarded play as the leading activity of development during early childhood, eventually being replaced by other leading activities, namely, learning/instruction during schooling and labor during adulthood. Of course, this in itself does not imply that play ceases to be a driver of development beyond childhood. Moreover, Vygotsky’s concentration on learning/instruction in formal educational settings may have led him to overlook the striking similarities between play and non-school learning and, in particular, the continuity of ZPDs of both learning/instruction and play. Indeed, those of us who have pursued this similarity in studying early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, and adulthood have come to appreciate that all learning-leadingdevelopment is play in the Vygotskian sense of playing without pre-existing rules. Following this direction, I suggest that we can substitute the word performance for play and not lose any of the magic or mundaneness of ZPDs. We might even gain some, for performance evokes the magic of the theater—its deliberate invitation to imagine and be captivated by people on stage being other than who they are, to play along with the players. Just as children go “beyond” their normal behavior as if “a head taller” in play, so too, do performers on stage. Performance in early childhood, as discussed above, is not in the performers’ awareness. Adults and little children together create the “stage” and perform on it without any awareness that they are performing. Nevertheless, the countless “conversations” like this one: “Mama, baba, babababa”; “Yes, sweetie, that’s a little baby doll,” both create and are the scenes in an ongoing performance of “The Life of the Developing Baby.” In contrast, performers on the theatrical stage are aware that they are performing and so is the audience. This kind of deliberate performance highlights, experientially, the being-becoming dialectical “space” in which we live and in which development is always potential. This is the case both for scripted and improvisational theater. While there are differences, to be sure, between these two forms of theater, the being-becoming dialectic is at play in both. Studying performances in early childhood and on theatrical stages, with an effort to understand what the casts of characters are doing as they build different stages and scenes, illuminates how the capacity to create new performances of ourselves as individuals and groupings (classroom, family, work team, community, etc.) is essential to learning and 47 Lois Holzman development at any age. Put another way, if you look at ZPDs through the lens of performance, you might see stages and scenes of a play rather than scaffolds and ladders. As Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage . . .” The language of theatrical performance (stages, scenes, characters, etc.) has helped me greatly in my work to understand the magic of people creating ZPDs and support people to create them everywhere. I think it has highlighted what had been hidden from view. Speaking in philosophical terms, theatrical performance and its language allowed me to see performance not merely socio-culturally, but ontologically, as a characteristic and activity that human beings engage in in the most mundane of situations. Imitation and Completion Learning, development and play were not the only socio-cultural activities Vygotsky explored in his search for method to understand human life. He also delved deeply into the relationship between thinking and speaking, and the role that imitation plays in child development. Vygotsky examined the activity of children’s imitation and reviewed the ways it was understood because, as he put it, “A full understanding of the concept of the zone of proximal development must result in a reevaluation of the role of imitation in learning” (1978, p. 87). As he had done with existing understandings of learning and development, he found fault with the mechanistic view of imitation that he observed was “rooted in traditional psychology, as well as in everyday consciousness,” and in which “the child can imitate anything” and that “what I can do by imitating says nothing about my own mind” (1987, p. 209). Children are not like parrots. They do not imitate anything and everything. They imitate only those things in their environment and relationships that are just beyond them, developmentally speaking. Children creatively imitate others in their daily interactions—saying what someone else says, moving to music, picking up a book and “reading,” “talking” on a smart phone, and so on. In other words, ZPD activity consists of imitation, a key element in “The Performance of Being a Head Taller.” Or, in Vygotsky’s words, “Development based on collaboration and imitation is the source of all specifically human characteristics of consciousness that develop in a child” (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 210). It is how children are capable of doing so much in collective activity. The partner to imitation in this ongoing developmental performance is completion. This is the Vygotskian term for the relationship between thinking and speaking, a topic that permeated his lecturing and writing. What is that relationship? Conventional wisdom today is pretty much the same as it was back in Vygotsky’s day—words express our thoughts and feelings. This expressionist or pictorial view of language has been discredited by philosophers of language throughout the 20th century and by social constructionists and other postmodernists into this century. Yet it prevails. Vygotsky rejected this view in favor of a dialectical one. Speaking, he believed, is not the outward expression of thinking. It is, rather, part of a unified, transformative process that entails thinking-speaking. He stated this most clearly in the following two passages from Thinking and Speech: The relationship of thought to word is not a thing but a process, a movement from thought to word and from word to thought . . . Thought is not expressed but completed in the word. We can, therefore, speak of the establishment (i.e., the unity of being and nonbeing) of thought in the word. Any thought strives to unify, to establish a relationship between one thing and another. Any thought has movement. It unfolds. (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 250) 48 Zones of Proximal Development The structure of speech is not simply the mirror image of the structure of thought. It cannot, therefore, be placed on thought like clothes off a rack. Speech does not merely serve as the expression of developed thought. Thought is restructured as it is transformed into speech. It is not expressed but completed in the word. (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 251) There are, then, not two psychological behaviors—the private one of thinking and the social one of speaking. There is, according to Vygotsky, just one human socio-cultural activity: speaking-thinking, a dialectical unity in which speaking completes thinking. Understanding how completion is part of creating ZPDs requires expanding Vygotsky’s speaking-thinking unity beyond the individual. This is what Newman and I have done in our efforts to understand the Vygotskian influences on our work (Holzman, 2016/2009; Newman and Holzman, 2006/1996; 2013/1993). We reasoned as follows. If speaking is the completing of thinking, if the process is continuously creative in socio-cultural space, then the “completer” does not have to be the one who is doing the thinking. Others can complete for us. In fact, I have come to believe that they must. How would children be able to engage in language play, create conversation, perform as speakers before they know language if thinking-speaking were not a continuously socially completive activity in which others were completing for them? The interplay of imitation and completion can be seen in the conversations that very young children and their speaking caregivers create. Here are two typical examples: 1. Child: Adult: Child: Adult: Child: Bowwow. Do you see a bowwow? Is that a little doggy? Ba. Ba. Oh, I see! Bowwow’s playing with a ball. Bowwow baba. 2. Child: Adult: Child: Adult: Child: Coo-coo! Want a cookie? Mama. Yes, Mommy’s giving you a cookie. Mama cookie. Creative imitation and completion create the ensemble performance of conversation. The baby’s babbling (rudimentary speech) is a creative imitation of the adult’s speech. The adult completes the baby in Vygotsky’s dialectical transformative sense. And so it goes, throughout the days of baby and toddlerhood, when the people in our lives are most supportive of us doing what we are not yet able to do, and most embracing of us as the simultaneity of who we are and who we are not. Out of this socio-cultural activity, a new speaker emerges. The examples of child–adult talk just given are typically taken to be instances of linguistic or verbal behavior. This characterization, to me, misses the magic and mundane of what the ensemble is doing and how their activity (their performance, their language play) creates a new speaker. They are creating meaning in their joint activity, and this does not require knowing the meaning of the linguistic tools they are using to create, or how to use them. The meaning emerges in their activity as tool-and-result, that is, something new is created out of the instrumental (societal, tool-for-result) linguistic tools. As Newman and I noted, 49 Lois Holzman While we cannot know what the child means when she/he imitates what is proximal to her/his development, we do know that the child almost certainly cannot mean what the adults means—e.g., what it means to mean is not the same for a novice and an expert. It follows, then, that what we know—and this is most important—is that the child means, because for the child meaning is not yet separated from the total activity meaningmaking, as it becomes for the more fully alienated (societally adapted) adult. (Newman and Holzman, 2013/1993, p. 70) Newman and I were struck by the implications we saw in Vygotsky’s characterization of imitation and completion as ZPD activity as we understood them. To us, it meant that meaning-making was not merely a component of language development or the outcome of using language. It led us to see that the process of language development (becoming a languager) is not one of learning the language to make meaning. Quite the opposite. Vygotsky led us to believe that meaning-making “leads” language-making (dialectically, just as learning leads development). Engaging in language play with others, being related to as a speaker and language-maker before one is, being supported to perform as a conversationalist—all this (and, of course, the actions and relational subjectivity occurring simultaneously) is the joint activity, or ensemble performance, of the ZPD. Furthermore, such meaning-making performances are necessary to becoming a rule-governed, societal language user and language-maker (Newman & Holzman, 2013/1993, pp. 112–118). This counter-intuitive characterization of language development has implications for second language (L2) teaching-learning-development, to be discussed. Creating Stages/Performing ZPDs Everywhere If all that has happened so far through these written pages is that I have reminded you that being human is social and cultural (with no denial of the biological; our biology “lives” in culture and society), I will be (semi-)satisfied. I think we need all the reminders we can get of our social, cultural, and historical complexity and capability, given that the sources providing us with how to see and understand ourselves are, seemingly obsessively, promoting the brain as the source of and solution to everything. In such an environment, it becomes more difficult to see, appreciate, and exercise our collective power to continuously create ZPDs. The extent to which I have helped you to see ZPDs as performance stages created by groupings of people who develop along with their stage-making, rather than as a means of assistance to move a child along to the next stage of development, is the extent to which I will be fully satisfied. There is a move to performance occurring (Carlson, 2004; Friedman & Holzman, 2014; Gergen & Gergen, 2012; Schechner, 2014). It is global and multi-disciplinary. The move is being made by many, many people: those who see what people of all ages can do when they consciously perform and come to see themselves as performers; those who have come to understand development socially and dialectically and as occurring when people are related to as who they are-who they are not/who they are becoming; those who link play with theatrical performance to better understand what learning-leading-development is and how to reinitiate it; those who have been searching for ways to transform their classrooms and workplaces into communities of practice; those who have come to performance from seeing human development and community development as inexorably linked; and many more. They are performance educators, activists, and researchers who work in schools, non-profits and NGOs, universities, outside-of-school programs, hospitals and mental 50 Zones of Proximal Development health centers, prisons, consulting firms and human resource departments, refugee centers, women’s shelters, and think tanks. Many are involved in international networks and associations such as AIN (Applied Improv Network), IDEA (International Drama/Theatre in Education Association), PTW (Performing the World), and/or national and regional networks. Some of them have been directly influenced by Vygotsky and, in particular, the play and performance-based dialectical understanding of the ZPD put forth here and practiced in the many projects I have been involved in. (For history and discussion of these projects, see Holzman, 2016/2006). Others have not. I have chosen among the hundreds of them that I know to introduce you to several who work in educational settings. As schools have evolved in the 21st century, being a good student and doing well does not require that students and teachers create, to use Vygotsky’s phrase, “a collective form of working together.” Despite this, and the fact that the explicit and implicit rules of education actually discourage ZPD-creating activity, many teachers and teacher educators are determined to involve students in some form of co-creation of their learning environment. They do so with the convictions that learning is a socially creative activity and that this kind of active involvement is an effective way for people to develop as learners, and with the recognition that teachers will be more effective and students more involved and do better on school learning tasks. The ongoing work of Brazilians Fernanda Liberali and Cecelia Marghales is a case in point (https://digitmed.wordpress.com/universities/pucsp/fernanda-liberali/). Since 2004, these socio-cultural researchers have led LACE (Linguagem em Atividades no Contexto Escolar), a project of the Applied Linguistics Department of Pontificia Universidade Católica-São Paulo. With the overall aim of improving teaching and learning in Brazil’s public and private schools, LACE created an unusual research group, one that includes all the stakeholders—administrators, teachers, and primary, middle, and high school students, in addition to university faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students. While there are approximately 30 core members, any specific event or meeting may include as many as 100 people across the spectrum of socio-economic status, age, gender, and educational level. In 2016, a partnership with a school for the deaf added middle and high school students and their teacher/interpreters to the research group sessions. Creating such a large and diverse ZPD is an important factor of LACE as an innovative experiment in developing “a collective form of working together.” The group has been influenced by Bahktin, Friere, Vygotsky, and the play and performance-based dialectical understanding of the ZPD put forth here. LACE creates environments where people play with each other and perform in new roles, creating new kinds of relationships. They have found that, with such a diverse group of people, performance and play activities, including improv exercises, break through differences of societal status and “level the playing field.” The researchers begin each session by setting the stage for a performance scene that participants are immediately incorporated into when they enter the session space. For example, during LACE’s study of the concept of building friendships, one session began as a 1960s dance party. Each session ends with small groups working on developing a curriculum project to use back in their work settings and performing the project for the whole group. Everyone, young and old and formally educated and not, participates in discussions of complex theoretical and philosophical concepts, methodology, educational practices, and politics. Jaime Martinez of New York Institute of Technology has brought a Vygotskian ZPDcreating approach together with service learning to fully integrate science, technology, 51 Lois Holzman engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) in public schools. His initial project was to bring engineering undergraduates to elementary school classrooms. They would be the “more capable others” who created ZPDs for learning engineering, math, and science with students, not by teaching them but rather by creating stages to perform together as engineers. Martinez compares what he refers to as his “tool-and-result approach” to other ways educators are working with the challenges of STEM and STEAM (Martinez, in press). Earlier (Martinez, 2011) described his performance-based pedagogy as one way to meet the challenge of integrating technology into the teaching and learning environments of inner-city elementary and middle schools and undergraduate classrooms. Mike Askew is another educator convinced that play and performance are key to developing a socially engaged community of learners. He is former director of BEAM (Be A Mathematician), the mathematics education publisher promoting mathematics teaching and learning as challenging and enjoyable. In addition, he provides practical guidance in making math fun in his many books and workshops for teacher and parents. Askew’s work as math educator and researcher at Monash University challenges the individualist understanding of teaching, learning, and subject-matter knowledge from a tool-and-result perspective: Tool-and-result presents a double challenge to the research on teacher subject knowledge: firstly that the research itself constructs objects of knowledge, and, secondly, that knowledge in classrooms emerges within ongoing discourse. Vygotsky’s theory dissolves the notion that teachers “carry” a store of mathematical knowledge that they “apply” in classrooms, and which mediates between the established cannon of mathematical knowledge and the emergent mathematics of the classroom. (Askew, 2008, p. 30) Askew’s work shifts attention away from concern with the amount and quality of math teachers’ knowledge and toward how they do mathematics, and from relating to teachers and their students as acquirers of mathematical knowledge to relating to them as members and creators of a community of mathematicians. In no way does this diminish the necessity that teachers themselves have mathematical knowledge; rather, it shifts their attention from knowledge as a product to the process of creating environments for the learning/teaching of mathematics through the development of a community of mathematicians. Turning to L2 learning and teaching, the move to performance is evident. Drama-based foreign language learning, both in regular language classrooms and specially designed target-language theater workshop courses, is growing as an educational practice and subject for research inquiry (see, for example, Belliveau & Kim, 2013; Brunetto, 2015; Lutzker, 2007; Ryan & Marini-Maio, 2011; Tschurtschenthaler, 2013; Vetere, to appear). So, too, is the use of improv, which in addition to being incorporated into drama and theater curricula and methods, is the topic of conversation on blogs, guides, and manuals available on line, and the practice of increasing numbers of independently organized workshops led by applied improvisers. (See http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2012/07/23/the-best-resourceson-using-improvisation-in-the-esleflell-classroom/.) Brunetto’s Performing the Art of Language Learning (2015) is of particular interest to me. A narrative text on target-language theater-making, the book weaves the literature on performance, L2 learning, and SCT in and out of students’ reflections on their experience as performers, meaning-makers, and language-makers and users. While Brunetto does not speak of ZPDs, with my Vygotskian lens I see them throughout the book. 52 Zones of Proximal Development Russell Cross is a researcher whose work in L2 pedagogy and teacher education is inspired by the play and performance-based dialectical understanding of the ZPD put forth here. In Cross (2012) he analyzed data from a content and language integrated learning (CLIL) program for Year 10 Japanese and geography in an Australian school. He attributes the success of the program to the fact that the integration of language and content “affords a space for creative pedagogical engagement in terms of learners making their own creative choices on what language to use, and how it could be used, to facilitate the learning of both language and content” (pp. 431–432). The students were supported to work together and did what they did not yet know how to do; despite not knowing Japanese or geography, they performed, together and with their teachers, beyond their current level, or “a head taller.” Similar to Askew’s concern with knowledge of mathematics as a thing in itself, Cross is wary of knowledge divorced from collective creative activity: “The ultimate goal of language learning—communicative competence . . . develops not from being ‘taught’ a knowledge of language (i.e., meaning), but from being engaged in creating understanding from the word and its ‘sense’” (p. 435). What occurred in the classroom, according to Cross, was that teachers and students created new conceptual understandings about content in geography and the language through which those understandings are being made, simultaneously. Harking back to my earlier discussion of early childhood language development as the tool-and-result activity of taking the societal tools of language and refashioning them to make meaning that wasn’t there before, Cross here speaks of the activity in this classroom as the refashioning of the societal tools to create something that did not exist before. A Playful Conclusion My story of a more radical, complex, and broadly practical ZPD—an activity rather than a zone, what people create together rather than a characteristic of individuals, a way to understand learning and development rather than learning, a wondrous example of human mundane creativity and the magic of non-knowing growing—has been a difficult one to tell. This is because it is a story in which continuous process is the main character, performing on a world stage of products. In such a world, simultaneity is hard to see and experience, and dialectics is nearly impossible to grok. I have used invented terms, such as tool-and-result, learning-leading-development, being who we are-not who we are, and speaking-completingthinking, as shorthands for the simultaneity and dialectical unity of process and product. But the use of language to reflect reality fails in this case, as it always does. I have chosen to end, therefore, not with sharing a quote from the “real” Vygotsky, as I have done often throughout this discussion. Instead, I quote an actor performing Vygotsky. The scene is from a play written by Newman in which several pairs of brilliant thinkers meet “in history” on the eve of World War 1 (Newman, 1997). In the scene (Newman, 1997, p. 648), Piaget and Vygotsky are talking together to discover what each other means by “zones” and “stages.” They have just finished tap dancing together. Vygotsky says: “What have we just done? Let us study the relationship between what we have just done and the characterization of what we have just done.” Piaget responds: “My understanding is that tapping begins in the feet. The feet move first and the rest of the body follows.” To which Vygotsky replies: “Aha! To me nothing moves first. Everything moves at once; the body—not just the feet—taps. Our obsession with stages—with what comes first—distorts history where there is no beginning and no end.” 53 Lois Holzman References Askew, M. (2008). Mathematical discipline knowledge requirements for prospective primary teachers, and the structure and teaching approaches of programs designed to develop that knowledge. In P. Sullivan & T. Wood (Eds.), The international handbook of mathematics teacher education. 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Fromm (Ed.), Marx’s concept of man (pp. 90–196). New York: Frederick Ungar. Marx, K. (1974). Theses on Feuerbach. In K. Marx & F. Engels (Eds.), The German ideology (pp. 121–123). New York: International Publishers. Marx, K. & Engels, F. (1974). The German ideology. New York: International Publishers. Newman, F. (1997). Life upon the wicked stage. In D. Friedman (Ed.), “Still on the Corner” and other postmodern political plays by Fred Newman (pp. 632–649). New York: Castillo. Newman, F., & Holzman, L. (2006/1996). Unscientific psychology: A cultural-performatory approach to understanding human life. iUniverse. (Originally published 1996, Westport, CT: Praeger) Newman, F., & Holzman, L. (2013). Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary scientist (Classic Edition). New York: Psychology Press. (Originally published 1993, London: Routledge). Ryan, C., & Marini-Maio, N. (2011). Dramatic interactions: Teaching languages, literature, and culture through theater. Theoretical approaches and classroom practices. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars. Schechner, T. (2014). Can we be the (new) third world? In A. Citron, S. Aronson-Lehavi & D. Zerbib (Eds.), Performance studies in motion: International perspectives and practices in the twenty-first century (pp. 42–57). London & New York: Bloomsbury. Tschurtschenthaler, H. (2013). Drama-based foreign language learning: Encounters between self and other. Münster, Germany: Waxmann Verlag. Vetere, T. (to appear). A play-based approach to L2 learning and teacher education (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 54 Zones of Proximal Development Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of general psychology (R. Rieber & A. Carton, Eds.). New York: Plenum. Vygotsky, L. S. (1993). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, Volume 2: The fundamentals of defectology (R. Rieber & A. Carton, Eds.). New York: Plenum. Vygotsky, L. S. (2004). The collective as a factor in the development of the abnormal child. In R. W. Rieber and D. K. Robinson (Eds.), The essential Vygotsky (pp. 201–219). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Further Reading Connery, M. C., John-Steiner, V., & Marjanovic-Shane, A. (eds.) (2010). Vygotsky and creativity: A cultural-historical approach to play, meaning making, and the arts. New York: Peter Lang. Psychologists, artists, and educators present research and practice in a variety of learning environments through the lens of Vygotsky’s cultural historical theory, illustrating children’s and adults’ symbolic engagement in play, multi-modal meaning-making, and the arts. Holzman, L. (2016). Vygotsky at work and play (2nd ed.). London and New York: Routledge. An accessible, practical-philosophical portrayal of a unique performance-based methodology of development and learning that draws upon a fresh reading of Vygotsky. Newman, F., & Holzman, L. (1993). Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary Scientist (classic ed.). London and New York: Psychology Press The authors present their interpretation of Vygotsky’s life and work as a scientific and political revolutionary whose discoveries have become the basis for new understandings and practices of what it means to be human, to learn and develop, and to be revolutionary. 55 4 Essential Aspects of Vygotsky’s Theoretical Framework and Methodological Approach Revealed in His Analysis of Unit(ie)s Holbrook Mahn Introduction Many contributors to this handbook acknowledge Vygotsky’s central role in shaping the theory upon which their research and practice are based, drawing on his concepts of social interaction; the role of language and culture in conceptual development; semiotic mediation; language as a psychological tool; the zone of proximal development; dynamic assessment, and others. However, as is often the case with complex, difficult-to-access theories, accounts of how these concepts fit into Vygotsky’s theoretical framework vary widely. In this chapter, I develop the argument that an appreciation of essential aspects of these concepts is difficult without understanding how these concepts fit into his overall theoretical framework and into the methodological approach he used to develop that framework. Getting a clear picture of his theoretical framework and methodological approach is challenging, because he is investigating a complex phenomenon—the development of human consciousness and the role played by linguistic, natural, cultural, and, social forces in shaping that consciousness. Additionally, Vygotsky’s reliance on Marx and Engels’ (1976) complex, methodological approach to develop his own theoretical framework, creates another challenge in accessing that framework. Inaccurate translations of his work, deletion of crucial passages, the impact of the social/political environment in which he worked, and the banning of his work for two decades—1936–1956—by the ruling bureaucracy in the Soviet Union have all added to this challenge. Drawing heavily on Vygotsky’s writings, and particularly those that examine the unification of thinking processes and language processes and the entity rechevóye mishleniye that results from that unification, I trace the development of his psychological materialist theoretical framework. I start by describing Vygotsky’s use of Marx and Engels’ methodological approach to develop his investigation into the origins and development of human consciousness. From his first major speech in 1924 to the last page of his major work Thinking and Speech, Vygotsky made it clear that the central goal of his research was an investigation of human 56 Analysis of Unit(ie)s consciousness. His most extensive discussion of the approach to achieve this goal occurs in The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology (1997a), a discussion that has been enriched through writings recently brought to light from Vygotsky’s archives (Zavershneva & Osipov, 2012). Vygotsky argued that psychology needed to develop its own methodological approach to study the development of the human mind/psyche and its systems, but that it first needed an overarching philosophical theory to guide the development of that methodology. Vygotsky found both the theory and the methodology in Marx and Engels’ dialectical materialist approach through which they analyzed phenomena as processes, dynamic systems in which the unification with other processes and systems is an important force behind change and development. After developing their philosophical/theoretical approach, Marx and Engels created a methodological approach, historical materialism, to apply the general principles of dialectical materialism to study the origins and development of human social formations. Vygotsky used this approach in applying dialectical principles to the study of the human brain/mind/psyche to create a methodological approach, psychological materialism, to study the origins and development of the human psyche. After a brief overview of this dialectical methodological approach, I describe Vygotsky’s genetic method of building his theoretical framework through the investigation of the origins and nature of human consciousness in the species and in the individual. He focused his research on the “dialectical leap” that takes place in cultural and conceptual development in humans through the qualitative transformation from elementary mental functions to higher psychical processes that occurs when language becomes dominant at 12–18 months old. In contrast to theorists of development prevalent then, most prominent among them, Piaget, whose interpretations still heavily influence Western educational approaches, Vygotsky’s view was that child development is a complex dialectical process characterized by periodicity, unevenness in the development of different functions, metamorphosis or qualitative transformation of one form into another, intertwining of external and internal factors, and adaptive processes which overcome impediments that the child encounters. (1997b, p. 99) Using this concept of development, he started his investigation by looking for the origin of human consciousness for both the species and the individual. For the species, through studies of higher primates and research on earlier forms of human social formation still extant in the 19th and 20th centuries, Vygotsky (1997b) focused on the role language played in making the human species qualitatively different from other species in the animal world. For the individual, Vygotsky started with the unity at birth of the biological, chemical, electrical substrate of the brain with the elementary mental processes children have at birth, and then he examined how this unity develops and changes throughout the life span. For this and other investigations, Vygotsky used Marx and Engels’ methodological approach and grounded his investigations of human psychological/psychical systems in the history and development of human social formations described by them. Key to Vygotsky’s investigation of the origins of human consciousness is the role of language in the “dialectical leap” from elementary mental functions to higher psychical processes. The analysis of this qualitative transformation is central to Vygotsky’s theoretical framework as a whole and one that has its foundation in his investigation of the unification of thinking processes and languaging processes—those involved in the reception and production of meaningful communication using symbolic representation. To analyze the 57 Holbrook Mahn entity created through this unification, Vygotsky derives a unit that is irreducible yet represents the unified whole in which it is situated. His analysis of unities and of the entities created through those unifications is a central feature of Vygotsky’s theoretical framework as described below. In this chapter I build on my articles/chapters listed in the references (Mahn, 2012, 2015; Mahn & John-Steiner, 2002) in which I have described different aspects of Vygotsky’s theoretical and methodological framework in more detail, again, relying heavily on his writings. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the challenges that L2 researchers might face in applying Vygotsky’s methodological approach and psychological materialist theoretical framework to research focused on L2 teaching/learning, broadly conceived to include bilingual and sign language, along with teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), which often focuses on adult populations in higher education and the community. Throughout his work, Vygotsky stresses the importance of terminological clarification, because ignoring it “has led to a great deal of misunderstanding, with researchers often arguing about very different things that are designated by a single term” (1987, p. 255). Therefore, before describing his methodological approach, I clarify two terms I use to describe central concepts in Vygotsky’s conceptual framework—psyche/psychical and languaging. Psyche: In developing his approach to the study of psychology—the study of the psyche— Vygotsky critiqued approaches that separated mind and matter and argued that instead the brain/mind should be studied as a dialectical unity, in which each has its distinct features and concepts, and is fundamentally dependent on the other, yet brain and mind are not identical, not in the way that mainstream psychology and linguistics construe them as synonymous. To clarify how he was using the terms brain and mind and then psyche, Vygotsky compared and contrasted how these terms were used in describing animals and humans. One of his most important contributions was his detailed examination of the qualitative transformation that takes place in the mental processing of children when they begin communicating meaning through language. Vygotsky underscored that through this qualitative transformation a new entity came into existence, higher psychical processes, leading to the development of the human psyche. He distinguished between mind/mental and psyche/psychical processes: “We must not ask about the biological meaning of mental processes but about the biological meaning of psychological [psychical] processes and then the whole insoluble problem of the mind appears soluble” (Vygotsky, 1997a, p. 115). Psyche in this chapter refers to the brain/mind entity created through the dialectical leap as children start to communicate meaning through symbolic representation. The functions, processes, and systems that constitute the psyche and which change and develop through the life span, I refer to as psychical. Languaging: A central focus for Vygotsky was the relationship between thinking processes and speaking processes, but speaking connotes the oral and tends not to include those who have language but not audible speech. It also does not clearly connote the internal forces engaged in the production and reception of language; therefore, I use the term languaging to refer to all the physical, mental/psychical, and social processes involved in the reception and production of meaningful communication through the use of signs/words. Like Merrill Swain, I began using languaging before becoming aware of numerous scholars who had used the term with different meanings (Wei & Garcia, 2014). While Swain uses languaging to describe a process “which creates a visual or audible product about which one can language further” (2006, p. 97), I use it to cover all aspects involved in communicating meaning through symbols. 58 Analysis of Unit(ie)s The Relationship Between Vygotsky’s and Marx and Engels’ Methodological Approaches Essential aspects of Vygotsky’s theoretical framework are revealed in an examination of his reliance in developing his methodological approach on Marx and Engels’ dialectical theory and methodological approach. An understanding of this reliance is often elusive because of the distortions of Marxism by the Soviet Union bureaucracy headed by Stalin, by the international capitalist class, and by “neo-Marxists” such as critical theorists in the Frankfurt School, who rejected dialectical materialism, equating it with the murderous policies carried out in its name by Stalin’s bureaucracy. To guide his work, Vygotsky relied on the principles of the dialectical approach that Marx and Engels’ developed and then applied to the study of human social formations through their theory of historical materialism. Vygotsky applied this dialectical approach to the study of the human mind/ psyche as he developed a theory of “psychological materialism as an intermediate science which explains the concrete application of the abstract theses of dialectical materialism to the given field of phenomena” (1997a, p. 330). In describing a fundamental principle of dialectical materialism—that the only constant is change—Engels (2017, para. 13) acknowledged Hegel, because in his theory: for the first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process – i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, development; and the attempt was made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development. To investigate movement and development, through his genetic approach Vygotsky examined the origins and development of processes: 1) the forces that bring the entity being studied into existence and those that take it out of existence; 2) the forces behind its development; and 3) the qualitative transformations in the course of its development. To investigate the internal connections that make an integrated and continuous whole of this movement and development, Vygotsky examined the interrelationships within and between different systems, including mental, physical, biological, cultural, social, and historical. “Systems and their fate—it seems to me that for us the alpha and omega of our next work must reside in these four words [ie. systems and their fate]” (1997a, p. 107). In his analysis of psychical systems, Vygotsky used an approach that reflected Marx and Engels’—keeping the end goal in mind when examining the origins and development of the phenomenon being studied. Marx and Engels started their investigation of modern British capitalism by looking at the origins of the earliest systems of human social formation, ones that had taken a dialectical leap from animal social formations. As they started this investigation, they kept in mind their end goal—an examination of the laws of motion behind the development of late 19th-century British capitalism. They began by examining the earliest systems of social formations created when early humans changed nature, by controlling and using its natural forces and resources for survival and development. By keeping their end goal in focus, they were able to avoid zigzagging in tracing the development of human social formations that would deviate from the path leading to the highly developed formation they were studying (Engels, 1970). Similarly, Vygotsky, with an end goal of describing the nature and development of higher psychical processes in the modern human, looked to their origins, because “there is no 59 Holbrook Mahn complex, higher apparatus of cultural behavior which would not consist in the final analysis of several/primary elementary processes of behavior” (1997b, p. 80). While Vygotsky based his research into the origin and development of the higher psychical systems on Marx and Engels’ work on human social formations, his focus was on what psychical systems early humans developed when languaging became a key element in their survival and development. Vygotsky argued that examining these systems provides the foundation for understanding the path of development in higher psychical processes from early humans to modern. He used the concept of rudimentary functions as “documents on development, living witnesses of ancient epochs, clear proof of origin” that would help understand the foundation of higher psychical systems, because these functions that “developed in other, older psychological systems are living proof of the origins of these higher systems and their historical tie with older layers in the development of behavior” (1997b, p. 41). Vygotsky illustrates this concept with three rudimentary functions that entail “humanity determining its behavior with the help of artificially created stimuli-devices” (p. 52). First, the use of die to determine how to behave in a particular situation; second, knot tying as an external device that influences internal memory; and third, “a rudimentary form of cultural arithmetic: counting on fingers” (p. 52). These forms provided the foundation for the development of higher psychical processes/systems. Both Marx and Engels and Vygotsky used the principles of dialectical materialism in their investigation of systems, but an essential point made by Marx and Engels and underscored by Vygotsky is that overarching, general dialectical principles cannot be applied directly to whatever system is being studied. “The direct application of the theory of dialectical materialism to the problems of natural science and psychology is impossible, just as it is impossible to apply it directly to history and sociology” (1997a, p. 330, emphasis in original). Instead, an intermediary theory, a general theory of psychology—psychological materialism—must be developed. In order to create such intermediary theories – methodologies, general sciences – we must reveal the essence of the given area of phenomena, the laws of their change, their qualitative and quantitative characteristics, their causality, we must create categories and concepts appropriate to it. (1997a, p. 330) Because the terms methodology, general psychology, and general science have such broad ranges of meanings associated with them, clarifying how Vygotsky used them helps reveal the concepts he was conveying. “‘Method’ means two different things: (1) the research methods, the technology of the experiment; and (2) the epistemological method, or methodology, which determines the research goal, the place of the science, and its nature” (1997a, p. 274). Vygotsky argued that in order to apply Marx and Engels’ dialectical philosophical/ theoretical approach to psychology, a general methodology needed to be developed because, “Methodology is the linchpin through which philosophy guides science . . . no philosophical system can take possession of psychology directly without the help of methodology, i.e., without the creation of a general science” (1997a, pp. 329–330). The methodology that Marx and Engels used as the means through which philosophy could guide their science was reflected in their intermediary theory of historical materialism. They used this theory to study the formation of human societies by developing concepts and categories such as class struggle, value, labor, commodity, and others, through an analysis of the origins and historical development of these formations. For his part, Vygotsky 60 Analysis of Unit(ie)s developed the intermediary theory psychological materialism, a dialectics of psychology, by studying the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of the human brain/mind/psyche using concepts and categories such as unification, thinking, speaking/languaging, social interaction, mediation, generalization, psychical processes, concept formation, and others. He used a dialectical approach because “dialectics covers nature, thinking, history—it is the most general, maximally universal science. The theory of psychological materialism or dialectics of psychology is what I call general psychology” (1997a, p. 330). The Dialectical Leap and the Development of Higher Psychical Processes In developing his methodological approach and theory of psychological materialism, Vygotsky focused on the qualitative transformation that occurs when the brain/mind unity becomes the brain/mind/psyche unity through children’s increasing language development and tool use. This process is “on the one hand, uninterrupted and, on the other, accompanied by leaps or the development of new qualities” (1997a, p. 112). An essential aspect of Vygotsky’s theoretical framework is his analysis of the “dialectical leap” that occurs when elementary mental functions, with which infants are born, such as involuntary attention, visual perception, and unmediated, natural memory, are transformed into higher psychical processes such as voluntary attention, verbal perception, and mediated, logical memory. Mental functions should not be viewed as processes that “exist on top of and alongside the brain processes . . . but as the subjective expression of the same processes . . . as a special qualitative characteristic of the higher functions of the brain” (p. 113). Vygotsky argues, therefore, for a new methodological approach that does not study the physical and mental separately, but as an “integral process which is characterized by both a subjective and objective side at the same time” (p. 113). In clarifying this statement, Vygotsky differentiated epistemological and ontological approaches, explaining that if the goal is epistemological—to examine what is known and how it is known—then physical and mental processes can be analyzed separately; but if the goal is ontological—to examine being, an entity’s existence in and of itself—then the unified physical and mental/psychical processes have to be examined as a whole in order to reveal the essence of that whole, the brain/mind/psyche unity. He argued that because psychology’s viewpoint is ontological, it would be a mistake to oppose the mental and physical. “Whereas in epistemological analysis we must strictly oppose sensation and object, we must not oppose the mental and physiological processes in psychological [ontological] analysis” (1997a, p. 114). He cautions, though, that the mental and physical should not be investigated as merged, as identical. Vygotsky saw dialectical psychology’s basic task as developing “The ability to view the mental process as an organic connection of a more complex integral process” (1997a, p. 115). This psychology “does not mix up the mental and physiological processes” but recognizes the “unique psycho-physiological unitary processes” which “represent the higher forms of human behavior, which we suggest calling psychological [psychical] processes, in contradistinction to mental processes” (1997a, p. 113, emphasis added). His differentiation between the mind/mental on one hand and psyche/psychical on the other is fundamental to his analysis of the psychical processes that distinguish humans from higher primates and which develop in children when they go through a qualitative transformation from mind— elementary mental functions—to psyche—higher psychical processes. Unfortunately, translation issues have obscured the essence of this dialectical leap from mind to psyche, which Vygotsky (1997b) describes in The History of the Development of Higher Mental 61 Holbrook Mahn Functions (Razvitie Vysshikh Psikhicheskikh Funktsii). The translation of psikhicheskikh as mental, instead of as psychical, which is the way Vygotsky uses it in the Russian original— blurs the distinction Vygotsky draws between mental and psychical, by referring to both elementary mental functions and higher psychical processes as mental. Since using mental for both tends to convey a more linear process underemphasizing the dialectical leap to higher psychical processes, I use the term psychical to refer specifically to the higher processes that Vygotsky identifies as resulting from this qualitative leap and from subsequent qualitative transformations on the path of development from birth to adulthood. Vygotsky’s analysis of the qualitative transformations which take place in what he calls “periods of crisis” that occur initially at birth and then at ages 1, 2–3, 6–7, 12 and 17 (Mahn, 2003; Vygotsky, 1998) constitutes another central component of the psychological materialist theoretical framework. His concept of these periods is that they are critical in the sense of crisis from the Greek krisis meaning a “turning point” (OED, 2017) and not in the sense in which it is commonly used, especially in L2 language development, to mean a period of time during which an organism must have a certain kind of external stimulus for a particular mental/psychical function/process to develop and not atrophy. These qualitative turning points marked a fundamental transformation into neoformations with different relations and interconnections in the internal thinking/languaging and learning systems. These age-related neoformations “determine the consciousness of the child, his relation to the environment, his internal and external life, the whole course of his development during the given period” (Vygotsky, 1998 p. 190). Central to Vygotsky’s analysis of the nature of these periods is his concept of perezhivanie, how humans experience and guide their activity in the external world, focusing particularly on the role of emotion in this experience. Individuals’ perezhivanie will be qualitatively different depending on where they are in relationship to Vygotsky’s periods of crisis. “The crisis is most of all a turning point as expressed in the fact that the child passes from one method of experiencing [perezhivanie] environment to another” (1998, p. 295). Vygotsky uses the concept Hegel captured in the German term Aufheben to analyze these periods of crisis and explain the process of moving from one internal mental system to a qualitatively new one, such as the transformation of elementary mental functions to higher psychical processes, because these transformations “can be best explained via what in dialectics is termed ‘removal’ [snyatie in Russian, Aufheben in German]” (1997b, p. 81). The German term Aufheben has three seemingly contradictory meanings: 1) to raise up; 2) to cancel; and 3) to preserve, all of which Hegel incorporated in his analysis of entities created through the unification of contradictory processes. Using Hegel’s concept of Aufheben, Vygotsky explained that the dialectical leap from elementary mental functions to higher psychical processes involves on the one hand, the process of raising up, and on the other, of cancelling, but at the same time preserving. The elementary mental functions provide the foundation for higher psychical processes, which come into existence when thinking processes are unified with those involved in languaging. The elementary mental functions do not disappear but are transformed and yet still provide the foundation for the higher psychical processes. In describing this transformation, Vygotsky gives the example, described in more depth below, of what happens to visual perception when language development transforms visual perception into verbal perception. He provides another example of the preservation of the elementary mental functions in his analysis of aphasia: “we must recall the law of preservation of lower functions as a subordinate factor in higher functions and the emancipation of lower functions when the higher functions disintegrate or are damaged” (1998, p. 131). The concept of Aufheben, as used in these examples, is central to Vygotsky’s 62 Analysis of Unit(ie)s psychological materialist theoretical framework, because it helps explain the processes of unification that Vygotsky studied and is important in describing the relationship between everyday concepts and academic concepts. Building on physical/mental/psychical unities, Vygotsky explored the unity between nature and culture and the instrumental role it plays from a child’s birth in the development of the psychical processes and systems of concepts that constitute the modern adult human psyche. He maintained that the natural and the cultural processes are “inseparably connected” from birth and that “the first contact of the child with reality (even in carrying out the most elementary biological functions) is wholly and completely socially mediated” (1998, p. 215). His analysis of the elementary mental functions from birth examines the role that culture and social interaction play from the start in the development of those functions. This provides the foundation for his analysis of the dialectical leap from those functions to higher psychical processes through the increased role played by language in the one- to two-year-old child. Vygotsky discovered two fundamental laws for his theory of psychological materialism in his examination of this leap: the first, “the law of the transition from direct, innate, natural forms and methods of behavior to mediated, artificial mental functions that develop in the process of cultural development”; and the second law “that the relation between higher psychical processes was at one time a concrete relation between people” (1998, pp. 167–168). Mediation and Language as a Semiotic/Psychological Tool The higher psychical processes are mediated processes. A central and basic aspect of their structure is the use of the sign as a means of directing and mastering mental processes. (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 126) The mastery of the elementary mental functions/processes by higher psychical functions/ processes through mediated means is a key aspect of Vygotsky’s psychological materialist theoretical framework. Interpretations of Vygotsky’s analogy between tool use and sign use to clarify his concept of mediation have actually served to obscure his use of this analogy and the significance of its place in his theoretical framework. Vygotsky used this analogy to describe the logical relationship between tool use and sign use in that “both may be considered as coordinative concepts included in a more general concept—mediating activity” (1997b, p. 61). He illustrated this analogy with a diagram: This analogy has been used as a foundation for the widespread assumption that the concept of language as a semiotic tool, as a psychological tool, is a, if not the, key aspect of Vygotsky’s theoretical framework; however, as Vygotsky emphasized, “our diagram is intended to present the logical relation of the concepts, but not the genetic or functional (on the whole, real) relations of the phenomena” (p. 62, emphasis added). The italicized Mediating Activity Use of Tools Use of Signs Figure 4.1 Analogy of tool and sign mediation 63 Holbrook Mahn text, excised in Mind in Society (Vygotsky, 1978), the most widely read text in English on Vygotsky’s tool-sign analogy, clearly shows the tool-sign analogy was not central to Vygotsky’s theory since it did not reveal “real relations,” but instead served “to erase the profound difference between the one [tool use] and the other [sign use], to dissolve in general psychological determinations the specific distinctive characteristics of each type of activity” (p. 60). The distinctive roles played by tools in mastering the processes of nature and by language in facilitating social interaction and communication “dissolve in the general concept of artifacts or artificial devices” (p. 61). The vague and indeterminate meaning “usually connected with the figurative use of the word tool actually does not lighten the task of the researcher interested in the real and not the picturesque aspect that exists between behavior and its auxiliary devices,” but in fact serves to “obscure the road of research” (p. 61). (The last phrase also does not appear in Mind in Society.) Vygotsky uses mediation to explain the origins and development of internal psychical processes, structures, and systems, which the concept of language as a semiotic psychological tool obscures because the focus remains on the mediating activity and not on the nature of the internal psychical system that results from that activity. Any investigation into human activity must include analysis of the nature and development of the internal psychical system, which, in its inextricable connections to systems in the external social and physical environment, guides and is guided by human activity. Internal higher psychical processes result from activity in the external world and the knowledge and understandings gained through that activity guide the further development of the higher psychical processes. Semiotic mediation is an important concept, but it needs to be seen in relationship to the internal psychical system developed through the unification of thinking and languaging processes, a system Vygotsky called rechevóye myshlénie. Rechevóye Myshlénie—the Thinking/Languaging System Vygotsky begins his analysis of this internal system by addressing a question that has intrigued philosophers, linguists, educators, psychologists, and others for many centuries: “What is the relationship between thinking processes and those associated with language?” His investigations, which make up much of his last and most important work, Thinking and Speech, highlight the qualitative transformation that takes place when the previously distinct languaging and thinking processes become unified as the child uses symbolic representation to communicate meaning. The unification of these previously distinct paths creates an entity he captures in the Russian phrase rechevóye myshlénie. I use this Russian phrase along with another, znachenie slova, because these two central concepts of Vygotsky’s theoretical framework have been inadequately translated into English, creating limited views of these concepts, missing their essence. Hopefully, using Russian will help focus on what Vygotsky described as the nature of these two concepts rather than on prior understandings based on their translations into English. Thinking processes that humans have in common with animals—visual perception, unmediated memory, and involuntary attention—are not connected to languaging processes; and languaging processes—babbling, cooing, attending to the sounds of language, and developing gestures to convey intent—are not guided by rational thought or logic. However, when these distinct processes are unified in the developing ability to communicate meaning through signs/words, Vygotsky argues that a new and unique entity rechevóye myshlénie is created. The rendition of the Russian which translates as “speaking thinking” into English as verbal thinking conveys that this is one kind of thinking among others but captures neither 64 Analysis of Unit(ie)s the essence nor the complexity of Vygotsky’s concept of unification in rechevóye myshlénie. He used this term to convey the concept of internal structures and systems created in the unification of languaging and thinking processes leading to the development of higher psychical processes. “What we are speaking of here is a new unity. For lack of a better term, I will call these formations psychological [psychical] systems” (1987, p. 300). In examining other approaches to the relationship between thinking and languaging processes, Vygotsky found that “the basic methodological defect of nearly all studies of thinking and speech . . . is the tendency to view thought and word as two independent and isolated elements whose external unification leads to the characteristic features of rechevóye myshlénie” (1987, pp. 243–244). In contrast, Vygotsky conceives of rechevóye myshlénie as the internal unification of thinking and languaging processes. In developing his methodological approach to study this thinking/languaging unity, Vygotsky again differentiates epistemological and ontological approaches. If the goal is epistemological, then the development of thinking and languaging processes can be analyzed separately; but if the goal is ontological, then the entity created through their unification, rechevóye myshlénie, has to be examined as a unified whole to reveal the essence of that whole. Vygotsky criticized phenomenological approaches to thinking because they mixed epistemological and ontological approaches. He argued that the distinction phenomenology drew in the analysis of the physical world between an epistemological, subjective approach to investigate phenomenon—that which is observed, experienced, and categorized—and an ontological approach to investigate being—that which is, that which exists in the objective world—is not maintained in phenomenological analyses of thinking. These analyses viewed phenomenon—thinking of thinking—and being—thinking as such—as one and the same, thereby merging epistemological and ontological approaches. Doing so makes it impossible to analyze thinking as such, as a whole, as a distinct entity, because combining thinking of thinking and thinking as such alters the essence of the latter. Instead, Vygotsky argues “one must distinguish the thinking of thinking and the thinking as such” (1997a, p. 322). Thinking as such has to be examined as a whole in its unification with languaging to reveal the essence of rechevóye myshlénie [the thinking/languaging system]. Vygotsky’s analysis of perception provides an example of how the unification of thinking and languaging processes leads to a qualitative transformation of an elementary mental function, visual perception, into a higher psychical process, verbal perception. The visual perception of an infant, tied to a fixed visual field, is similar to that of higher primates, in immediate perception, but through the unification of languaging and thinking processes, verbal perception, a higher psychical process, arises. “We can no longer separate perception of the object as such from its meaning or sense. Experiments indicate that it is here that the connection between perception and speech, the connection between perception and the word arises” (1987, pp. 299–300). As children begin to develop their languaging processes, they become aware of the world of objects and actions through the words of caretakers and siblings. This helps them develop categories to 1) organize their perception; 2) free the objects and actions from the visual field; 3) facilitate memory; and 4) bring about an awareness of time, to transform from visual perception to verbal perception through which, “reality is reflected in consciousness in a qualitatively different way in thinking than it is in immediate perception” (1987, p. 47). The concept of Aufheben is also useful in understanding Vygotsky’s analysis of the transformation between visual perception and verbal perception, where visual perception provides the foundation for a new psychical process, verbal perception, but in the process is transformed although it is still preserved as a subordinate function. 65 Holbrook Mahn Vygotsky emphasized that he was analyzing perception not as an isolated function, but rather in its relationship to other functions/processes to determine how changes in individual functions affect the system as a whole. “The development of such new flexible relationships between functions we will call a psychological [psychical] system” (1997a, p. 92). The challenge for Vygotsky was to develop a method to analyze the internal psychical thinking/ languaging system as a whole, because dividing a unity into isolated elements causes the researcher “to ignore the unified and integral nature of the process being studied . . . [and] the internal relationships of the unified whole are replaced with external mechanical relationships between two heterogeneous processes” (1987, p. 46). Vygotsky argues that instead of analysis into elements, scientific studies should maintain the integrity of the whole that is the object of analysis and develop a form of analysis that relies on the “partitioning of the complex whole into units. In contrast to the term ‘element,’ the term ‘unit’ designates a product of analysis that possesses all the basic characteristics of the whole. The unit is a vital and irreducible part of the whole” (1987, p. 46). After drawing on epistemological studies that examined the origins and paths of development of thinking and languaging processes, Vygotsky used an ontological approach to study the whole, rechevóye myshlénie, by deriving a unit that “contains, in a simple, primitive form, the characteristics of the whole that is the object of analysis” (1987, p. 244). He asked, what “possesses the characteristics inherent to the integral phenomenon of rechevóye myshlénie and that cannot be further decomposed?” (1987, p. 47). In other words, what is the most elementary, irreducible aspect of this internal unity that still reflects the essence of the whole? “In our view, such a unit can be found in the inner aspect of the word [slova], in its meaning [znachenie]” (1987, p. 47). To analyze this unit, znachenie slova, Vygotsky used genetic, structural, and functional analyses to reveal the nature of rechevóye myshlénie—the internal system created through the unification of thinking and languaging processes. Znachenie Slova, Generalization, and Concept Formation Vygotsky’s analysis of znachenie slova to investigate rechevóye myshlénie constitutes the central aspect of his psychological materialist theoretical framework, but again translation and ideological issues have obscured the concepts behind Vygotsky’s use of znachenie slova. The Russian word znachenie connotes “meaning” and slova “word,” to represent language use as a whole, as languaging. Translating this Russian phrase word-for-word into word meaning has tended to obscure the concept Vygotsky was conveying because it has focused researchers on the external linguistic features of speech, instead of the internal structure Vygotsky was capturing in znachenie slova. While recognizing the importance of external speech, Vygotsky makes it clear that he is using znachenie slova differently in his description of it as an internal structure: Znachenie slova is not the sum of all the psychological operations which stand behind the word. Znachenie slova is something more specific – it is the internal structure of the sign operation. It is what is lying between the thought and the word. Znachenie slova is not equal to the word not equal to thought. (1997a, p. 133, emphasis added) He contended that an analysis of the unit znachenie slova provides answers to the relationship between thinking and languaging processes because 66 Analysis of Unit(ie)s [T]his relationship is already contained in izbrannoy namee edinitse [the unit selected by us]. In studying the functioning, structure, and development of this unit, we will come to understand a great deal that is of direct relevance to the problem of the relationship of thinking to speech and to the nature of rechevóye myshlénie. (1987, pp. 47–48) Translation issues alluded to above have taken the focus off his concept of znachenie slova as an internal structure in the broader system rechevóye myshlénie. This focus is also lost through the translation of a key aspect of his analytic approach, izbrannoy namee edinitse [the unit selected by us], as “unit of analysis,” which does not appear in the original Russian version of Myschelenie i Rech [Thinking and Speech]. “Unit of analysis,” used with different connotations in many unrelated fields, does not convey several essential aspects of Vygotsky’s criteria for selecting a unit, that it is: 1) an aspect of the unity created through the unification of two distinct processes; 2) selected through extensive analysis; and 3) irreducible; nor does it convey that the function, structure, and development of the unit itself should be studied. These criteria were not considered when Leontiev (1981) substituted his unit “object oriented activity” for Vygotsky’s znachenie slova, claiming Vygotsky’s unit was not sufficient to study consciousness. Despite the widespread assertion that Vygotsky derived his unit to study consciousness, Vygotsky is clear that he is using this unit specifically as a unit of an internal mental/psychical system that develops with the unification of thinking and languaging processes. While certainly an important aspect of the analysis of consciousness, Vygotsky did not develop the concept of znachenie slova as a unit to study consciousness. Vygotsky starts his analysis of znachenie slova by asking how this unit is related to the thinking/languaging unity, “Is znachenie slova speech or is it thought?” (1987, p. 47). [W]e cannot say that znachenie slova is a phenomenon of either speech or thinking. The word without meaning is not a word but an empty sound. Meaning is a necessary, constituting feature of the word itself. It is the word viewed from the inside. This justifies the view that znachenie slova is a phenomenon of speech. In psychological terms, however, znachenie slova is nothing other than a generalization, that is, a concept. In essence, generalization and znachenie slova are synonyms. Any generalization – any formation of a concept – is unquestionably a specific and true act of thought. Thus, znachenie slova is also a phenomenon of thinking. (1987 p. 244) The concept generalization is a cornerstone in the psychological materialist theoretical framework Vygotsky is constructing because it provides the key to understanding the unification of the thinking and languaging processes. “It is not difficult to see that generalization is a verbal act of thought; its reflection of reality differs radically from that of immediate sensation or perception” (1987, p. 47, emphasis added). Vygotsky describes the role generalization plays in creating the foundation for rechevóye myshlénie by analyzing children’s first words. Initially, they are creations of children using a sound to convey their emotional responses to sensuous activity in the world rather than primarily relating it to an object in the world. Vygotsky describes this use of language as autonomous speech, drawing on Darwin’s study of his grandson’s language development to illustrate his concept. This form of speech is not modeled on adult speech or an approximation of such speech, but is a creation of the child based on their subjective experiences. When the child begins to produce sounds gained from their social interaction to refer to an object, the sound, for example, “doggie” represents 67 Holbrook Mahn not just the animal, but rather is part of the child’s whole sensuous experience of the dog, the smell, the sounds, the touch, the emotions, etc. Through many interactions in different circumstances, the child comes to know that this particular configuration of sound represents an object. In social interaction, the child becomes aware that the sound “doggie” represents not just one particular dog but all dogs and not all four-legged creatures. “The word does not relate to a single object, but to an entire group or class of objects. Therefore, every word is a concealed generalization. From a psychological perspective, znachenie slova is first and foremost a generalization” (1987, p. 47). Vygotsky (1987) illustrates how a word like tail can help transform elementary mental functions to higher psychical processes in the course of social interaction. Used in relation to doggie it facilitates the development of the psychical processes of voluntary attention, partitioning, comparison, analysis, abstraction, and synthesis, by helping the child focus attention, isolate, abstract, generalize, and then synthesize features. Vygotsky describes how these abilities are reflected in the development of three different forms of thinking— syncretic thinking, thinking in complexes, and thinking in concepts—and how they affect the structure of generalization in his theoretical framework. These modes of thinking, which he researched experimentally, are responsible for “the formation of connections, the establishment of relationships among different concrete impressions, the unification and generalization of separate objects, and the ordering and the systematization of the whole of the child’s experience” (1987, p. 135). In the syncretic mode, the use of language is based on the child’s subjective experiences as in the child with “doggie.” A qualitative transformation to thinking in complexes takes place when children begin to use language based on objective relations in their environment not on their subjective reactions. They begin to generalize generalizations, the “doggie” is also a “pet.” This development is facilitated by the growing ability to use abstract thinking for “the isolation of the meaning from sound, the isolation of word from thing, and the isolation of thought from word [which] are all necessary stages in the history of the development of concepts” (1987, p. 284). The ability to use abstract thinking is key to the third mode of thinking—thinking in concepts. Vygotsky’s use of algebra to illustrate thinking in concepts substantiates his assertion that the content of thinking influences the form of thinking. In order to deal with the content of algebra, adolescents are pushed to think in concepts, which “presupposes the ability to view these isolated, abstracted elements independently of the concrete and empirical connections in which they are given. The true concept depends equally on the processes of analysis and synthesis” (1987, p. 156). After his structural analysis of znachenie slova, Vygotsky (1987) turns to a functional analysis to examine the process of thinking—“the complex movement from the first vague emergence of a thought to its completion in a verbal formulation” (p. 249), to show that “with each stage in development there exists not only a specific structure of znachenie slova, but a special relationship between thinking and speech that defines this structure” (p. 249). To begin his functional analysis of these “special relationships” and their implications for his theoretical framework, Vygotsky differentiates two planes of speech—the inner/meaningful/semantic and the external/auditory/syntactic—and argues that in spite of the fact that they move in opposite directions “the development of the internal and external aspects of speech form a true unity” (p. 251). In his analysis of znachenie slova, Vygotsky focuses on the unity, the “internal dependency” (p. 253) of the two planes, which provides the means through which “[t]hought is restructured as it is transformed into speech” (p. 250). He emphasizes that his main focus is analyzing znachenie slova as an aspect of the 68 Analysis of Unit(ie)s internal semantic plane of speech, which he deepens in his examination of another internal plane of speech—inner speech, because “without a correct understanding of the psychological nature of inner speech, we cannot clarify the actual complex relationships between thought and word” (p. 253). He identifies characteristics of inner speech by examining external egocentric speech, because, “As the functional character of egocentric speech is increasingly expressed, we begin to see the emergence of its syntactic characteristics. We begin to see its simplicity and predicativity” (1987, p. 274, emphasis in the original). After analyzing the syntactic characteristics, Vygotsky turns to the semantic characteristics of inner speech. The first, which he credited to Paulhan, is the predominance of the word’s sense over its meaning in inner speech (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 275). Because the child’s initial experience with “doggie” was sensual, her subjective experiences lay the foundation for her sense [smysl] of the word, which is “the aggregate of all the psychological [psychical] facts that arise in our consciousness as a result of the word” (pp. 275–276). Through social interaction, the child develops the meaning of “doggie,” which becomes the most stable zone in her sense of that word. Meaning is just one of several zones in sense’s dynamic, fluid, complex formation, and, in this way, sense predominates over meaning. Vygotsky’s insight into the relationship between sense and meaning is lost if it is extrapolated from the specific context in which he examined it—in an analysis of inner speech through znachenie slova as a unit of rechevóye myshlénie. The paragraph in which Vygotsky describes the relationship between sense and meaning exemplifies the confusion that results from lack of clarity on his different uses of the term meaning. He writes “meaning is only one of these zones of sense” and a few sentences later, “the actual meaning of the word is inconstant” (1987, p. 276). In the first, he clearly refers to meaning/znachenie slova as an aspect of the internal plane of speech, while in the second, he is referring to the external plane of speech, actual speech. Not being clear that Vygotsky conveys different concepts using the same word makes it difficult to understand his insights into the nature of inner speech as “an internal plane of rechevóye myshlénie which mediates the dynamic relationship between thought and word” (1987, p. 279). He adds though, that to understand the true role and significance of inner speech, it is necessary “to take the next analytic step inward . . . to thought itself” (1987, p. 280). After examining the internal plane of thought, Vygotsky takes a final step inward and posits a plane beyond thought, because thought is not born of other thoughts. Thought has its origins in the motivating sphere of consciousness, a sphere that includes our inclinations and needs, our interests and impulses, and our affect and emotion. The affective and volitional tendency stands behind thought. (1987, p. 282) When he died, in 1934, Vygotsky was studying this tendency using the concept of perezhivanie, our emotional experiencing of “sensuous human activity” (Marx & Engels, 1845/2017). Vygotsky concludes his functional analysis of znachenie slova by summarizing his findings on the role of mediation in the internal and external planes of speech. “Thought is not only mediated externally by signs. It is mediated internally by znachenie slova” but “thought is never the direct equivalent of znachenie slova” (p. 282), a key concept when looking at how thought becomes embodied in external speech. Through his analysis of this process, Vygotsky uncovered a central discovery of his research and one that is central to his 69 Holbrook Mahn psychological materialist theoretical framework—that the external production of language, “the transition from znachenie slova to sound itself develops” and that “this development constitutes an important aspect of the development of rechevóye myshlénie” (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 253). “The primary result of this work is the conclusion that constitutes the conceptual center of our investigation, that is that znachenie slova develops . . . It is our major discovery—our new and fundamental contribution to the theory of thinking and speech” (1987, p. 245). Thus znachenie slova—the internal structure of meaning—develops, and, since it represents the essence of rechevóye myshlénie [the thinking/languaging system], Vygotsky’s major discovery is that this entire complex internal system, with all of its interconnections with other systems, develops through qualitative transformations, affecting the whole course of a child’s social, cultural, cognitive, conceptual development. This description of Vygotsky’s major discovery more clearly conveys its essence than does the English translation “word meaning develops.” Conclusion At the end of Thinking and Speech Vygotsky says that while his investigation into rechevóye myshlénie has revealed that this complex system develops, there is still much work to be done to understand it more deeply. He also indicates that although his research addressed the role of the thinking/languaging unity in developing human consciousness, there were key components of consciousness such as emotion and intelligence that were not addressed in depth. His analysis of znachenie slova demonstrated that it would play a central role in studying consciousness: “Our investigation has brought us to the threshold of the problem of consciousness, the problem of the relationship between the word and consciousness” (1987, p. 285). Vygotsky’s death and the banning of his work shut down the pursuit of these goals. When his work was rehabilitated, interpreters attributed to him different methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks than the ones that he used to develop his psychological materialist theoretical framework; the approach to further research Vygotsky was advocating was not pursued. My intent in this chapter has been to present Vygotsky’s description of the methodological approach he developed to construct the theoretical framework through which he investigated the nature and development of the system of higher psychical processes that constitute the human psyche—primarily rechevóye mishleniye, the thinking/languaging system, with znachenie slova at its center. I conclude by presenting some challenges faced by L2 researchers using sociocultural theory. Throughout his work, Vygotsky emphasized that clarification on the nature and development of the concept being conveyed by a word or phrase is essential as a starting point in an exposition of research. Therefore, a starting point for using sociocultural theory to guide L2 is clarifying what is meant by sociocultural. The term has been so widely interpreted in its application to research that it has almost come to mean research that examines social and cultural concepts. Generally, the term is tied to Vygotsky’s work, but the ties are often tenuous because the research often involves taking one of Vygotsky’s concepts, such as the zone of proximal development, removing it from his psychological materialist theoretical framework, briefly defining it, and then applying it to a study. The challenge then for L2 researchers using sociocultural theory is to clarify how their approach fits into and flows from Vygotsky’s framework, how the phenomenon they are studying relates to the internal system that is the central focus of Vygotsky’s work, including how it is affected by periods of qualitative transformation in that system. 70 Analysis of Unit(ie)s Another challenge in using Vygotsky’s approach to L2 research is situating the phenomenon being studied into his analysis of the qualitative transformations in periods of crisis, because studying the history of development of phenomena and especially its times of qualitative transformation is essential to investigating its essence and not just its appearance. Individuals’ interactions with their social and physical environment are determined fundamentally by where they are in relationship to the qualitative transformations Vygotsky describes in the development of internal psychical processes and systems. A common mistake is taking a concept like the zone of proximal development and applying it to phenomena without recognizing that the zone of proximal development is qualitatively different in each age period because of the qualitative transformation in the internal system of higher psychical processes. If the zone of proximal development is not examined in relationship to these periods, a central concept of the zone of proximal development—the proximal zone of meaningful, intellectual imitation—is often overlooked. Unlike the mechanical imitation involved in training, as with animals, Vygotsky investigated imitation of thinking processes as key to the development of rechevóye mishleniye. Children’s ability to imitate thinking processes depends on where they are in their cognitive development, marked by periods of qualitative transformation. They cannot imitate thinking processes for which the foundation has not been laid, including an emotional foundation. The affective proximal zone of meaningful, intellectual imitation is central to Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development and essential to understanding the relationships Vygotsky describes between the zone of proximal development and periods of crisis. There is an additional challenge for L2 researchers working with adults because, while Vygotsky posits a period of crisis at age 17, he did not examine it, since the central focus in his study of the modern human adult psyche, was the development of the rechevóye mishleniye, the unity of thinking and languaging processes in childhood. We can only speculate on what qualitative transformation Vygotsky had in mind at the age of around 17, but the foundation laid by his analysis of the five qualitative transformations that take place before 17 provides a substantial guide to how this transformation can be studied. Another consideration for L2 researchers in using Vygotsky’s theoretical framework is how their approach fits in with and is guided by Vygotsky’s general methodology, which he considered as the sine qua non for developing a theory of general psychology, psychological materialism, to use in examining the higher psychical processes that constitute the human psyche. Fundamental to Vygotsky’s general methodology are the principles of dialectical materialism—1) analysis of all matter/phenomena starts with investigating its origins and its subsequent development; 2) a focus on the forces that bring it into existence and those that bring about qualitative transformations in it; and 3) finally, what are the forces that lead to its demise. Then the particular reality being studied, in Vygotsky’s case the development of the human psyche and personality, needs to be concretely examined to develop concepts and categories that grow from that reality. These concepts provide the conceptual framework for research that follows and, in the process, can augment Vygotsky’s psychological materialist theoretical framework, including its genetic, structural, and functional levels of analysis. With the concept that there is nothing constant but change—reality is always in motion, down to activity in cells and atoms—Vygotsky developed an analytic approach to examine how change occurs through the unification of distinct processes. To analyze these unifications, Vygotsky started with deriving a unit that represents both processes in the unification and is irreducible, yet represents the essence of the whole created in the unification. This unit derives from, is a product of, the analysis of the concepts and categories of the reality being studied. 71 Holbrook Mahn In other words, it is different from the concept of “unit of analysis” used in a lot of sociocultural research in which the unit is decided by the researcher and is not the result of an analysis of the unities involved in the phenomenon being examined. Another of Vygotsky’s contributions that can help guide L2 research is the emphasis he put on clarifying whether the goals of the research are epistemological or ontological because they entail qualitatively different approaches. Vygotsky described these differences in his analytic approach using the concept of unit to his ontological study of the unity of languaging/thinking processes. His analysis of the development of znachenie slova as a unit of rechevóye myshlénie [the thinking/languaging system], which is central to his theory, is an important consideration for L2 research. L2 research based on the foundation of Vygotsky’s analysis of the development of the thinking/languaging system through all of its transformations from birth through adolescence outlined above could study how the processes in creating znachenie slova and rechevóye myshlénie are affected if they are also engaged with learning L2. A number of variables and questions can be factored in, including the age at which L2 is introduced and actively produced; whether it is simultaneous with L1; whether L2 is introduced before or after schooling begins; whether it takes place in school; how L2 affects the development of the structure of generalization and the relationship of the system of concepts in L1 and L2; how the change in the mode of thinking affects L2; how the transformation at adolescence affects learning L2; and how all of these affect the L2 development of deaf children and others with different learning challenges. The complexity of Vygotsky’s methodological approach and theoretical framework mirrors the complexity of what he is studying—human consciousness—but it is double edged. On the one hand, it can make access to understanding his central concepts more difficult, but, on the other hand, the complexity of both the methodological approach and theoretical framework are what makes his work so insightful and useful for researchers and practitioners engaged in all aspects of teaching/learning. This chapter will have accomplished its goal if it has promoted an interest in reading Vygotsky’s writings more deeply and has helped clarify some of the challenges in applying essential aspects of Vygotsky’s psychological materialist theoretical framework to research on L2 teaching/learning. References Engels, F. (1970). Karl Marx, A contribution to the critique of political economy, A review. In M. Dobbs (Ed.), A contribution to the critique of political economy, Karl Marx (pp. 218–227). New York: International Publishers. Engels, F. (2017). Socialism: Scientific and utopian. Retrieved from www.marxists.org/archive/marx/ works/1880/soc-utop/ch02.htm. Leontiev, A. N. (1981). The problem of activity in psychology. In James V. Wertsch (Ed.), The concept of activity in Soviet psychology (pp. 37–71). Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe. Mahn, H. (2003). Periods in child development: Vygotsky’s perspective. In V. Ageev, B. Gindis, A. Kozulin, & S. Miller (Eds.), Vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context (pp. 119–137). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Mahn, H. (2010). Vygotsky’s methodological approach: Blueprint for the future of psychology. In A. Toomela & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Methodological thinking in psychology: 60 years gone astray? (pp. 297–323). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Mahn, H. (2012). Vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making processes. International Journal of Educational Psychology, 1(2), 100–126. doi:10.4471/ijep.2012.07 [peer review] 72 Analysis of Unit(ie)s Mahn, H. (2015). Classroom discourse and interaction in the zone of proximal development. In N. Markee (Ed.), The handbook of classroom discourse and interaction (pp. 250–264). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Mahn, H., & John-Steiner, V. (2002). The gift of confidence: A Vygotskian view of emotions. In G. Wells & G. Claxton (Eds.), Learning for life in the 21st century: Sociocultural perspectives on the future of education (pp. 46–58). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1976). The German ideology. In Marx & Engels Collected works. Vol. 5: Marx and Engels 1845–47 (pp. 19–539). New York: International Publishers Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1845/2017). The Theses of Feuerbach. Retrieved from www.marxists.org/ archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm (First Thesis). OED (2017). Crisis. Online Etymological Dictionary. Retrieved from www.etymonline.com/index. php?term=crisis&allowed_in_frame=0 Swain, M. (2006). Languaging, agency and collaboration in advanced language proficiency. In H. Byrnes (Ed.), Advanced language learning: The contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky (pp. 95–108). London: Continuum. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman (Eds.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of general psychology (R. W. Rieber & A. Carton, Eds.). New York, NY: Plenum. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997a). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 3: Problems of the theory and history of psychology (R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock, Eds.). New York: Plenum. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997b). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 4: The history of the development of higher mental functions (R. W. Rieber, Ed.). New York: Plenum. Vygotsky, L. S. (1998). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 5: Child psychology. (R. W. Rieber, Ed.). New York: Plenum. Wei, L., & Garcia, O. (2014). Language, Languaging and Bilingualism. In O. Garcia & L. Wei, Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education, pp. 5–18. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Zavershneva, E. I., & Osipov, M. E. (2012). Primary changes to the version of The historical meaning of the crisis in psychology published in the Collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 50(4), 64–84. Further Reading Section 13 of Chapter 15 The historical meaning of the crisis in psychology: A methodological investigation. In Vygotsky, L. S. (1997a). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 3: Problems of the theory and history of psychology (R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock, Eds.). New York: Plenum Press. This section in Vygotsky’s comprehensive article in which he addresses approaches to studying the human psyche describes the way in which he uses Marx and Engels’ concept of dialectical materialism in contrast to its use by the Soviet bureaucracy headed by Stalin. Chapter 2 of The problem of the development of higher mental functions. In Vygotsky, L. S. (1997b). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 4: The history of the development of higher mental functions (R. W. Rieber, Ed.). New York: Plenum Press. This chapter provides an historical overview of approaches to the study of the psyche and describes Vygotsky’s methodological approach to the study of the quantitative transformation or “dialectical leap” from elementary mental functions to the higher psychical processes unique to humans. Chapter 7 Mind, consciousness, the unconscious. In Vygotsky, L. S. (1997a). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 3: Problems of the theory and history of psychology (R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock, Eds.). (pp. 109–121). New York: Plenum Press. In this chapter Vygotsky examines historical approaches to the study of consciousness and the unconscious, particularly those of phenomenology and of Freud and then lays out his own approach, which he calls dialectical psychology. 73 Holbrook Mahn Preface and Chapter 1. In Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of general psychology (R. W. Rieber & A. Carton, Eds.). New York, NY: Plenum Press. In these two short pieces, Vygotsky describes the underlying methodological approach to investigating the unity of thinking and languaging processes, by deriving a unit that maintained the essence of the whole. Mahn, H. (2010). Vygotsky’s methodological approach: Blueprint for the future of psychology. In A. Toomela & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Methodological thinking in psychology: 60 years gone astray? (pp. 297–323). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. An article that goes into more depth on Vygotsky’s methodological approach, contrasting it with the two other predominant approaches at his time – subjective psychology and behaviorism. Novack, G. (1969). An introduction to the logic of Marxism. New York: Pathfinder Press. This short volume gives a comprehensive overview of Marx and Engels’ dialectical materialist method, starting with its roots in Hegel’s philosophy. 74 5 Vygotsky on the Consciousness and the Application to Second Language Development Steven G. McCafferty Introduction The study of consciousness is very much a contemporary concern within psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, philosophy, anthropology, education, and other, interdisciplinary fields. Moreover, according to Searle (2003, p. 5), the “era of skeptical epistemology” is over, the immense accumulation of knowledge precluding the study of consciousness as only metaphysical speculation about the soul or spirit as separate entities in a way that was common for previous generations of philosophers. However, he argues that the extent of our objective knowledge also leads us to recognize its limitations, that epistemic knowledge claims are perspectival and not “established independently of the feelings, attitudes, prejudices, preferences, and commitments of investigators” (p. 8). To address subjectivity, Searle argues for its objectification, an approach very much in line with what Vygotsky proposed many years ago, as pointed out by Veresov (2014, p. 121): The methodological . . . study of consciousness proposed by Vygotsky suggested that the . . . individual’s subjective world can be explored objectively if mental functions are not regarded as fully shaped phenomena, but studied rather in the process of their emergence and development. Genetic research methodology, that is, the methodology grounded on the principle of development, provided the foundation on which culturalhistorical theory was built. (A. Dema, translation) This is not to suggest that there are no inconsistencies with regard to Vygotsky’s overall approach as noted by Davydov and Radzikhovskii (1985, p. 38): “Vygotsky the psychologist did not ‘use all the possibilities presented’ in his methodological framework, nor were his ideas as a psychologist ‘motivated’ by his methodology at times.” In characterizing consciousness, Searle writes that “There is a certain subjective qualitative feel to every conscious state. One aspect of this subjectivity, and it is a necessary aspect, is that conscious states always come to us in a unified form” (2003, p. 13). Vygotsky, in addition to taking an objective approach to subjectivity, also attributed unity to consciousness, 75 Steven G. McCafferty “Consciousness is primordially something unitary” (Vygotsky, 1997a, p. 130, italics original). However, much of the research in psychology remains reductionist and metaphysical through divisions of psychological phenomena into separate spheres of study. Searle (2003), for example, criticizes the approach in neuropsychology that focuses on finding the neurobiological correlate of consciousness for a single perceptual element, “seeing the color red” (p. 13), which, in Vygotsky’s terms, is more akin to studying the atomic structure of water than water itself. The current line of inquiry that addresses subjectivity in the unity of consciousness has become known as “the hard problem of consciousness,” which Smith and Whitaker (2014, pp. xi–xii) further describe as the connection to quale: “It is what we live through when the dentist drills an aching tooth without benefit of anesthetic, it is what occurs when we regard with pleasure a painting of Breughel the Elder” and “[h]ow . . . the ‘lived-through experience’ [is] related to the goings-on in the cerebral cortex.” Emotions and feelings obviously play a critical role in consciousness. Neurologically, Damasio (2003) contends that all of our thoughts are built on top of emotions and feelings, becoming inextricably intertwined, as argued earlier by both Spinoza and Vygotsky, the latter positing that we only find the “final why” in the analysis of thinking by understanding the “affective and volitional tendency” behind the thought (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 282). As Veresov (2014, p. 127) reminds us, for Vygotsky, “The nature and mystery of human consciousness does not lie in human biology and the brain; it lies in the environment of human history and culture” (A. Dema, translation). Vygotsky’s overall view of consciousness and the impact it has on sociogenesis aligns with the ideas of Marx, who thought of consciousness as embedded in “social systems of activity” (Leontiev, 2014, p. 167), and who also saw a profound link between language and consciousness: “Language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men, and for that reason alone it really exists for me personally as well” (Marx & Engels, 1974, pp. 50–51, cited in Eagleton, 2016, p. 19). Vygotsky echoes the dialectical unity of the social and individual planes of language and consciousness in a manner almost parallel to the quote above in supporting his psychological unit of analysis, “word,” on the last page of his volume, Thinking and Speech (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 285): if language is consciousness that exists in practice for other people and therefore myself, then it is not only the development of thought but the development of consciousness as a whole that is connected with the development of the word. With the internalization of speech, inner sign develops elements that are no longer associated with conventional uses of language or consciousness for “other people,” particularly with regard to semantics, the aspect of language Vygotsky was most interested in at this level, extending meaning-making beyond znachenie or “meaning” to include smysl or “sense,” which he defined as “everything in consciousness which is related to what the word expresses” as linked to “the internal structure of personality” (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 276). In the last years of his life, sense became a major focus for Vygotsky, who expanded it to include motive as an overarching aspect of the interpretation of word/sign meaning. He also started a book on emotions in this period but only finished a critical review of the extant literature. Because of his untimely death, he was never able to make what he considered to be the next most important step in realizing his ambitions for the field of psychology, unifying development, cultural-historical activity, emotions and personality, the study of pathologies and phylogenesis (to name some of the issues he worked on), integrating and 76 Consciousness and Second Language Development transforming his previous work into a dynamic, interfunctional perspective of personhood centered on consciousness. However, this is not to say that what Vygotsky had already accomplished in his theorizing on the structure of consciousness should go unnoticed, which, unfortunately largely has been the case, with notable exceptions. Moreover, as with the extension of other aspects of his thinking, the role of consciousness as part of second language development (SLD) also deserves further research and application as well. There are of course difficulties in doing so but a good deal of promise at the same time. Vygotsky on Consciousness Eighty and more years ago, at the time of Vygotsky’s writings, as pointed out by Yasnitsky and van der Veer (2016, p. 230), the focus on consciousness in Russian psychology was related to the term psikhika, which they suggest best translates as “psyche,” centering on the more subjective dimensions of mind, and used by Vygotsky as well. However, Zavershneva (2014) highlights Vygotsky’s use of soznanie, which as a noun is equivalent to “consciousness,” as found in the title of a book, On the Question of the Investigation of Consciousness, he proposed to write. Vygotsky also used the derivative that as a transitive verb and gerund suggests “to cognize” (Zavershneva, 2014, p. 76). Moreover, Vygotsky was influenced by the traditions of Gestalt psychologists, who used terms such as “meaning,” “significance,” and “value” in association with consciousness (Yasnitsky & van der Veer, 2016, p. 231). However, over time he was able to consolidate these different senses and meanings into a coherent theoretical framework, even though his thinking and research in the area was left unfinished. Vygotsky’s first work on consciousness revolved around Pavlov’s theorizing on reflexology, a focus for many Russian psychologists of the time and also supportive of the American tradition of behaviorism. However, despite the seeming contradiction, Vygotsky believed that the study of consciousness was a viable pursuit within this tradition, defining it in these early contexts as “the interaction, the reflection, the mutual stimulation of various systems of reflexes.” He also considered speech as a “special system of reflexes,” serving as “a transmission vehicle between any other systems of reflexes” and “unvoiced” for the most part as a form of mediation (Vygotsky as cited in Zavershneva, 2014, p. 67). This was, in fact, his first publication and based on a paper he presented in 1924. However, Vygotsky presented a second paper in 1924, one that went beyond the concerns of reflexology (although included), addressing the methodological need to end dualistic subjectivist and objectivist accounts of consciousness, to “materialize” the specifics of consciousness as fundamental to all psychological research (Vygotsky, 1999, cited in Ferrari, Robinson, & Yasnitsky, 2010, p. 104). Moreover, in the publication which followed in 1925, “Consciousness as a Problem in the Study of Behavior,” Vygotsky refers to the “doubling of experience” not only as connected across generations but a moving from the social to the psychological, the basis for both the genetic method and cultural-historical psychology (as cited in Ferrari et al., 2010, p. 104), which he realized more fully in the1930s. It should also be noted that Vygotsky’s dissertation “The Psychology of Art” (1971) was published this same year (1925), which includes reflections on emotions as well as thinking in relation to consciousness and art. By 1927, Vygotsky no longer accepted “reflex” as productive for understanding psychology, switching to sign and sign operations, primarily as manifested in speech, although not addressing consciousness directly during the early part of this next phase (1927–early1930), 77 Steven G. McCafferty according to Zavershneva (2014, p. 69). This is the period when, for example, tying a string on the finger for mnemonic purposes was central to how Vygotsky viewed word/sign as mediator in relation to the higher psychological functions. Also during this period, Vygotsky entertained the idea of “personhood,” alluding to Ludwig Feuerbach in his statement that “it is not thought that thinks: a person thinks” (Vygotsky, 1989, p. 66, cited in Zavershneva, 2014, p. 71). By the end of 1930, Vygotsky had arrived at an understanding of consciousness as a system: “Consciousness determines the fate of the system, just like the organism determines the fate of the functions. Each interfunctional change must be explained by a change of consciousness as a whole” (as cited in Ferrari et al., 2010, p. 107). Three levels of interfunctional connection were posited by Vygotsky. Primary connections he considered to be biological, innate influences. The advent of sign-mediated operations, including language, the second level of connections, brought forth what he called “human consciousness.” The third level of connections concerned the mature functions of regulating behavior through voluntary control as associated with “self-reflection and self-consciousness” (Zavershneva, 2014, p. 73). This new way of thinking also had put an end to the separation of “lower” from “higher” psychological functions as dualistic (p. 74). However, by 1932, Vygotsky had realized the limitations of this approach in explaining the full range of phenomena in consciousness, turning to the understanding of consciousness as a dynamic semantic (“semic”) system as found in Thinking and Speech. What was meaningful about consciousness for Vygotsky comes from its connection to the external word and includes not only thinking, the focus of most of his theorizing up to this point, but emotions, motive, and personality as well (Zavershneva, 2014, pp. 76–77). In expanding on sense as opposed to meaning, Vygotsky made a strong link to motive, that is, to understand the meaning behind the words of others it is necessary to unveil “the most secret internal plane of verbal thinking—its motivation” (Vygotsky 1987, p. 283). A useful illustration of how motive can change sense is found in a study following the methods and theorizing of the Gestalt psychologist Kurt Lewin that Vygotsky undertook in relation to the “workings of consciousness in pathology” (Zavershneva, 2014, p. 88). When a normal child, as compared to a retarded child, was asked to work a bit more on a drawing so that it could be used as either an exemplar or to directly teach another child, “the sense of the situation” changed. With the intervention, the normal child’s “affective drive” increased, altering his orientation. An increase in motivation was also found for the child when offered colored pencils and paints and brushes instead of a simple pencil (Vygotsky 1935, p. 31, cited in Zavershneva, 2014, p. 89). Additionally, during this period, Vygotsky theorized that, developmentally, initially a child’s questions are concerned with sense, not meaning, operating as a “semantic orientation in consciousness,” preparing the understanding of events and objects, a gathering of sense (Vygotsky family archive, cited in Zavershneva, 2016, p. 129). Eventually, speech reaches a more concrete, conceptual level, but development continues, as Vygotsky notes in his “Propositions to A. R. Luria’s talk,” through poetry and the creative use of language, which allow “new paths from the thought to the word . . . and the expression of the inexpressible” (Vygotsky family archive, cited in Zavershneva, 2016, pp. 130–131). In the 1930s, Vygotsky also had moved from a more instrumental perspective to a central concern with the workings of the “inner world” of the individual (Zavershneva, 2016, p. 13), which included imagination, although Vygotsky had recognized its importance much earlier in his 1925 publication, where he wrote, commenting on a quote from Marx: 78 Consciousness and Second Language Development Spiders that spin their web and bees that build cells out of wax do this because of an inherited instinct and in a machine-like manner . . . It is different with a weaver or an architect. As Marx said, they first build their creation in their imagination. The result of the labor process existed in an ideal form before the beginning of this work. (Vygotsky, 1997b, p. 68) However, as Newman and Holzman (1993, p. 49) point out, ultimately, “It is meaningmaking in the emerging activity, not the preconceived imagining” that is critical to what Vygotsky brought to this aspect of consciousness in his later work. The fact that we both collectively and individually imagine not only “things” but ourselves is an aspect of human development as illustrated by Vygotsky (1978, p. 97) through his example of a child who uses a broomstick as a “pivot” to the imagined world of riding a horse during play. Adults continue to imagine new experiences, becoming different in one way or another, imagination helping to construct and realize future possibilities as connected to motive. It is in Thinking and Speech, however, that the quale of consciousness is most readily addressed by Vygotsky (1987, p. 282): The communication of consciousness can be accomplished only indirectly, through a mediated path. This path consists in the internal mediation of thought first by meanings and then by words. Therefore, thought is never the direct equivalent of word meanings. Meaning mediates thought in its path to verbal expression. The path from thought to word is indirect and internally mediated. Vygotsky’s examination of private and inner speech captures some of the dimensions discussed above in relation to sense. The psychological predicate in private speech is tied to either the external or internal world, but with respect to the consciousness of the individual. For example, and following Vygotsky, if a person says, “finally” when a bus arrives, it signifies the sense of extended duration, which could be connected to annoyance, relief, anxiety, and other feelings—significance is registered in consciousness not the externalization of the word which only partially reflects the layers of meaning/sense. Inner speech, of course, has a deeper relation to individual consciousness, Vygotsky (1987, p. 273) stating that “inner speech consists entirely of psychological predicates.” In attempting to objectify inner speech Vygotsky (p. 277) orders the verbal relationship such that there is “a predominance of sense over meaning,” of “phrase over word,” and of “the whole context over the phrase.” Moreover, inner sense turns out to be “incommensurable with the word’s common meaning” (p. 279). For example, the word “coffee” for most of us does not lie in consciousness as a plant, berry, or grounds, instead images of the liquid in a cup in different forms (black, expresso, etc.), taste, aroma, warmth, and other bodily feelings and sensations overwhelm the more conventional meaning of the word. Moreover, overall, as found in Thinking and Speech, inner speech is close to thinking in “pure meanings” (p. 280), which entails “operat[ing] not with the word itself but with its image” (p. 262). Also in the 1930s, Vygotsky had finally begun to push past cognition into emotions outside of word, concentrating on personality in relation to consciousness. Although his book A Theory of Emotions was never completed, he established a developmental unit of analysis, perezhivanie, during the last year of his life, transitioning from sense to a focus on the internal world of emotions as tied to the external world, i.e., the interrelation of person and environment, or how a “personality” experiences an event (Zavershneva, 2014, pp. 90–91). 79 Steven G. McCafferty Vygotsky (1994) illustrates perezhivanie as a form of development through recounting one of his clinical cases involving the children of a mentally ill and alcoholic mother, arguing that each of the three children, who vary in age, experienced the environment, psychologically, in a different manner: the youngest child developed a sense of helplessness and depression; the middle child simultaneously experienced a feeling of hatred and attachment to the mother; and the eldest child felt pity towards the mother but also an urge to protect the younger siblings. The perezhivanie of each child differs as each “becomes aware of, interprets, and emotionally relates to [the] event” (1994, p. 341). Perezhivanie takes place through reflective and “refractive” thinking. Obviously, speech is critical to this aspect of the process, perezhivanie encompassing all forms of sense. Zavershneva (2014, pp. 91–92), also observes that “The more personality is developed, the better the external social world is represented in the inner world of the person,” as leading to both self-actualization and a more ideal society, both of which were concerns for Vygotsky at one time in his career. Although Vygotsky was never able to realize his ambition of unifying the study of consciousness, the force that this task held for him is immediately apparent in the last note that we are aware of, which centers on the promise he felt for this next stage of his work and his regret at not being able to carry it out (Vygotsky family archive, cited in Zavershneva, 2016, p. 126): This is the last thing I did in psychology – and I will die on the summit, just like Moses who saw the promised land but did not enter it. Forgive me, dear creations. The rest is silence. Applications to Second Language Development Although expression of the importance that Vygotsky accorded consciousness has been noted a number of times in the literature on sociocultural theory (SCT) and SLD, its implications have not been fully explored. This may be understandable, however, given that Vygotsky himself was unable to complete work on a theory of consciousness and that even his students and colleagues, with the possible exception of Luria (see Zavershneva, 2014, p. 93), failed to take on the difficult task begun by Vygotsky. Nevertheless, it worth considering four areas of SCT/SLD in connection to the Vygotskian sense of the cultural-historical genesis of consciousness, but primarily at the intrapersonal level—the level Vygotsky was exploring in his final work. The first concerns “inhabitance” of a L2 languaculture; the second, “instruction,” focuses on forms of mediating SLD for advanced learners; the third, “embodiment,” considers the unity of consciousness in relation to the study of SLD at this level; and the fourth addresses perezhivanie. Inhabitance Vygotsky’s “law of cultural development” concerns psychological movement from the social to the individual. However, in the case of adult L2 learners, there is already a languaculture (Agar, 1994) in place and so agency is exercised with regard to becoming a member of a new group. A strong cultural-historical link between languacultures would seem, overall, to facilitate this process. According to Schumann (2013) Sprachbunds or areal languages converge structurally over time, although with separate lexicons. Because of regional proximity and other underlying 80 Consciousness and Second Language Development shared elements, partially the forces that are driving convergence to begin with, there are meaning/sense parallels for lexical items and grammatical structure, as found for example for Indo-Aryan languages in India and Anglo-Saxon and Celt in Britain. At a more micro-genetic level, Römer et al. (2014) found that collocational preferences (words that are found together frequently) from the L1 influenced responses concerning collocations and lexical meaning in the L2 when the L1 and L2 were from typologically similar languages (sharing conceptual similarities in relation to motion events, e.g., “They flew over the city”). For instance, German learners of L2 English (same typology) “associated over with verbs of directed motion” (as in the example above) as did English native speakers. However, L2 learners of English from a different typology, Spanish in the study, were found to “instead think of metaphorical uses such as get over and take over” (pp. 964–965). When such typological differences exist, Römer et al. (2014, p. 967), quoting Jarvis and Pavlenko (2000, p. 152), recommended “extensive interaction in a variety of contexts with members of the target language community,” suggesting naturalistic exposure to gain a sense of how the L2 differs as a system at this level. Further support for the possibility of “native-like” linguistic inhabitance comes from the study of “event-related potentials” (ERPs). According to Steinhauer (2014, p. 3), this research addresses the “temporal dynamics of language processes in real time” and “primarily reflect[s] perception processes” as related to complex pattern recognition (p. 6). What is tested is a comparison between two conditions, linguistic violation and its correct control, through tracking the electrical signals of the brain by use of electrodes attached to the scalp. Over the course of many such studies, this method of research has been found reliable “to study both the acquisition of vocabulary knowledge and its semantic integration in second language learners” (p. 6), addressing meaning at the conventional (znachenie) level. Steinhauer (2014) argues that ERP studies since 2005 have consistently found that nativelike L2 proficiency results in native-like ERPs, which provides support for the convergence hypothesis, that “there are no biological constraints that would prevent L2 learners from using the same brain mechanisms found in native speakers.” Moreover, “typological similarity between L1 and L2 modulates results, pointing to transfer effects and co-activation of both languages” (p. 15), lending support to why Sprachbunds foster SLD and the findings of Römer et al. (2014). Although of course ERPs are not synonymous with consciousness, they offer potentially valuable insights into consciousness as neurolinguistic phenomena. Of further interest, Steinhauer (2014) also considered the importance of exposure to a L2 as related to ERPs, citing Tanner et al. (2013), who found that ERPs were associated with individual proficiency, not length of exposure to the L2. This evidence together with his own findings leads Steinhauer to argue that “individual motivation levels to overcome L1 influences might play a powerful role” (2014, p. 21) in SLD. However, the deeper roots of cultural-historical consciousness, sociogenesis, or the act of becoming a member of a languaculture, entails much beyond conventional linguistic usage and will be addressed in following sections of the chapter. Instruction The assessment by Steinhauer (2014) that motivation can overcome a lack of naturalistic exposure to a L2, in terms of producing similar brain wave contours to those of native speakers, supports SCT research that focuses on creating forms of mediation aimed at advanced learners of a L2 who continue to face difficulties due to conceptual differences from the L1. For example, Negueruela (2003) devised a flow chart as a SCOBA (schema of 81 Steven G. McCafferty a complete orienting basis of an action) to facilitate/develop the use of Spanish tense and aspect, allowing learners with teacher assistance to trace how their intended meaning should take shape grammatically through use of the chart, instead of relying on rules of thumb learned in prior classroom exposure—an SCT approach to pedagogy that falls under the umbrella of concept-based instruction (CBI). Although Negueruela’s study did not draw specifically on cognitive linguistics in relation to finding conceptual underpinnings for how and why a language operates the way it does (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, p. 70), subsequent studies have, further integrating the significance that Vygotsky held for the role of concepts in development in what has become another avenue for CBI, systematic theoretical instruction. SCT-informed instruction is of course linked to the zone of proximal development (ZPD), students typically interacting with either one another or an instructor in the process of learning leading development. Dynamic assessment (another form of CBI) is more explicitly tied to the instructor–student loop in the generation of ongoing assessment and teaching as aimed at overcoming a particular difficulty a student may be having, but also free to address other L2 issues that appear during interaction. These forms of instruction, overall, are also connected to the SCT concept of turning the abstract into the concrete, students gaining knowledge, understanding, and consciousness through the process of materialization. Moreover, perezhivanie on a student’s part is involved in an interaction as possibility connected to feelings about working with a particular instructor, perceived need for an intervention (Poehner, 2008), and other aspects of personality more generally. Embodiment Our embodiment also provides cultural/physical manifestations of meaning/sense, particularly as studied through gesture in coordination with speech (co-speech gesture). McNeill (1992) and throughout his iterations of the growth point hypothesis (GPH), that is, the synthesis and convergence of speech and gesture in the development and re-development of thought, as it emerges in co-speech gesture as a form of linguistic sign, takes into account a range of contextual impacts, including, culture, idiosyncrasy, setting and situation, and history of participant interaction. McNeill also links the GP to inner speech, the psychological predicate, and affect; arguing overall, following Vygotsky, that “the role of linguistic signs is to mediate consciousness” (McNeill, 1992, p. 219, italics original). The confluence of speech and gesture is a major step both towards a recognition of the embodiment of meaning/sense-making and the unity of consciousness. With regard to the role of gesture in intellectual development, Roth (2003), whose genetic approach stems from Vygotsky’s, argued that gesture performed a “bridging function” for secondary science students, helping them move from the frequent use of representational gestures in initial explanations of science experiments to a greater reliance on speech and, eventually, writing as they gained greater control of the ideas and language necessary to explain the interrelationship of concepts and actions. Also, Goldin-Meadow (2003 and elsewhere), demonstrates that gesture can reveal development before a child is able to do so verbally, including a “mismatch” circumstance where a child signals comprehension gesturally, while misstating understanding verbally. The externalization of thinking through gesture and the materialization of speech, meaning, and discourse has also been observed in SLD at both the metalinguistic and metadiscursive levels as related to gaining self-regulation in the L2. For example, Negueruela, Lantolf, Jordan, and Gelabert (2004) contended that the L2 speakers’ gestures in their study were overly redundant with speech, a sign that gesture was serving a private function, a 82 Consciousness and Second Language Development way of keeping track of important subject matter in the narrative through placement in space. Additionally, and in relation to cognitive linguistics and inhabitance, L2 researchers have examined whether or not L2 learners’ co-speech gestures change in relation to language typology. Although findings for motion events have been mixed, evidence for a realignment of path gestures from the L1 to the L2 has been found, but a change in manner gestures has proven elusive, only one longitudinal case study having documented such a transformation (Stam, 2015). Also, the production of gestures or gesture articulation, which includes muscular tension, rapidity of arm and hand movements, trajectory through space (hand tracing) can instantiate sense as well as meaning. For example, Kendon (2004) noted heightened muscular tension in general, a straightening and tensing of the fingers, and expanded use of gesture space as aspects of gesture articulation in Italian related to pragmatics. Peltier and McCafferty (2010), studying American university students of Italian, found that both intermediate and advanced learners exhibited these same features. Furthermore, the authors argued that the use of these forms of gesture articulation by students is part of imagining and forming a new sense of self. Moreover, Cienki (1999, cited in Cienki 2013, p. 423) found that “short, tense motion in a straight line forward (away from the speaker . . . in the proper speech context) reflect[s] honest behavior as straight,” a conceptual metaphor tied in consciousness to values as produced through the articulation of gestures in addition to the meaning of the gestures themselves. The reproduction of teachers’ gestures as an aspect of consciousness has also been studied in SLD. Lee (2008) examined seven Korean L1 speakers studying for an undergraduate biology test in the US for three hours, each in private rooms. Lee reported that “Interestingly, gesture patterns similar to those produced by teachers were observed in this study’s private speech data in the form of self-teaching . . . in which the self was a teacher and a learner as well as an animator of the texts” (p. 181), a private reconstruction of interpersonal contexts, possibly facilitating memory. In another study that involved L2 gesture and private speech, McCafferty (1998) found that participants, even with limited exposure to the L2 in naturalistic contexts, nonetheless used American emblematic gestures with their L2 private speech, again, possibly as connected to sense or L2 gesture as leading sense-making. However, overall, the study of gesture and co-speech gesture in relation to sense is limited without the inclusion of analyses of other embodied forms of meaning-making such as posture, eye contact, and head position. Feelings and emotions are especially fundamental to the unity of consciousness and expressed notably through what has been called “body language” and facial expressions. Because these and other nonverbal forms differ across cultures, they should be studied in relation to speech and gesture in the unity of meaning/ sense-making and consciousness as an aspect of SLD. Perezhivanie Perezhivanie is associated with emotional development, especially as arising from psychological crises perceived as meaningful to the individual (Vasilyuk, 1992). People starting a new life in a different languaculture as students or immigrants, for example, can be undertaking a new cultural-historical way of thinking and being in the world, depending on their goals, expectations, and other aspects of contexualization. One of the characteristics of perezhivanie is a simultaneous orientation towards past and future, an aspect of the futurein-the-making, clearly present for those changing eco-social environments. Dema (2015) studied the perezhivanie of five international graduate students in the US, all from Russia and pursuing advanced degrees at universities around the country. Data 83 Steven G. McCafferty were collected through in-depth interviews, biweekly reflection journals, and a focus group meeting between the months of April and September 2014. SLD, as a central feature of the participants’ repositioning themselves as members of their new social contexts, proved a preoccupation, and, of course, all experienced emotional conflicts related to the L2. Institutional membership was a primary motive underlying the pursuit of all participants, especially during the initial stages, and in their professional settings all faced challenges with the L2 in making themselves understood as well as comprehending others, which caused a good deal of anxiety in gaining recognition as legitimate members of their academic communities. This was less of an issue when other students or professors were also L2 speakers. One participant felt that her English was “great” in these contexts and, moreover, that she could talk about and share L2 difficulties with others who faced similar circumstances, making her feel more at ease. Writing proved especially difficult to master in relation to professional expectations and, at times, caused negative evaluations of self-worth; however, meeting with success improved self-efficacy. In order to compensate, participants shifted priorities to attend to other forms of academic achievement, lab work, for example, while also realizing that they could not allow English writing proficiency to define them, that they were more than just non-native speakers of a language, and that making “mistakes” was acceptable in their situation. However, participants visited university writing centers and sought other means to help with their writing difficulties as well. Social life also had its emotional challenges. Participants became aware of their accent in particular, with some less accepting of it than others, which led to conscious efforts at monitoring and changing pronunciation. Generally, however, even in the case of continued difficulties, participants came to accept their accent. Colloquialisms and fluency also created problems, leading some participants to avoid perceived unfavorable communicative circumstances, for example, engaging in arguments. One of the participants also decided to ignore aspects of American culture brought up in conversation that she was unaware of. A lack of cultural competency, in general, led participants to perceive Americans as not wanting to talk to them as “foreigners,” which proved frustrating. Dealing with people who exhibited “stereotypes” and “prejudices” was, of course, especially disheartening. However, none of the participants reached the point of feeling alienated from the U.S. languaculture, and importantly, all began to appreciate the Russian languaculture to a degree they had not felt before living in the US. Furthermore, all reported having gained more self-confidence and self-reliance as a result of meeting the challenges they faced in the US, perezhivanie at this level becoming a positive factor in development. Moreover, all of the participants reported reaching levels of L2 proficiency that brought satisfaction, allowing them to pursue both their professional and personal goals. Unfortunately, however, advanced knowledge of a L2 does not always lead to a sense of well-being. The case of Eva Hoffman is particularly well-known and involves a loss of identity (Hoffman, 1989, p. 107, cited in Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000, p. 165): I wait for that spontaneous flow of inner language which used to be my nighttime talk with myself . . . Nothing comes. Polish, in a short time, has atrophied, shriveled from sheer uselessness. Its words don’t apply to my new experiences; they’re not coeval with any of the objects, or faces, or the very air I breathe in the daytime. In English, the words have not penetrated to those layers of my psyche from which a private connection could proceed. 84 Consciousness and Second Language Development Hoffman evidently no longer felt an inner sense connection to the L1 in the new language and world that she inhabited in the US. At the same time, however, development of an English inner sense had not taken sufficient shape to mediate her “private connection” either, a predicament not completely unlike what Vygotsky described in the case of schizophrenia, the person losing coherent verbal interaction with the self (Vygotsky family archive, cited in Zavershneva, 2010, p. 64). The loss of language identity as related to perezhivanie is potentially an important aspect of research for applied linguists with an SCT orientation. Future Directions Clearly, a salient trajectory for SCT as related to SLD research has been a focus on mediation as leading learners to come to comprehend and produce the L2 as conventionally situated within its cultural-historical parameters both structurally and socially, that is, meaning-making. Perhaps the mainstay of this research, although including the study of intrapersonal forms of mediation, has been on pedagogical concepts and actions that promote internalization through interaction. The inclusion of a specific focus on consciousness only would seem to complement this approach. The comprehension and production of L2 embodied sense-making is obviously an area of research where greater emphasis should arise from a perspective on consciousness, including an embodied approach beyond speech and gesture. There are clear pedagogical implications for such a focus as well. For example, students watch video-recorded interactions then discuss sense-making as found in the language and discourse in conjunction with embodied features as connected to feelings and emotions. Students could also be asked to imitate and/or perform what they have seen and discussed. These are not new pedagogical tools, of course, nor is the concept entirely new to SCT and SLD either; for example, Strategic Interaction (Di Pietro, 1987) is a method based on SCT that requires students to act out scenarios dramaturgically. However, language use is the primary concern of this approach, including pragmatics and some aspects of embodied meaning, not sense-making explicitly. Internalization is more complex than making meaning at a conventional level, and although this is a goal that learners need not go beyond, another area of study and research for SCT consciousness and SLD entails internalization as changes in inner sense. There are people who through motivation and agency in connection with perezhivanie embrace new ways of being and doing in the world, at times leading to reconceptualization and inhabitance, a process which also includes bidirectional influences, that is, occupying a “third space” between the L1 and L2 languacultures. Building further connections to consciousness should add to a better understanding of all such phenomena. The study of perezhivanie has implications for much of SLD. Dema (2015), for example, suggests that the experience of the participants in her study should lead to curricular changes when addressing the language-learning needs of international students in the US. Additionally, of course, as people, L2 learners orient to curriculum and L2 learning in different ways, a topic that should be investigated further in relation to activity, motivation, self-regulation, participation, interaction, mediation, and so on, as critical concerns within SCT. Overall, by taking into consideration personhood as a whole, that is, accepting consciousness as inalienable to SCT, new pathways should open up both within applied linguistics and the study of SLD, perhaps also further integrating and consolidating research around what Vygotsky, in the end, believed to be key to understanding his approach to psychology. 85 Steven G. McCafferty References Agar, M. (1994). Language shock: Understanding the culture of conversation. New York: Morrow. Cienki, A. (2013). Image schemas and mimetic schemas in cognitive linguistics and gesture studies. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 11(2), 417–432. Damasio, A. R. (2003). Looking for Spinoza: Joy, sorrow, and the feeling brain. 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Contrasts in gesticulation. A Neapolitan and a British speaker compared. In R. Posner, & C. Muller (Eds.), The Semantics and Pragmatics of Everyday Gestures (pp. 173–193). Berlin: Weidler. Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (2014). Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative in L2 education. New York: Routledge. Lee, J. (2008). Gesture and private speech in second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30(2), 169–190. Leontiev, A. N. (2014). Activity and consciousness. Revista Dialectus, 2(4), 160–183. McCafferty, S. G. (1998). Nonverbal expression and L2 private speech. Applied Linguistics, 19(1), 73–96. McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Negueruela, E. (2003). A sociocultural approach to the teaching and learning of second languages: Systemic-theoretical instruction and L2 development. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Negueruela, E., Lantolf, J. P., Jordan, S. R., & Gelabert, J. (2004). The “private function” of gesture in second language speaking activity: A study of motion verbs and gesturing in English and Spanish. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14(1), 113–147. Newman, F., & Holzman, L. (1993). Lev Vygotsky revolutionary scientist. New York: Routledge. Pavlenko, A., & Lantolf, J. P. (2000). Second language learning as participation and the (re)construction of selves. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 155–177). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peltier, I. N., & McCafferty, S. G. (2010). Gesture and identity in the teaching and learning of Italian. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 17(4), 331–349. Poehner, M. E. (2008). Both sides of the conversation: The interplay between mediation and learner reciprocity in dynamic assessment. In J. P. Lantolf & M. E. Poehner (Eds.), Sociocultural theory and the teaching of second languages (pp. 33–56). London: Equinox. Römer, U., Roberson, A., O’Donnell, M. B., & Ellis, N. C. (2014). Linking learner corpus and experimental data in studying second language learners’ knowledge of verb-argument constructions. ICAME Journal, 38(1), 115–135. Roth, W. M. (2003). From epistemic (ergotic) actions to scientific discourse: The bridging function of gestures. Pragmatics & Cognition, 11(1), 141–170. 86 Consciousness and Second Language Development Schumann, J. H. (2013). Societal responses to adult difficulties in L2 acquisition: Toward an evolutionary perspective on language acquisition. Language Learning, 63(1), 190–209. Searle, J. R. (2003). Philosophy in a new century: Selected essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, C. U. M., & Whitaker, H. (2014). Introduction. In C. U. M. Smith, & H. Whitaker (Eds.), Brain, mind and consciousness in the history of neuroscience (pp. xi–xii). New York: Springer. Stam, G. (2015). Changes in thinking for speaking: a longitudinal case study. 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Thinking and speech. In The Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of general psychology (R. W. Rieber & A. Carton, Eds.) (pp. 37–285). New York: Plenum Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1994). The problem of the environment. In R. van der Veer & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Vygotsky reader (pp. 338–354). Oxford: Blackwell Press Vygotsky, L. S. (1997a). The problem of consciousness. In R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock (Eds.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 3: Problems of the history and theory of psychology (pp. 129–138). New York: Plenum. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997b). Consciousness as a problem in the psychology of behavior. In R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock (Eds.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 3: Problems of the history and theory of psychology (pp. 63–79). New York: Plenum. Yasnitsky, A., & van der Veer, R. (2016). “Lost in translation”: Talking about sense, meaning, and consciousness. In A. Yasnitsky & R. van der Veer (Eds.), Revisionist Revolution in Vygotsky Studies (pp. 229–240). New York: Routledge. Zavershneva, E. (2010). The way to freedom. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 84(1), 61–90. Zavershneva, E. (2014). The problem of consciousness in Vygotsky’s cultural-historical psychology. In A. Yasnitsky, R. van der Veer, & M. Ferrari (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of culturalhistorical psychology (pp. 63–97). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zavershneva, E. (2016). Vygotsky the unpublished: An overview of the personal archive (1912–1934). In A. Yasnitsky & R. van der Veer (Eds.), Revisionist revolution in Vygotsky studies (pp. 127–137). New York: Routledge. Further Reading González Rey, F. L. (2010). Subject, subjectivity, and development in cultural-historical Psychology. In B. van Oers, W. Wardekker, E. Elbers, & E. D. van der Veer (Eds.), The transformation of learning: Advances in cultural-historical activity theory (pp. 137–156). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The author gives a thoughtful account of Vygotsky’s treatment of “sense” in subjectivity. 87 Steven G. McCafferty Gregersen, T., & Macintyre, P. D. (2017). Optmizing language learners’ nonverbal behavior. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. This volume addresses the need for integrating forms of nonverbal behavior into SLD in conjunction with emotions and feelings and as expressed verbally as well, providing activities for doing so. Rosa, A. (2007). Acts of psyche: Actuations as synthesis of semiosis and action. In J. Valsiner & A. Rosa (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology (pp. 205–237). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The author puts forth his thesis on the process of “Actuation,” that is, becoming a member of a community within cultural-historical surrounds. Roth, W. M., & Jornet, A. (2017). Vygotsky, Spinoza, and cultural psychology of education. In W. M. Roth & A. Jornet (Eds.), Understanding educational psychology: A late Vygotskian, Spinozist approach (pp. 1–26). New York: Springer. This chapter is a recent, interesting attempt to interpret Vygotsky’s final work on consciousness. Stetsenko, A. (2017). The transformative mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The author takes a view that follows a more critical, Marxist perspective on education, but within the Vygotskian tradition, emphasizing the need to view students as people. 88 6 Understanding Development Through the Perezhivanie of Learning Nikolai Veresov and Nelson Mok Introduction The development of Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory was in response to the lack of a theoretical and methodological language specific to the study of the uniquely human cultural development of higher mental functions. In the period from 1928 to 1931, when Vygotsky focused his efforts on understanding the sociogenesis of higher mental functions, he developed the foundational concepts of sign, mediation, and internalization. Together with the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and private speech, these concepts have formed the basis for the sociocultural approach to second language acquisition. However, from 1931 to 1934, Vygotsky shifted his focus to analyzing the structure and (re)organization of consciousness, understood as a dynamic, semantic system that includes not only cognition, but also emotional and personal dimensions. From this period emerged the concepts of perezhivanie (approximately translated as “emotional experience” or “lived experience”), the social situation of development, neoformations, and word-meaning. This period was also marked by a shift from analysis by elements, to analysis by units. This chapter explicates the concept of perezhivanie as understood during this period, as well as its consequences for SLA research. Specifically, we seek to discuss 1) the potential to understand development through investigating the perezhivanie of learning, and 2) ways in which the concept can be applied to investigating L2 learning. To do this, we begin with a foundation in the historical and philosophical context from which the concept emerges, briefly examining its implications and interpretations, before examining its particular theoretical and methodological contribution to SLA research. Introducing Perezhivanie: Theoretical and Methodological Contexts The theoretical and methodological contexts from which perezhivanie emerges inform its usage within cultural-historical theory and its potential application to understanding L2 learning. In this section, we examine these two contexts. 89 Nikolai Veresov and Nelson Mok Theoretical Context: Perezhivanie as a Concept From 1928 to 1931, Vygotsky approached the understanding of human mental development through conceptualizing the sociogenetic process by which higher mental functions come to be (Vygotsky, 1997). The theoretical approach is embodied in the fundamental concepts developed during this period—sign, mediation, internalization, the concept of higher mental functions—and which inform the theoretical language of what has come to be known as the sociocultural approach. From 1932 to 1934, however, Vygotsky had shifted from an understanding of development as the sociogenesis of individual higher mental functions, to an understanding of development as the systemic reorganization of interfunctional relations in human consciousness (Vygotsky, 1994, 1998). This followed “the emergence of a new theory of consciousness as a dynamic, semantic system” (Zavershneva, 2010, p. 35) from around 1932. Higher mental functions (e.g., logical memory, abstract thinking, voluntary attention) were no longer viewed as concrete and separate functions, but instead, as psychological systems: higher order unities of lower and higher functions (Vygotsky, 1999, p. 43). This new systemic and holistic approach to consciousness became the central line of research for Vygotsky. From this perspective, development is characterized by “qualitative neoformations” (Vygotsky, 1998, p. 189). Here, “neoformation” refers to a new construction of an individual’s consciousness and mental functions that emerges through the reorganization of the whole system of functions in consciousness during the process of development (Vygotsky, 1998, Chapter 6). The new approach required the development of theoretical concepts specific to particular educational issues so that research based on such concepts would speak to the object of study. For example, in the study of learning and development in educational settings, Vygotsky developed the now well-known concept of the ZPD as a tool and method of investigating development in learning (Vygotsky, 1935). In examining the development of thinking and speech in children, he elaborated the concepts of wordmeaning and private speech (Vygotsky, 1987). Another of the concepts developed during this time was that of perezhivanie. The concept of perezhivanie can be understood through two texts written during this time: “The problem of the environment” (Vygotsky, 1994) and “The problem of age” (Vygotsky, 1998, Chapter 6). First, perezhivanie is given the phenomenological definition as “how a child becomes aware of, interprets, and emotionally relates to a certain event” (Vygotsky, 1994, pp. 340–341). Here, perezhivanie is not merely an emotional experience but a complex psychological phenomenon, a unity and nexus of different psychological processes such as awareness and interpretation, among others. Second, perezhivanie is also given a methodological definition as a concept which “allows us to study the role and influence of environment on the psychological development of children in the analysis of the laws of development” (Vygotsky, 1994, p. 343). It permits such a study since it is in its “refraction” through an individual’s perezhivanie that the influence of particular aspects of the social environment in which the individual participates is determined (and therefore, empirically identifiable). Just as the ZPD is a concept for analyzing development in learning, here, perezhivanie emerges as the tool for analyzing the role of the environment in development. Methodological Context: Perezhivanie as a Unit of Analysis The shift to the study of psychological systems also necessitated the development of new tools of analysis. These systems were understood as complex unities of psychological functions, and greater than the sum of its constituent parts. That is, they could not be understood 90 Development and Perezhivanie as analogous to a machine, in which the parts, elements, and processes are separated and only extrinsically connected. Rather, the psychological system—a living, developing system—has properties and interrelations not deducible from the analysis of its parts. Thus, Vygotsky proposed, analysis of such a system required an analysis by units, rather than elements. While both units and elements are parts of a whole, it is only the unit that retains characteristics of, and can therefore give insight to, the whole. The well-known example is that of the analysis of water: its capacity to extinguish fire cannot be easily explained through analysis of the elements of hydrogen (which burns) and oxygen (which sustains combustion), but instead must be explained through an analysis of the unit of the molecule, in which oxygen and hydrogen are in a unity (Vygotsky, 1987, p.45). For understanding the development of verbal thinking, Vygotsky (1987) introduced the unit of word-meaning, in which thought and speech were in a unity. For understanding the social situation of development, Vygotsky identified perezhivanie as the unit of analysis. The social situation of development is a concept which is not related to the development of any single separate higher mental function (e.g., thinking, memory, voluntary attention), but instead takes the individual and environment as a single complex unity rather than two separate parts (Vygotsky, 1998, p. 198). The social situation of development defines what could potentially develop during a particular period relative to a particular person and the forces that motivate this development. It is in its unit of analysis, perezhivanie, that characteristics of the environment (i.e., the objective external conditions being experienced) and individual characteristics (i.e., how it is being experienced) are both represented (Vygotsky, 1994, p. 342). Though many people can share the same objective social situation, it is their experience—their perezhivanie of this situation—that will determine each individual’s unique social situation of development. Thus, in the experimental study of an individual’s perezhivanie, a researcher is able to identify 1) which characteristics of the environment affected development, and 2) which personal characteristics participated in a particular perezhivanie. Therefore, though different people may learn in a given social situation, the developmental outcome of their learning differs depending on how this situation is refracted in their perezhivanie to create their unique social situation of development. In the following section, we briefly discuss aspects of Vygotsky’s philosophical foundation that warrant such an approach. Perezhivanie and Dialectics of Developing Systems Though a full explication of dialectical materialist philosophy and its place in the Soviet science of the time is a complex matter beyond the scope of this chapter, we can briefly summarize the two components. First, “dialectical” refers to the dialectical epistemology of understanding phenomena as containing a unity of contradictory aspects, the resolution and synthesis of which constitutes development of those phenomena. The “materialist” component refers to a material monistic ontology, in which the world is understood as consisting only of matter or matter in motion. Thus, the mind is understood as a higher form of the organization of matter, and which has a basis in the material facts and phenomena of culture. Two aspects of the dialectical conceptualization of development are relevant here to understanding the role of perezhivanie in Vygotsky’s work: contradiction and qualitative reorganization. According to dialectics, development requires the contradiction of internal contradistinctions, the resolution of which constitutes development. To study development dialectically is to identify these unified oppositions in the developing system. The mind, for example, is 91 Nikolai Veresov and Nelson Mok understood as developing through the resolution of contradictions (e.g., between the desires of or demands imposed upon a person, and their ability to fulfill those desires and demands) within the cultural world. Development is also transformative. Though there exist different types of transformation, it is only qualitative reorganization that it is considered development from the point of view of dialectics. For example, as a caterpillar enters the pupa stage in preparation for its metamorphosis into a butterfly, its cells begin to rearrange within the cocoon. However, this is only a quantitative change, a reconfiguration. It is only at the point at which this reconfiguration results in the qualitative transformation into the butterfly form—which behaves and is structured differently to the caterpillar—that it can be considered development, according to dialectics. Thus, although the human mind can undergo many quantitative changes, it is at the crucial moments in which qualitative changes occur, marked by the reorganization of the entire psychological system by new mental functions, that there is development in a dialectical sense. For instance, within the context of second language acquisition, it is possible to view the accumulation of lexical knowledge as a quantitative change, with more developmentally significant qualitative change occurring once the target language becomes a tool for thinking—first in private speech, then in inner thought— as it begins to reorganize the whole psychological system. Here, we can follow the example of the three children from “The problem of the environment” (Vygotsky, 1994) to show the relationship between perezhivanie and the dialectic tenets of contradiction and qualitative reorganization in complex developing systems. The example is of three children from a family where the mother drinks and suffers from several psychological and behavioral disorders. The children were living in conditions of dread and fear due to these circumstances; however, their development was each disrupted in different ways despite being in the same situation. The youngest child developed a number of neurotic symptoms of a defensive nature (e.g., attacks of terror, enuresis, a stammer, depression, etc.). The second child was in a state of inner conflict expressed in a simultaneously positive and negative attitude toward the mother: “a terrific attachment to her and an equally terrific hate for her, combined with terribly contradictory behavior” (First author’s translation from Russian, Vygotsky, 2001, p. 74). Finally, the third and eldest child “showed signs of some precocious maturity, seriousness and solicitude” (Vygotsky, 1994, p. 340). He understood the situation, pitied his mother, and took a special role of the senior member of the family, the only one whose duty it was to look after everyone else. Though the three children were in the same social situation, the developmental impact of this situation differed for each of them as they developed in different ways. That is, their social situations of development differed. Although the existence of a contradiction (which is the moving force of development) and qualitative reorganization (which constitutes development) within their social situations of development is inferred, it is only through examination of perezhivanie that we can come to understand the specific personal and situational characteristics that determined these aspects of the children’s social situations of development at a particular moment. Accordingly, Vygotsky (1994) explains their different perezhivanie of the situation. The first child experiences the situation as an “inexplicable, incomprehensible horror” (p. 341). The second experiences a clash between his attachment and fear of his mother (which is expressed in his attitude toward her). And the third experiences the situation as a “misfortune which has befallen the family and which required him to . . . try to mitigate the misfortune” (p. 341, emphasis added). It is through such an analysis that it becomes possible to understand their developmental paths in terms of the contradictions that motivate the differing qualitative reorganizations in each child. For example, the eldest child experiences a contradiction between his role as a child and the new demand, created 92 Development and Perezhivanie by the situation, for him to become a caretaker for his siblings, leading to the qualitative reorganization of his psychological characteristics (i.e., his precocious maturity, seriousness, and solicitude). In the context of learning, understanding a learner’s perezhivanie leads us to an understanding of the dialectics of development in terms of 1) what contradictions within the learning situation provoke a learner’s development, and 2) what qualitative changes (i.e., forms of development) have occurred. Implications of Perezhivanie for SLA Research Given that the new approach to understanding development is manifest in the concept of perezhivanie through these particular characteristics, we can now outline two of its contributions to sociocultural theory. First, the sociogenetic nature of human mental development entails that the forms of development that later appear in an individual must first exist in that individual’s environment. Specifically, it exists not in the concrete circumstances that are also identical for others who are in the same situation—that is, the social situation—but instead exists in the concrete circumstances relative to a particular individual’s unique characteristics—that is, it exists in their social situation of development. When made visible for analysis, perezhivanie is the unit by which we can come to understand what this social situation of development constitutes for a particular individual. It is in understanding the social situation of development that we are able to discover the dialectical contradiction that exists and that constitutes the moving force for new development to occur. We are also able to identify the neoformation that appears to the individual and which will define that social situation of development. That is, when this neoformation, a qualitative reorganization, has developed in the individual, the social situation of development will also change, even if the objective social situation has not. As a simplified example, the development of phonemic discrimination in the L2 may characterize one social situation of development, motivated by the contradiction between the need to discern different spoken words, and the inability to do so. As this ability develops, a new social situation of development, perhaps characterized by the development of intonational awareness, emerges, driven by new contradictions that now exist only as a result of the ability to discern phonemes. Second, perezhivanie allows us to more closely examine the reflexive relationship between learning and development and to do so in a holistic manner. Learning leads development, but subsequent development changes the nature of learning. The nature of an individual’s learning is thus dynamic; the way in which they learn and view their environment changes with development. While the concept of the ZPD can be used to assess the development in terms of particular mental functions, perezhivanie considers development in terms of neoformations, thereby accounting for qualitative changes to consciousness as a whole—that is, it includes not only mental functions, but also affective, cognitive, personal dimensions, and so on, and the way in which their interrelations have changed. Thus, through perezhivanie, we are able to understand the relationship between an individual’s consciousness and the environment, and the ways in which this changes with development. Issues in Interpretation Difficulties in translating the word “perezhivanie” to English and the differing theoretical paradigms and interests from which the concept has been approached have led to a variety of interpretations. In this section, we briefly introduce two of the predominant kinds of interpretations: perezhivanie as emphasizing emotion, and perezhivanie as emphasizing cognition. 93 Nikolai Veresov and Nelson Mok The editors and translators of the volume in which Vygotsky’s discussion of perezhivanie first appears note that the translation of the term into English as “emotional experience” or “interpretation” are both inadequate for conveying the idea expressed by perezhivanie (Vygotsky, 1994, R. van der Veer & J. Valsiner Eds. & Trans., p. 354). Some theorists have nonetheless understood “emotional experience” as reflecting the emotional focus of perezhivanie. There are three sets of reasons why such an interpretation has been taken. The first is that the concept can be seen as a means to balance the otherwise cognitive focus of research in particular domains. We discuss this in further detail the context of SLA research, below. The second is that perezhivanie is often linked to Vygotsky’s earlier work in The Psychology of Art (1971), in which the role of affect in interpreting one’s experience of art is theorized. Understood in this way, perezhivanie refers to the role of affect—itself sociocultural in origin—in framing and shaping one’s experience of art such that conflicts can emerge between this “meta-experience” (Smagorinsky & Daigle, 2012) and other emotions. It is in catharsis that this conflict is resolved through a transformation of the individual (Smagorinsky, 2001). Confusingly, Vasilyuk, uses “perezhivanie” to instead refer to this catharsis, defining it as “a special inner activity or inner work” (Vasilyuk, 1991 p. 15) through which an individual withstands and overcomes a usually painful experience. Finally, this notion that perezhivanie is related to specifically painful emotional experience is rooted in links drawn with the everyday Russian verb perezhivat, meaning “to be able to survive after some disaster has overwhelmed you” (Robbins, 2007, December 1). Conversely, A. N. Leontiev, from the perspective of activity theory, interprets Vygotsky’s conceptualization of perezhivanie as emphasizing cognition. On Leontiev’s reading, the effect an environment has on a child’s development understood as being determined by the child’s “degree of comprehension of the environment and on the significance it has for him” (Leontiev, 2005, p. 17, emphasis added). Since this comprehension is based in the development of word-meaning (i.e., the ability to generalize and form concepts) and thus located on the plane of thinking rather than the broader plane of consciousness, it is inadequate for capturing the entire relationship between an individual and their environment. For example, aspects of consciousness beyond the plane of thinking such as personality, relevant for understanding the effect of the environment on development, are not accounted for. As an alternative, Leontiev proposes that activity is the correct unit of analysis for capturing this relationship: from practical activity, word-meaning and thought emerge, and from thought, perezhivanie. Two brief points from Vygotsky’s texts should dispel this interpretation. First, in the discussion of the three children mentioned above, descriptions of their experience are not strictly limited to cognition. The first child experiences an “incomprehensible horror”; the second, a clash between “his strong attachment, and his no less strong feeling of fear, hate, and hostility”; and the third experiences the situation as “a misfortune which has befallen the family” (Vygotsky, 1994, p. 341). At most, these examples are only partly related to thought. Second, in concluding his discussion of word-meaning, Vygotsky (1987) indicates that the plane of thought in which word-meaning exists “has its origins in the motivating sphere of consciousness, a sphere that includes our inclinations and needs, our interests and impulses, and our affect and emotion” (p. 282). He would later define perezhivanie as a unit of consciousness, not thought (Vygotsky, 1998, Chapter 11). Perezhivanie Researching L2 Development If perezhivanie is understood as a logical product of the dialectical materialist philosophy used by Vygotsky, then its relative absence from SLA research can be seen as a continuation 94 Development and Perezhivanie of what Firth and Wagner (1997, 2007) had earlier argued was a tenacious resistance to the full implications of the general shift in the 1970s and 80s toward social-cultural perspectives (including Vygotskian sociocultural theory). Indeed, as Swain (2013) has noted, many scholars who have adopted Vygotsky’s work to date have done so with a focus on cognitive aspects of his theory, divorced from, and in contrast to emotion, reflecting the behaviorist and structuralist origins of SLA. This is despite modern neurobiological research that shows the guiding role of emotional processes in cognition (e.g., Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007), a finding anticipated by Vygotsky (1987) when he writes of the origins of thought in the sphere of consciousness. This neglect of emotion in domains influenced by rationalism and cognitivism, including that of SLA, has also provided the impetus for the recent emergence of the concept of perezhivanie. Its introduction can be traced back to the work of Mahn and John-Steiner (2002), who emphasize its relation to emotion, interpreting perezhivanie as describing “the affective processes through which interactions in the ZPD are individually perceived, appropriated, and represented by the participants” (p. 49, emphasis added) or as relating to the experience of emotional aspects of interaction. While useful in examining issues of cognition, this conceptual focus on affect and emotion over-corrects the cognitive imbalance, instead emphasizing affect rather than its unity with cognition and other aspects of consciousness to which perezhivanie is related. Through the concept of perezhivanie, researchers have generally been directed to the theorization of previously-overlooked emotional aspects of interactions and experience. Irrespective of whether, or the extent to which, the concept ought to emphasize emotion, it has provided a more complete understanding of the role of one’s consciousness in the process of learning. There is a danger, however, that the concept becomes a mere substitute for the word “emotion” (or some combination of otherwise disparate “factors”) and suffers the same theoretical fate. As Swain (2013) argues, emotion, in the SLA literature, has been understood as an independent variable. She explains, “emotions influence language learning, and the reverse relationship, that language learning may influence emotions, is rarely considered” (p. 197). Though perezhivanie refers to one’s experience of their environment as informed by past experiences and present characteristics, an understanding of the content of this experience is only half the picture; relatively less-theorized is what kind of development a changed experience reflects. Consequently, much of the research using perezhivanie relates to understanding how an individual experiences their environment, and/or how this experience can be supported or made more optimal to encourage learning (e.g., Brennan, 2016; Chen, 2014; Cross, 2012; Mahn & John-Steiner, 2002). In sum, the focus has been on understanding the mediating role of perezhivanie for learning, overlooking the ways in which perezhivanie provides evidence of the development that occurs as a result of learning. Perhaps due to an uncertainty as to how perezhivanie is to be used in understanding language learning and language learners, there are, currently, only a handful of studies examining L2 learning with the concept at the center of analysis. In examining the contentand-language-integrated-learning (CLIL) classroom, Cross (2012) uses perezhivanie to conceptualize the personal affective historical foundation upon which learners appropriate the tools in the environment for facilitating their learning and subsequent development. Closely following Mahn and John-Steiner’s conceptualization, Garratt (2012) examines the affective perceptions by ESL students of peer-to-peer text chat, while Kang (2007) theorizes the role of past and immediate experience, and self-evaluated identity, in shaping (and being shaped by) learners’ perezhivanie, conceptualized as a learner’s cognitive 95 Nikolai Veresov and Nelson Mok and affective perception of their environment. Finally, Mok (2013) uses perezhivanie in an autoethnographic study of his learning of Mandarin as an L2 to understand the experience of both the language and of the learning process and the way this experience changes over time with development. Overall, perezhivanie has provided a means to address the underlying cognitivism of SLA, and like Firth and Wagner’s (2007) use of conversation analysis (CA), guide analyses that are participant-centered. Such an approach shifts the focus away from how language can be taught, and instead provides insight into the process of L2 learning from the perspective of the learner themselves rather than from that of the researcher. Furthermore, this holistic perspective does not consider the learner or the environment as independent entities that have an external relation to each other, but rather as intrinsically related, requiring both to be considered together as a unity. The next section discusses some of the methods used by researchers to investigate perezhivanie. Methods for Researching Perezhivanie Setting aside conceptual issues regarding perezhivanie, we can now turn to the methods by which perezhivanie can be made visible for analysis. Broadly speaking, contemporary research using perezhivanie uses either observational or self-report methods, or a combination of both for the purposes of triangulation or enriching datasets. Here we briefly discuss these methods, their limitations, and issues of validity. Observational methods have been crucial for researchers examining perezhivanie, especially in early childhood research where the research participants—children—may be pre-verbal or unable to communicate their experiences to the researcher. Such methods rely on an understanding that behavior is shaped by, and thus evidence for, the individual’s experience of the world. Some researchers take this notion further in arguing that thought and emotion are in fact distributed in interaction and activities, thus making them available for analysis and subsequent interpretation. For example, Roth (2008) and Stone and Thompson (2014) analyze verbal and non-verbal features as expressions of emotive states and stancetaking, respectively. However, as Brennan (2016) argues in her study of early childhood teachers, the expression of an emotion may not match how it is being felt. We return to this issue of validity shortly. Self-report methods ostensibly allow for analysis of perezhivanie from a perspective that is closer to the learner than can be achieved in observational methods. By self-report methods, we intend to refer to a range of related methods that require the research subject to express or recount their experience as rich, thick descriptions for analysis. Such methods include, but are not limited to written or spoken reports, narrative and diary studies, interviews (e.g., stimulated interviews; Cross, 2012) and discussions, dialogue journals (Mahn & John-Steiner, 2002), and autoethnographies (Mok, 2013). As with observation, there is the validity issue of the disjuncture between the experience (i.e., the perezhivanie itself) and the expression of that experience, and this is compounded by a number of factors (Polkinghorne, 2007). First, a research subject is only able to convey aspects of experience of which they are cognitively aware and can access through introspection. For example, an individual may not yet fully understand a particular affective experience and its effect on behavior (Bouchard et al., 2008). Second, this expression is further restricted by the limits of language and the linguistic ability of the subject. As Vygotsky states, “the thought is a cloud from which speech is shed in drops” (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 134, emphasis in the original), and the transition 96 Development and Perezhivanie from thought to speech is a heavily mediated, indirect process (Vygotsky, 1987). Third, the subject may be unwilling to express their true feelings and understandings so as to project a particular personal or professional identity to the researcher, especially where rapport and trust has not yet been adequately established. Finally, the produced texts are not reflections of reality, but instead (co-)constructions mediated by interactions with and cues from the interviewer/researcher. These issues are especially pronounced where the elicited text is considered only for its content, or what Pavlenko (2007) describes as a narrative’s “subject reality.” If the construction of the narrative is considered part of the subject’s ongoing experience in the environment rather than, as it were, an outside, objective reflection of it, then the text can also be analyzed in terms of its “text reality,” that is, how the subject presents themselves through language in the text. Subsequently, this additional layer of analysis may consist of understanding what is emphasized or omitted, the words and concepts that are chosen to describe experience, the way in which the narrative is structured, and so on. For example, in the process of collecting self-report by early childhood teachers, and in light of her understanding of other studies that confirm the centrality of emotion, Brennan (2016) argues that her subjects appeared to be omitting emotion from their accounts. Though she formulates various hypotheses for this omission, which contradicts her theoretical expectations, she concludes that it is difficult to access accurate recollections of past experiences since “recall involves the past, which is always understood through the person’s perspective of the current experience and often changed understanding of the phenomenon” (p. 8). These filtered, refracted, and mediated accounts, we argue, do not hinder analyses of experience, but in fact, form part of a dialectical analysis. If, as Brennan subsequently hypothesized, professional discourses were mediating these self-reports, then the next questions might be, why, and to what extent these discourses contribute to that individual’s perezhivanie in general, and their perezhivanie of past experience. This idea of one’s experience of experience is echoed in Smagorinsky and Daigle’s (2012) conceptualization of metaexperience (which they argue is perezhivanie)— the framing of experience into a meaningful text of events such that the individual has an awareness of an experience as an experience (in contrast to just having the experience itself). In addition to this disjuncture between a subject’s experience and their reporting of this experience, a second and final disjuncture—between the report or observation and its interpretation by the researcher—must be addressed so that claims of validity can be made. Though this issue is not particular to SLA or sociocultural theory research, it is significant in light of the need to infer an individual’s cognitive or affective activity from observed behavior or elicited narrative/self-reports. Beyond the creation of a logical trail from observation to conclusion, or the use of mixed methods for triangulation (see, e.g., Denzin, 2010, for a discussion), researchers can benefit from employing reflexivity to gain awareness of, and make clear to readers, their own perezhivanie, which shapes the research project and informs analyses. In much the same way that the object of study is understood dialectically, so too does reflexivity allow the research project itself to be considered as a dialectic, constituted by the unity of oppositions and contradictions between, for example, the researcher (e.g., their values, beliefs, interests, expectations, theoretical understandings, etc.) and their object of research, or between the research method and the data it produces. It is through the sublation and synthesis—that is, qualitative reorganization—of these oppositions and contradictions to higher levels of conceptualization that new insights and knowledge are produced (for different stratifications of these levels, see, e.g., four levels of reflective analysis, Ben-Ari & Enosh, 2010; and dialectical-interactive methodology, Hedegaard, 2008). 97 Nikolai Veresov and Nelson Mok By taking these methodological issues into account, researchers examining the experiential data of perezhivanie can better justify the conclusions drawn from analysis. The concept of perezhivanie is useful at each step. It provides a way to understand the nature of an individual’s learning and its relation to their development; it conceptualizes the way in which learners’ accounts of this perezhivanie is itself mediated; and finally, the visibility of the researcher’s own perezhivanie in the final analysis supports a justification of their dialectical interpretation of elicited data. Conclusions The purpose of this chapter has been to 1) discuss the potential to understand development through investigating the perezhivanie of learning, and 2) to examine how the concept can be applied to investigate L2 learning. We have done this through situating the concept within the theoretical and methodological contexts of Vygotsky’s works to highlight its potential to contribute to the sociocultural approach to SLA. Theoretically, perezhivanie embodies both the principles of dialectics as well as Vygotsky’s shift from an analysis of isolated higher mental functions, to an analysis of the structure and (re)organization of consciousness. Thus, it is also informed by other concepts that emerged during this time as part of the same approach to understanding development (e.g., the concepts of the social situation of development, neoformations, and word-meaning). Methodologically, the concept emerges as an example of the kind of analysis by units (rather than elements) that Vygotsky had argued was necessary to adequately capture what was unique about the process human mental development. Perezhivanie allows researchers to approach development holistically, to understand consciousness as a system of dynamic interfunctional relations, and to study the interrelations of an individual and their social reality, understood as their social situation of development. Importantly, it provides a means by which we are able to understand how and why learners in the same situation of learning may nonetheless have differing developmental outcomes. These differences relate not just to cognitive activity, but also the emotional and personal dimensions of the learner, from their perspective. However, the theoretical positions from which perezhivanie has been read have led to divergent interpretations as to the specific contents of the concept. From the perspective of activity theory, we have argued that the interpretation of perezhivanie as pertaining to cognition is incorrect. We have also argued that readings of the term to emphasize emotion—while an important step in redressing the dominant focus on cognition—have perhaps overstated the role of emotion in understanding perezhivanie. A particular issue with this approach is the potential for perezhivanie to become a mere substitute for “emotional factors” in cognitivist research. An additional methodological consequence of such a view is a potential to overlook the ways in which perezhivanie does not merely shape learning, but also provides evidence of development that occurs as a result of learning. Finally, we also address a number of issues in the common methods used (in SLA and elsewhere) to make perezhivanie visible for analysis, and argue for the use of the concept at the metamethodological level to understand the process of producing and interpreting data so as to supplement initial analyses and to bolster claims to validity. In bringing to light the various issues that surround the concept of perezhivanie as well as its theoretical, methodological, and philosophical connections to the broader body of Vygotsky’s work, we hope to provide a basis for, and inform, future developments of the 98 Development and Perezhivanie concept. In the same way that the concepts of sign, mediation, internalization, the ZPD, and private speech have provided fruitful directions for research, so too, can perezhivanie form a part of the theoretical toolbox of the sociocultural approach. Moving forward, it becomes crucial to delineate the unique contribution of the concept to our understanding of the relationship between learning and development in SLA. References Ben-Ari, A., & Enosh, G. (2010). Processes of reflectivity: Knowledge construction in qualitative research. Qualitative Social Work, 10(2), 152–171. doi:10.1177/1473325010369024 Bouchard, M-A, Lecours, S., Tremblay, L-M., Target, M., Fonagy, P., Schachter, A., & Stein, H. (2008). Mentalization in adult attachment narratives: Reflective functioning, mental states, and affect elaboration compared. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 25(1), 47–66. Brennan, M. (2016). Perezhivanie and the silent phenomenon in infant care: Rethinking socioculturally informed infant pedagogy. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 17(3), 1–11. Chen, F. (2014). Parents’ perezhivanie supports children’s development of emotion regulation: A holistic view. Early Child Development and Care, 185(6), 851–867. doi:10.1080/03004430.201 4.961445 Cross, R. (2012). Creative in finding creativity in the curriculum: The CLIC second language classroom. Australian Education Research, 39(4), 431–445. doi:10.1007/s13384-012-0074-8 Denzin, N. K (2010). Moments, mixed methods, and paradigm dialogs. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(6), 419–427. Firth, A., & Wagner, J. (1997). On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. The Modern Language Journal, 81(3), 285–300. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.1997. tb05480.x Firth, A., & Wagner, J. (2007). Second/foreign language learning as a social accomplishment: Elaborations on a reconceptualized SLA. The Modern Language Journal, 91(3), 800–819. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00670.x Garratt, D. A. (2012). Students’ perceptions of the use of peer-to-peer ESL text chat: An introductory study (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of New Mexico. Albuquerque, NM, USA. Hedegaard, M. (2008). Developing a dialectic approach to researching children’s development. In M. Hedegaard & M. Fleer (with J. Bang & P. Hviid) (Eds.), Studying children: A cultural-historical approach (pp. 30–45). Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press. Immordino-Yang, M., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(1), 3–10. doi:10.1111/j.1751228x.2007.00004.x Kang, K-H. (2007). A journey with English: The dialectical relationship between the learners and their environment in English-as-a-second language acquisition (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest (UMI No. 3268747). Leontiev, A. N. (2005). Study of the environment in the pedological works of L. S. Vygotsky: A critical study (N. Favorov, Trans.). Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 43(4), 8–28. Mahn, H., & John-Steiner, V. (2002). The gift of confidence: A Vygotskian view of emotions. In G. Wells & G. Claxton (Eds.), Learning for life in the 21st century: Sociocultural perspectives (pp. 46–58). Oxford: Blackwell. Mok, N. (2013). Mediation, internalization, and perezhivanie in second language learning: An autoethnographic case study of learning Mandarin as an L2 through Livemocha (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Pavlenko, A. (2007). Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 28(2), 163–188. doi:10.1093/applin/amm008 99 Nikolai Veresov and Nelson Mok Polkinghorne, D. E. (2007). Validity issues in narrative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 13(4), 471–486. doi:10.1177/1077800406297670 Robbins, D. (2007, December 1). L. I. Bozhovich and perezhivanie [XMCA electronic mailing list message]. Retrieved from http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2007_12.dir/0009.html Roth, W-M. (2008). Knowing, participative thinking, emoting. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 15(1), 2–7. Smagorinsky, P. (2001). Vygotsky’s stage theory: The psychology of art and the actor under the direction of “perezhivanie.” Mind, Culture and Activity, 18(4), 319–341. Smagorinsky, P., & Daigle, E. A. (2012). The role of affect in students’ writing for school. In. E. L. Grigorenko, E. Mambrino, & D. D. Preiss (Eds.), Writing: A mosaic of new perspectives (pp. 293–307). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis. Stone, L., & Thompson, G. (2014). Classroom mood and the dance of stance: The role of affective and epistemic stancetaking in the development of a classroom mood. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 3(4), 309–322. doi:10.1016/j.lcsi.2014.06.002 Swain, M. (2013). The inseparability of cognition and emotion in second language learning. Language Teaching, 46(2), 195–207. Vasilyuk, F. (1991). The psychology of experiencing. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Vygotsky, L. S. (1935). Umstvennoye razvitie detei v protsesse obuchenia [Mental development of children in a process of learning]. Moscow-Leningrad: GUPI. Vygotsky, L. S. (1971). The psychology of art. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of general psychology. (R. W. Rieber & A. Carton, Eds.). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Vygotsky L. S. (1994). The problem of the environment. In J. Valsiner & R. van der Veer (Eds. & Trans.), The Vygotsky reader (pp. 338–354). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 4: The history of the development of higher mental functions. (R. W. Rieber, Ed.). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1998). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 5: Child psychology. (R. W. Rieber, Ed.). New York, NY: Plenum Press Vygotsky, L. S. (1999). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 6: Scientific legacy. New York, NY: Plenum Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (2001). Lektsii po pedologii [Lectures on pedology]. Izevsk, Russia: Udmurts University. Zavershneva, E. (2010). The Vygotsky family archive: New findings. Notebooks, notes, and scientific journals of L. S. Vygotsky (1912–1934) (S. Shabad, Trans.). Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 48(1), 34–60. doi:10.2753/RPO1061-0405480102 Further Reading González Rey, F. L. (2009). Historical relevance of Vygotsky’s work: Its significance for a new approach to the problem of subjectivity in psychology. Outlines, 1, 59–73. González Rey views perezhivanie within the context of Vygotsky’s discussion of sense, situating it within attempts in psychology more generally to elaborate the notion of subjectivity. Mok, N. (2017). On the concept of perezhivanie: A quest for a critical review. In M. Fleer, F. L. González Rey, & N. Veresov (Eds.), Perezhivanie, emotions and subjectivity: Advancing on Vygotsky’s legacy. Springer. This chapter takes a closer look at the philosophical context of perezhivanie and the various theoretical links that researchers have made with other works and interests of Vygotsky. Smagorinsky, P. (2001). Vygotsky’s stage theory: The psychology of art and the actor under the direction of “perezhivanie.” Mind, culture and activity, 18(4), 319–341. Smagorinsky discusses perezhivanie and Vygotsky’s earliest and latest works regarding emotion in formal drama (e.g., theater) and in everyday drama. 100 Development and Perezhivanie Veresov, N., & Fleer, M. (2016). Perezhivanie as a theoretical concept for researching young children’s development. Mind, Culture and Activity, (4), 325–335. doi:10.1080/10749039.2016. 1186198 This paper examines the significance of perezhivanie for understanding young children’s development from the perspective of cultural-historical theory more generally. Vygotsky L. S. (1994). The problem of the environment. In J. Valsiner & R. van der Veer (Eds. & Trans.), The Vygotsky reader (pp. 338–354). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. First transcribed and published posthumously by one of Vygotsky’s students, this subsequent English translation provides much of theorists currently understand about Vygotsky’s conceptualization of perezhivanie. 101 7 Acquisition of Scientific Concepts as the Content of School Instruction Yuriy V. Karpov Mediation of Psychological Tools as the Mechanism of Learning and Development Lev Vygotsky (1978, 1934/1986) held that the major characteristic of human mental processes is that they, just like human labor, are mediated by tools. But, these are special, psychological tools such as language, concepts, signs, and symbols. Humans are not born with these tools, just as they are not born with tools of labor; rather, these tools reflect the accumulated experience of humankind. Having been mastered and internalized by children, psychological tools come to mediate their mental processes. Specifically, human mental processes that are mediated by tools were called by Vygotsky higher mental processes to distinguish them from the lower mental processes, with which children are born, and which are specific to both young children and certain animal species. What is the process of acquisition of psychological tools by children? According to Vygotsky (1934/1986), being products of human culture, psychological tools should be taught to children by adults. The process of teaching children psychological tools has been called mediation. In the course of mediation, an adult presents to the child a new psychological tool in the form of an external device and monitors the child’s appropriation and mastery of this tool. As the child increasingly masters the tool, it becomes internalized and turns into an internal mediator of the child’s mental process. Simultaneously, the adult is becoming less and less involved in monitoring the child’s mastery of this tool. As a result, the child transits from the use of the external psychological tool as mediated by the adult, to the independent use of the internal psychological tool. To be sure, adult mediation is always age-specific. According to Vygotsky (1978, 1934/1986), during the period of middle childhood, the major avenue for adult mediation is school instruction that provides children with scientific concepts, which he contrasted with spontaneous concepts of preschoolers. Spontaneous and Scientific Concepts Spontaneous concepts are the result of generalization of children’s everyday life personal experience in the absence of systematic instruction. Therefore, such concepts are unsystematic, 102 Scientific Concepts and School Instruction empirical, and often wrong, or at least incomplete. For example, the concept of a bird that young children develop includes the ability to fly as the major characteristic of birds; therefore, preschoolers do not define a penguin as a bird, but define a bat as such. In contrast to spontaneous concepts, scientific concepts are the result of the generalization of the experience of humankind that is fixed in science, and they are learned by students consciously and according to a certain system. In the example given above, the scientific concept of a bird, rather than including the ability to fly, includes such characteristics as being a vertebrate, warm-blooded animal that lays eggs. Vygotsky (1982/1987) acknowledged the fact that, despite their “unscientific” nature, spontaneous concepts play an important role as a foundation for the acquisition of scientific concepts; for example, learning different species by students requires that they have some everyday life understanding of what animals are and know at least several representatives of the animal kingdom. But, in line with his understanding of the role of psychological tools in children’s development, Vygotsky (1982/1987) gave much more importance to the role of children’s acquisition of scientific concepts: “instruction in scientific concepts plays a decisive role in the child’s mental development” (p. 220). Firstly, scientific concepts “restructure and raise spontaneous concepts to a higher level” (Vygotsky, 1982/1987, p. 220); students start “rethinking” what they learned earlier from the perspective of the newly acquired scientific knowledge. Secondly, students start using scientific concepts as tools for solving subjectdomain problems (for example, they begin to use the scientific concept of a bird to identify different animals as belonging, or not belonging, to the class of birds). Thirdly (and even more importantly), “reflective consciousness comes to the child through the portals of scientific concepts” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 171); as a result, students’ thinking becomes much more independent of their personal experience, they become “theorists” rather than “practitioners,” and develop the ability to do self-reflection and operate at the level of formal-logical thought.1 Stressing the importance of scientific concepts as mediators of children’s thinking and problem solving, Vygotsky (1934/1986), at the same time, indicated that scientific concepts have some weaknesses, which become clear when comparing and contrasting these concepts with spontaneous concepts: “the strong and weak aspects of scientific and spontaneous concepts are different—the strong side of one indicates the weak side of the other, and vice versa” (p. 158). The strong aspect of spontaneous concepts relates to the fact that they are “deeply rooted in the child’s experience” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 158), which makes it possible for the child to use them “in a spontaneous, unreflective way” to solve relevant problems (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 162). As discussed before, these concepts, however, are often wrong. In addition, spontaneous concepts remain for the most part unconscious, and the child cannot readily give their verbal definitions. In contrast, scientific concepts are fully conscious and reportable by students since they are presented to them in the form of precise verbal definitions. But, "the difficulty with scientific concepts lies in their verbalism, i.e., in their excessive abstractness and detachment from reality" (1934/1986, pp. 148–149). Therefore, “scientific concepts . . . just start their development, rather than finish it, at a moment when the child learns the term or word-meaning denoting the new concept” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 159). To be sure, Vygotsky’s explanation of the strong and weak aspects of scientific and spontaneous concepts is not clear enough. Indeed, what exactly does it mean that a spontaneous concept is “deeply rooted in the child’s experience,” or that a scientific concept is “detached from reality”? And, what should the process of the further development of a scientific concept be so that its “verbalism” can be overcome? The answers to these questions, however, can be found in the works of both Russian post-Vygotskians and American cognitive psychologists. 103 Yuriy V. Karpov Concepts and Procedures Nobody will deny an obvious fact: possession by somebody of a hammer does not mean that he is able to appropriately use this tool; in order to hammer in nails, he also needs to master the hammer-use procedure. Similarly, simply giving a spoon to an infant is not sufficient for her to use this tool in the appropriate way: to use the spoon as a tool for eating, the infant should master the procedure for the use of this tool. Therefore, “the mastery of a tool does not simply mean the possession of the tool, but it means the mastery of the procedure for the use of this tool” (Leontiev, 1959, p. 213). According to Russian followers of Vygotsky, the same is true of scientific concepts as psychological tools: the acquisition of a scientific concept by children implies that they are not only able to repeat a verbal definition of this concept, but can also apply this concept to solve subject-domain problems. As Leontiev (1935/1983) indicated, “In order for a child to develop the highest generalization (that is, a concept), it is necessary to develop in him the system of psychological operations [the procedure—Y. K.] that are relevant to this highest generalization” (p. 347). A similar idea that, in education, conceptual knowledge (the knowledge of verbal definitions) should be supported with the mastery of procedural knowledge (the knowledge of how to apply these definitions to solve subject-domain problems) was formulated much later by American cognitive psychologists (see, for example, Bruer, 1993). As was demonstrated by both Russian and American researchers, however, students’ learning in traditional classrooms is hardly consistent with the above idea. Rather, these students often memorize definitions of scientific concepts, but are not taught (and, accordingly, often do not know) the procedural knowledge of how to apply these concepts to solve subject-domain problems. For example, Davydov (1972/1990) has described how, having memorized the essential characteristics of mammals, birds, and fish, Russian elementary school students fail to use these characteristics when classifying animals (e.g., they associated a whale with the class of fish). In another study, Russian sixth-graders, having memorized the concept of a right-angled triangle, did not recognize a right-angled triangle as such when it was presented to them with the right angle at the top (they called it “an acute-angled triangle”) (Davydov, 1972/1990). Similarly, American school students, having learned mathematical concepts, have been shown to be unable to use these concepts to do computational operations (Bruer, 1993).2 If, proceeding from the previous discussion, we now revisit Vygotsky’s idea about the weak aspects of scientific concepts, this idea will become much more meaningful. The “verbalism” and “excessive abstractness and detachment from reality” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, pp. 148–149) of scientific concepts simply means that they are not supported with mastery by students of the relevant procedures; therefore, students can repeat their definitions, but cannot use the concepts to solve problems. Accordingly, the observation that “scientific concepts . . . just start their development, rather than finish it, at a moment when the child learns the term or word-meaning denoting the new concept” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 159) appeals for the need of mastery by students of the relevant procedures that will make it possible for them to use scientific concepts to solve subject-domain problems. On the other hand, the strong aspect of spontaneous concepts—that they are “deeply rooted in the child’s experience” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 158)—reflects the fact that, while being unable to readily give the definition of a spontaneous concept, children have mastered the relevant procedure and, therefore, can use this concept to solve a problem “in a spontaneous, unreflective way” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 162), for example, by using an empirically developed procedure: “If there are fins and tail, this is a fish”—the child 104 Scientific Concepts and School Instruction identifies a given animal as “a fish,” but may not able to explain what makes him think so, and may substantiate his answer by saying, “it looks like a fish.” Interestingly enough, it has been shown that the mastery of a subject-domain procedure in combination with an inability to formulate the verbal definition of the relevant concept can be observed not only in the field of spontaneous and unsystematic learning of preschoolers but in the course of school instruction as well (Bruer, 1993; Davydov, 1972/1990; Talyzina, 1975/1981). As Bruer (1993) wrote, Many students don’t know why the math procedures they learn in school work. Students leave school having the computational skills to solve standard problems but lacking the higher-order mathematical understanding that would allow them to apply their skills widely in novel situations. Too often, math instruction produces students who can manipulate number symbols but who don’t understand what the symbols mean. (p. 81) Such subject-domain “meaningless” procedures have been shown to remain non-transferable (Bruer, 1993; Davydov 1972/1990; Hiebert & Wearne, 1985; Talyzina, 1975/1981). To conclude, successful acquisition of scientific concepts by students requires that they both learn the verbal definitions of these concepts and master the relevant procedures that make it possible to apply these concepts to solve subject-domain problems. In the next section, we will discuss how such “marrying concepts to procedures” (Bruer, 1993, p. 95) can be accomplished in the classroom. “Theoretical Learning” of Scientific Concepts Does the statement that “scientific concepts . . . just start their development” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 159) when children are provided with their verbal definitions imply that their further mastery of the relevant procedures is a process that they should undertake on their own? Not at all! Vygotsky (1934/1986) explicitly noted that it is quite “possible to teach children to use concepts” (p. 152). The theoretical learning approach (which is sometimes called “systemic theoretical instruction” or “concept-based instruction”) that has been developed by Russian Vygotskians to teach scientific concepts to students is directly based on Vygotsky’s (1934/1986) contention of mediation, but it has also incorporated the discussed earlier findings about the importance of teaching both conceptual and procedural knowledge. There are two major versions of the theoretical learning approach: one advocated by Davydov (1972/1990), and another one advocated by Gal’perin (1985) and Talyzina (1975/1981). As Ferreira and Lantolf (2008) correctly indicated, in comparison to Gal’perin’s version, Davydov’s version of this approach “is less rigid to the extent that it does not adhere to a fixed set of sequentially arranged procedures designed to promote internalization of a particular concept” (p. 285). On the other hand, Davydov’s version of the theoretical learning approach requires fundamental revisions of school curricula and a profound retraining of the teachers involved. For example, the elementary math curriculum developed by Davydov and his followers involves teaching first graders algebraic relations and the scientific concept of a number as an abstraction (for reviews, see Schmittau, 1993, 2003). No wonder, Hedegaard, an enthusiastic Danish proponent of Davydov’s instructional programs, indicates that an “enormous amount of work . . . will be required if such practices are to become both routine and effective” (Daniels, 2007, p. 314). 105 Yuriy V. Karpov In contrast, Gal’perin and Talyzina’s version of the theoretical learning approach (Gal’perin, 1985; Gal’perin & Talyzina, 1957/1961; Talyzina, 1975/1981; for a review also see Haenen, 1996) is much less ambitious and much more “consumer friendly.” What follows is a description of the major steps in teaching students new scientific concepts under Gal’perin and Talyzina’s version of theoretical learning: 1. 2. 3. 4. Promoting students’ learning motivation in relation to the subject-domain concepts to be learned.3 In order to accomplish this goal, the teacher creates a so-called “problem situation” (or, in Piaget’s terms, disequilibrium) by starting a lesson with asking students a question (related, of course, to the topic of the lesson) to which they think they know the answer but then realize that their answers are wrong and may even contradict one another. Providing the students with the written definitions of the subject-domain concepts to be learned. The definitions are always available for reference so that students do not need to memorize them. Providing the students with a general procedure for solving subject-domain problems. The procedure is presented to the students in the form of a chart: a symbolic and graphic model that prescribes all the steps that one should undertake in order to solve a given subject-domain problem. As an alternative, sometimes this procedure is not provided to the students ready-made; rather, the teacher and the students work together using the subject-domain concepts to develop a problem-solving procedure (this is done, however, only to promote the students’ engagement in the lesson; the teacher already knows what the procedure is going to be). Providing the students with the subject-domain problems. The students solve these problems using the step-by-step procedure. Initially, the students verbalize each step in their problem solving, and the teacher closely monitors their problem solving to make sure that they use the procedure correctly. The teacher also asks the students to substantiate their answers by referring them to the definitions of the scientific concepts. As the students use the subject-domain knowledge (both the definitions of the scientific concepts and the procedure) in problem solving, they master and internalize this knowledge, which reveals itself in their not looking anymore at the chart and written definitions while working on new problems. At this point, these external tools can be gradually removed. A Theoretical Learning Model Lesson To illustrate the steps in teaching students new scientific concepts under the theoretical learning approach, I will describe a model lesson that I designed to teach fifth-grade students “How to identify what kind of vertebrate animal this is,” which was taught by my graduate student in a NY Metropolitan area public school. To motivate the students, the teacher showed them pictures of a dolphin, a penguin, and a bat, and asked them to tell which species each of these animals belonged to. As was expected, the students mistakenly identified a dolphin as a fish, a bat as a bird, a penguin as a mammal, and they became very much surprised when the teacher provided them with the correct answers. As a result, they developed interest in the topic, which was expressed by one of them in the form of a question: “Then what makes a bird a bird?” As if responding to this question, the teacher provided the students with the subjectdomain concepts in the form of written definitions (Figure 7.1). 106 Scientific Concepts and School Instruction Figure 7.1 Vertebrate animals: concepts and definitions Then the teacher asked the students to help her use these definitions to develop a step-bystep procedure to be used to decide to which vertebrate species a given animal belongs (of course, the teacher led the student discussion so that it would end up with the proper procedure). The procedure was then presented in the form of a chart (Figure 7.2). After that, the students were provided with the subject-domain problems. The problems were pictures of different animals with their descriptions (for example, a picture of a frog with the following description: “Frogs eat insects and are cold blooded. They have backbones. They are born with gills, but the gills are replaced by lungs as they reach adulthood. They can be of many different colors”). Using the chart, each student analyzed a given animal and identified the species to which that animal belonged; the teacher monitored the students’ following of the step-by-step procedure when solving the problems. Then the students worked together within a small group. In each group, one student used the chart to identify the species to which a given animal belonged, another one 107 Yuriy V. Karpov What kind of vertebrate animal is this? Does this animal have a backbone? Yes No It is a vertebrate It is not a vertebrate Is it warmblooded? Yes No Does the animal feed its babies milk? Is the animal born with gills? Yes No Yes No It is a mammal It is a bird Are the gills replaced by lungs? It is a reptile Yes No It is an amphibian It is a fish Figure 7.2 Identifying vertebrate animals monitored the classmate’s performance, and the third student used the conceptual list to evaluate the correctness of the answer suggested by the first student and then reported the answer to the teacher, which made it possible for her to intervene if needed.4 In her reflection on the lesson, the teacher reported that all the students solved almost all the problems correctly (on several occasions, the students made errors, but corrected these errors themselves as soon as the teacher asked them to recheck the answer). The students could defend, explain, and substantiate their answers. For example, the teacher reported how on several occasions she tried to propel students to give the wrong answer; for example, when showing the picture of a dolphin, she said, “Well, to solve this problem we do not need to use the chart. This animal is obviously a fish.” The students, however, would typically answer, “It may look like a fish but let us check.” And, having used the 108 Scientific Concepts and School Instruction chart to solve the problem, students would conclude: “It only looks like a fish, but it is a mammal!” Also the students were very interested in the lesson. As one of them said happily after the lesson, “Now I understand how it works.” The teacher also noted that some of the stronger students seemed not to look at the chart and the written definitions at the end of the lesson, which could be used as an indicator that they had already mastered and internalized the new knowledge. The teacher’s reflection on her lesson provided above is totally consistent with the results of numerous studies performed to evaluate the outcomes of the theoretical learning programs (for reviews in English, see Arievitch & Stetsenko, 2000; Haenen, 1996; Kozulin, 1984, 1990, 1998; Schmittau, 2003; Stetsenko & Arievich, 2002, Talyzina, 1975/1981). To summarize, theoretical learning proceeds almost without error from the very beginning; mistakes usually do not exceed 5 to 6%, and as a rule they are corrected by students themselves. The classroom time spent on teaching a subject-domain topic is 1.5 to 2 times less than in a “traditional classroom.” Since mechanical drill and rote memorization are almost totally eliminated, learning becomes interesting for students. The knowledge that students acquire under this approach has all the “strong aspects” of scientific concepts, but does not have any of their “weak aspects” specified by Vygotsky: this knowledge is systematic, fully conscious, and reportable, but is not merely “verbal” and “detached from reality.” Finally, the systematic use of theoretical learning has been shown to promote students’ cognitive and metacognitive development: they develop a general ability to plan, reflect upon, and evaluate their learning and problem solving; when encountering a new problem, rather than rushing to solve it, they first thoroughly analyze it to find a general principle which they then use to solve the problem. These developmental outcomes of theoretical learning are fully consistent with Vygotsky’s notion that “reflective consciousness comes to the child through the portals of scientific concepts” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 171). Thus, the theoretical learning approach can serve as a good illustration of Vygotsky’s (1934/1986) understanding of correctly organized instruction as one that “marches ahead of development and leads it” (p. 188). Vygotsky’s Analogies Between the Native Language and Spontaneous Concepts, and a Foreign Language and Scientific Concepts In his analysis of spontaneous and scientific concepts, Vygotsky (1934/1986) drew an analogy between the native language and spontaneous concepts, on one hand, and a foreign language and scientific concepts, on the other hand. Just like spontaneous concepts, the native language is acquired in the context of everyday life personal experience, and children can successfully use it in communication, which indicates their mastery of its grammatical, syntactic, and phonetic procedures. At the same time, their knowledge of the rules of the native language remains nonconscious and non-reportable; often, children cannot explain why they, for example, have used a certain grammatical form in communication.5 Thus, their procedural knowledge is not supported with the relevant conceptual knowledge. The opposite is true for a foreign language. As with scientific concepts, a foreign language is acquired by children at school consciously and systematically, and children are able to provide verbal definitions of the linguistic rules that they have learned. What creates a major problem for second language learners, however, is the use of these rules in communication: their knowledge of the verbal definitions of the rules of a foreign language is not supported with the mastery of relevant procedures. 109 Yuriy V. Karpov To conclude, just like strong and weak points of spontaneous and scientific concepts, the child’s strong points in a foreign language are his weak points in his native language, and vice versa. In his own language, the child conjugates and declines correctly, but without realizing it. He cannot tell the gender, the case, or the tense of the word he is using. In a foreign language, he distinguishes between masculine and feminine genders and is conscious of grammatical forms from the beginning. (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 195) Elaborating on his analogy between the native language and spontaneous concepts, and a foreign language and scientific concepts, Vygotsky wrote that interrelationships between the native language and a foreign language are the same as between spontaneous and scientific concepts. On the one hand, “success in learning a foreign language is contingent on a certain degree of maturity in the native language” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 195); in particular, “the acquisition of a foreign language . . . uses the semantics of the native language as its foundation” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, pp. 159–160). On the other hand, a child’s understanding of his native language is enhanced by learning a foreign one. The child becomes more conscious and deliberate in using words as tools of his thought and expressive means for his ideas . . . The child’s approach to language becomes more abstract and generalized. (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 160) Therefore, Vygotsky fully supported Goethe’s statement that “he who knows no foreign language does not truly know his own” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 160). Use of the Theoretical Learning Approach to Teach Second Languages Vygotsky’s analogy between the acquisition of scientific concepts and learning a foreign language leads to the assumption that the theoretical learning approach, which has been proven to be an efficient way to teach scientific concepts, can be used to teach a foreign language. This assumption has been tested in several studies, most of which followed Gal’perin’s (1985) and Talyzina’s (1975/1981) version of the theoretical learning approach. The aspects of foreign languages that were taught in these studies included negation and voice in French; topicalization and temporal grammar in Chinese; locative prepositions, verbal aspect, and mood in Spanish; and sarcasm, particles, and directives in English (for descriptions and reviews, see Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, pp. 82–145; Lapkin, Swain, & Knouzi, 2008; Negueruela, 2008; Serrano-Lopez & Poehner, 2008; Thorne, Reinhardt, & Golombek, 2008). Some of these studies were performed as outside-the-classroom experiments, some “in the messy environment of the classroom” (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, p. 117). The results of these studies have demonstrated that the theoretical learning approach can be successfully applied to teach different aspects of foreign languages: Both participants’ reports and objective assessment data lead to the conclusion that this approach results in a good conceptual understanding of the taught aspects of foreign languages by students. At the same time, referring specifically to the outcomes of theoretical learning in the classroom, Lantolf & Poehner (2014) have carefully characterized them as suggesting “a fair degree of success” (p. 118). For example, in one of these studies the majority of students expressed concerns about their ability to apply the knowledge learned; therefore, they advocated learning 110 Scientific Concepts and School Instruction rules of thumb (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, p. 129). In another study, the theoretical learning class outperformed the “traditional learning” class on some aspects of understanding and use of the learned knowledge, but performed at the same level as the “traditional learning” class on some other aspects of this knowledge (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, p. 133–134). The learning outcomes in the third study (in which theoretical learning was used to teach students three particles (out, up, and over)) were also mixed: in particular, while students’ correct use of particles out and over significantly improved, no significant improvements were observed for their use of up (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, p. 139). For our further analysis, let us briefly discuss the third of the studies mentioned in the previous paragraph—the one in which international graduate students were taught particles out, up, and over (this study, performed by H. Lee, has been reviewed by Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, pp. 136–143). Each particle in this study was taught separately during a one-week period. To explain the meaning of a given particle, the students were provided with a chart containing graphic illustrations of the situations in which it is used, as well as with examples of sentences for each of these situations. Then the students used these graphic illustrations to construct correct sentences with the use of this particle and performed other tasks that involved interpreting, using, and discussing different sentences that contained this particle. An analysis of the described instructional program reveals its two deviations from the “classical” ideas of the theoretical learning approach that were discussed earlier.6 Firstly, the particles in this study were taught separately. In this regard, I want to recall again that, according to Vygotsky, an important difference between spontaneous and scientific concepts relates to the fact that scientific concepts are taught within a system. It is the presentation of scientific concepts within a system that makes these concepts fully conscious. Indeed, to refer to an example that I gave before, in order to fully understand what, for example, a mammal is, the child should be able to compare and contrast the concept of a mammal with the concept of a bird. That is why children should be taught all the vertebrate species together, not one by one. To apply this idea literally to teaching particles, rather than being taught them one by one, students should be provided with and learn all these particles together within a system. Moreover, students should be taught not just out, up, and over, but also such particles as around, at, away, down, in, off, on, and round. Indeed, would not their understanding of the particle out be promoted by comparing and contrasting it with the particles in and off? Secondly, as already mentioned, to explain the meaning of each particle, the students in the discussed study were provided with a chart containing graphic illustrations of the situations in which the given particle is used, as well as with examples of sentences for each of these situations. To be sure, such charts did promote better conceptual understanding by students of the participles that they were taught. But, as discussed earlier, in order to serve as a tool of thinking and problem solving, any conceptual knowledge should be supported with the relevant procedural knowledge. Again, to refer to an example given earlier, in order to teach students how to identify the vertebrate species to which a given animal belongs, it is not sufficient to teach them essential characteristics of different species; students should also be provided with a procedure: a chart describing the system of steps to be undertaken to apply these essential characteristics to evaluate a given animal. Therefore, an “orthodox” proponent of the theoretical learning approach would suggest that to be able to use different particles correctly. The application of this idea to teaching the particles requires that students, in addition to conceptual knowledge (the meanings of the particles), should be provided with a procedural flow chart: an explicit system of “if-then” steps that will lead the students to choose the right particle for each specific situation. 111 Yuriy V. Karpov The above-described deviations from the “classical” ideas of the theoretical learning approach are typical of the other previously mentioned promising attempts to use this approach to teach different aspects of foreign languages.7 Should these deviations be considered shortcomings of these instructional programs, which may be responsible for certain problems with the understanding and application of the learned knowledge that some of the participants in those studies experienced? Let us discuss the pros and cons of such a conclusion. To be sure, teaching a second language cannot exactly follow the ideas that work well when teaching “How to identify what kind of vertebrate animal this is.” Indeed, the proper use of a linguistic construction, which often involves operating its metaphoric rather than literal meaning, belongs to the field of so-called ill-structured problems, that is, problems for solution of which there is no strict system of “if-then” rules. Moreover, as Yanez-Prieto’s (2008) study has demonstrated, imposing such a strict system of “if-then” rules that leads to the only “right” answer may even interfere with a flexible and creative use by students of verbal aspect of the second language they are learning (J. Lantolf, personal communication, January 20, 2017). On the other hand, there are studies of “orthodox” proponents of the theoretical learning approach in which “if-then” procedural flow charts were successfully used to teach, for example, the correct use of German active and passive voices (Kabanova & Gal’perin, 1972). And, the following thought of R. Clark (2009) can be used to challenge the argument that students should not be provided with an “if-then” procedural chart when learning how to solve ill-structured linguistic problems: Describing a domain as “ill structured” most often means that either domain experts do not agree or that there are no solutions to some problems. Nearly all problems contain “multiple solution paths,” many of which achieve an acceptable resolution to a problem. In this case, the best option is to teach the most direct and simple solution path to novices. In general, when experts fail to consistently solve complex problems we can hardly expect students to discover solutions during instruction. In the case where students are expected to invent a solution, the preferable instructional approach is to provide expertbased procedures for inventing solutions to problems in the domain. (p. 165) Thus, additional research is needed to investigate all the pros and cons of providing second language learners with “if-then” procedural flow charts. Scientific Significance of the Use of Theoretical Learning to Teach Second Languages Earlier, I presented Vygotsky’s (1982/1987) idea that, when acquired, scientific concepts “restructure and raise spontaneous concepts to a higher level” (Vygotsky, 1982/1987, p. 220). Since, as discussed, Vygotsky (1934/1986) viewed relationships between the native language and a foreign language as an example of relationships between spontaneous and scientific concepts, he suggested that “a child’s understanding of his native language is enhanced by learning a foreign one” (p. 160). A study aimed at evaluating this assumption of Vygotsky was performed by Abdel Khalek (1974) with Egyptian children. In Egypt, children learn two different Arabic languages: the everyday life language, which is acquired in the course of interpersonal communication, and the literature language, 112 Scientific Concepts and School Instruction which is acquired at school. Thus, the Egyptian’s everyday life language is their native tongue, and their literature language is analogic to the second language that children in other nations learn at school. In her study, Abdel Khalek (1974) gave first- to sixth-grade students different tasks in both the everyday life and literature languages. Children were asked, (a) why, for example, a hen is called “hen,” and whether or not it can be named differently; (b) to compare two sentences to find the word that made one sentence different from the other one; (c) to analyze a sentence and name its first word, second word, etc; (d) to compare two words to find the sound that made one word different from the other one. As the results of the study demonstrated, all the tasks were performed by students of different age levels more successfully when the tasks were offered in the literature language than when they were offered in the everyday life language. Starting with the third grade, however, when performing the tasks in their native tongue, children “would more and more proceed from their understanding of language and its elements that they developed in the course of learning the literature language” (Abdel Khalek, 1974, p. 152). These data provide empirical support of Vygotsky’s (1934/1986) idea that “a child’s understanding of his native language is enhanced by learning a foreign one” (p. 160), as well as of his general notion that the acquisition by students of scientific concepts promotes further development of their spontaneous concepts. At the same time, analyzing her data, Abdel Khalek (1974) described an important finding: on the most difficult tasks, the difference between the levels of all the children’s performance in the everyday life and literature languages was minimal if any. She explained this finding as the result of deficiencies of the “traditional teaching” of the literature language at school, and this explanation is fully consistent with Vygotsky’s (1934/1986) idea that instruction leads to developmental outcomes only if it is organized in a proper way. As we discussed earlier, traditional school instruction in the United States and Russia suffers from serious shortcomings; proceeding from Abdel Khalek’s (1974) data, the same conclusion can be made in regard to teaching the literature language in Egyptian schools. As discussed earlier, the theoretical learning approach has been shown to overcome the shortcomings of traditional teaching. Thus, the use of this approach to teach foreign languages creates a perfect opportunity to experimentally evaluate Vygotsky’s ideas of the role of learning a foreign language in better understanding the native tongue, as well as his general theoretical assumption about relationships between spontaneous and scientific concepts. Some interesting preliminary data in this regard have already been collected. In particular, several participants in Kim’s study (for a review, see Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, pp. 93–99) “indicated that through [theoretical learning of] English sarcasm they gained a deeper understanding of how sarcasm functions in their native language” (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, p. 117). No doubt, the scientific significance of this type of research seems very promising. Notes 1 For a review of empirical data that support Vygotsky’s notion about the role of school instruction in children’s development, see Karpov, 2014, pp, 95–100. 2 Sometimes, of course, students are able to construct the missing procedure by themselves: after all, the definition of a scientific concept implicitly contains all the essential characteristics that should be used in order to solve subject-domain problems. For example, the knowledge of the definition of mammals (“vertebrate, warm-blooded animals that feed their babies milk”) implicitly contains the following procedure: “If you want to find out whether or not a given vertebrate animal is a 113 Yuriy V. Karpov 3 4 5 6 7 mammal, check if this animal is warm-blooded and feeds its babies milk.” As the data provided in this paragraph indicate, however, many students cannot use the learned scientific concept as the basis for the construction of the missing procedure and, therefore, they should be provided with a ready-made procedure. Interestingly enough, the fact that we did not attend to the problem of learning motivation earlier, coincides with the fact that in “Gal’perin’s research program . . . the investigation of learning motivation often has no explicit place” (Haenen, 1996, p. 123). When practically implementing the theoretical learning approach to teach scientific concepts, however, Gal’perin’s followers have stated quite explicitly that at the initial step of teaching, it is important to “create the necessary motivation in the student” (Talyzina, 1975/1981, p. 109). According to Vygotsky, mutual regulation in the context of joint problem solving promotes the development of self-regulation in students: “Regulation of others’ behavior by means of the word gradually leads to the development of verbalized behavior of the people themselves” (Vygotsky, 1981, p. 159). This observation is true not only for children: Since English is my second language, I sometimes still ask my colleagues—college professors—which grammatical construction should be used to express a certain thought. They are always able to answer this question, but if I ask them for an explanation, their answer often is, “It sounds right.” The fact that the problem of learning motivation was not directly attended in this study should not be, in my view, presented as a “deviation” from the ideas of the theoretical learning approach: after all, adult students who are learning a foreign language have, as a rule, a strong “practical” incentive to do their best. Two exceptions are Negueruela’s (2008) program aimed at teaching mood selection in Spanish, and Thorne, Reinhardt, & Golombek’s (2008) program aimed at teaching directives in English. References Abdel Khalek, W. M. K. (1974). K probleme sootnosheniya nauchnyhizh i tejskih ponyatij (na material literaturnogo i razgovornogo arabskogo yazyka) [The problem of relationship between scientific and spontaneous concepts (using the example of the Arabic literature and everyday life languages)] (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Moscow, Russia. 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Cultural-historical theory and mathematics education. In A. Kozulin, B. Gindis, V. S. Ageev, & S. Miller (Eds.), Vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context (pp. 225–245). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Serrano-Lopez, M., & Poehner, M. E. (2008). Materializing linguistics: concepts through 3-D clay modeling: A tool-and-result approach to mediating L2 Spanish development. In J. P. Lantolf & M. E. Poehner (Eds.), Sociocultural theory and the teaching of second languages (pp. 321–346). London: Equinox. Stetsenko, A., & Arievitch, I. (2002). Teaching, learning, and development: A post-Vygotskian perspective. In G. Wells & G. Claxton (Eds.), Learning for life in the 21st century: Sociocultural perspectives on the future of education (pp. 84–96). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Talyzina, N. F. (1981). The psychology of learning. Moscow: Progress. (Original work published 1975). Thorne, S. L., Reinhardt, J., & Golombek, P. (2008). Mediation as objectification in the development of professional academic discourse: a corpus-informed curricular innovation. In J. P. Lantolf & M. E. Poehner (Eds.), Sociocultural theory and the teaching of second languages (pp. 256–284). London: Equinox. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Cole, M., John-Steiner, V., Scribner, S., & Souberman, E. (Eds.), Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1981). The genesis of higher mental functions. In J. V. Wertsch (Ed.), The concept of 115 Yuriy V. Karpov activity in Soviet psychology (pp. 144–188). Armonk, NY: Sharpe. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Original work published 1934). Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of general psychology (R. W. Rieber & A. Carton, Eds.). New York: Plenum. (Original work published 1982). Yáñez-Prieto, M. C. (2008). On literature and the secret art of invisible words: Teaching literature through language (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Further Reading Haenen, J. (1996). Piotr Gal’perin: Psychologist in Vygotsky’s footsteps. Commack, NY: Nova Science. The book describes the history of, and the major studies performed within the theoretical learning approach. Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (2014). Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative in L2 education: Vygotskian praxis and the research/practice divide. New York: Routledge. The book reviews major studies on the use of the theoretical learning approach to teach second languages. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Original work published 1934). The book represents Vygotsky’s major writing on the relationships between spontaneous and scientific concepts. 116 Part II Second Languages, the Brain, and Thinking 8 Neuropsychology of Bilingualism Mónica Rosselli and Alfredo Ardila Introduction Bilingualism has been identified as a potential generator of cognitive advantages and modulator of brain plasticity. This chapter begins with a description of how bilingualism has been associated with cognitive changes across the life span, starting in infancy and continuing through childhood to adulthood and senescence. The sociocultural perspective of bilingualism is presented. The influence of bilingualism in neural development including structural and functional brain changes is later reviewed. A final section analyzes the brain-acquired language disturbances (aphasia) and dementia characteristics in bilinguals. Bilingualism and Neuro-Cognitive Development Bilingualism has been shown to influence the individual’s cognitive skills and brain functioning across the life span. Infancy: From Birth to 24 Months It has been well established that newborns respond to auditory stimuli in the range of language frequencies and that they show an overt preference for verbal sounds (DeCasper & Fifer, 2004; Slater, 1998), suggesting a biological predisposition to detect and process human language signals. From two to eight months, babies demonstrate an evident orientation to verbal sounds that gives rise to the so-called “mother/father-child dialogue.” Using the habituation paradigm (in which infants eventually lose interest in a repeated stimulus and cease to respond to it), it has been shown that babies aged 22 to 140 days are capable of detecting consonant-vowel (CV) changes much better in the right ear (left hemisphere) than the left one (right hemisphere) (Hiscock & Kinsbourne, 1995). This is a particularly important finding because it suggests an inborn brain asymmetry for language (for a review see Rosselli, Ardila, Matute, & Vélez-Uribe, 2014). The results of neuroimaging studies are congruent with the above observation, as they have shown that from 119 Mónica Rosselli and Alfredo Ardila early in life human language is predominantly processed by the left hemisphere (DehaeneLambertz, Dehaene, & Hertz-Pannier, 2002). An interesting and unique linguistic perceptual phenomenon observed during infancy is that babies are universal listeners; they are sensitive to every phonological distinction yet tested; however, with time sensitivity to the phonemes that are not used in the language they learn are lost. This phenomenon is called “perceptual narrowing” in which the child’s linguistic experience generates developmental changes in language perception. In other words, phoneme perception is broad at birth, but narrows as a function of experience (Kelly et al., 2007). Thus, while babies are endowed with universal recognition of phonemes (native and non-native) at birth, by the end of the first year a clear decline in the recognition of nonnative phonemes (i.e., those to which they are not exposed) is observed (Kuhl et al., 2008). There is evidence, however, that shows modifications of the window-length for perceptual narrowing associated with the subject’s language experience. For example, infants who grow up in bilingual environments have different windows for perceptual narrowing by retaining greater sensitivity to non-native phonemes (Byers-Heinlein & Fennell, 2014). Petitto et al. (2012) explored the brains of bilingual and monolingual babies across two age groups (younger: four to six months, older: ten to twelve months), using functional near infrared (fNIRS), as they processed linguistic phonetic (native English, non-native Hindi) and nonlinguistic tone stimuli. Results showed brain activation similarities in bilingual and monolingual babies during phonetic processing. Both groups of babies accomplished this task with the same language-specific brain areas classically observed in adults, including the left superior temporal gyrus and the left inferior frontal cortex; the first one associated with phonetic processing and the latter associated with the search and retrieval of information about meanings and syntactic and phonological patterning. The left superior temporal gyrus activation was observed early and remained stably active over time, while the left inferior frontal cortex showed greater increase in neural activation in older babies. Petitto et al. (2012) relate the change in frontal lobe activation with the age in which babies enter the universal first-word milestone. A difference was observed in the older bilingual babies’ resilient neural and behavioral sensitivity to non-native phonetic contrasts at a time when monolingual babies can no longer make such discriminations. In other words, the older bilingual babies’ left inferior frontal cortex showed robust activation to both the native and the non-native phonetic contrasts whereas the same area in monolingual babies showed robust activation to the native phonetic contrasts only, and not to the non-native phonetic contrasts. Bilingual and monolingual babies from the young group showed the same pattern of activation of the frontal cortex. However, in the older group, the activation of the bilingual group was significantly greater than that of the monolingual group. Petitto et al. (2012) suggest the ‘‘perceptual wedge hypothesis’’ as an explanation for their findings. According to the authors, exposure to more than one language acts as a wedge to keep the window of universal perception open for a longer period of time, possibly altering neural and language processing in ways that the authors think are advantageous to language users. Exposing an infant to two languages, by which they experience a wider spectrum of phonemes, extends the brain plasticity period (Byers-Heinlein & Fennell, 2014), which could lead to more cognitive flexibility. Bilinguals, in contrast to monolinguals, master the recognition of phonemes in two native languages, resulting in higher capability to perceive phonological contrasts of phonemes they have not been exposed to. Singh, Liederman, Mierzejewski, and Barnes (2011) compared eight children who were adopted from India into America at ages 6 to 60 months to eight age-matched American non-adopted controls. The adopted children had minimal further exposure to their birth 120 Neuropsychology of Bilingualism languages. American controls had only been exposed to the English language. Without training, neither group could discriminate a phonemic contrast which occurred in the birth language of the adopted group but not in English. However, after training in the contrasts, the adopted group improved significantly and discriminated the contrast more accurately than their non-adopted peers. While English had explicitly replaced the birth language of the adopted sample, traces of early exposure conferred privileges on subsequent learning. In addition to language, the cognitive advantage of bilingualism in infants has been found in other abilities. Research has suggested that simply perceiving and processing sounds from multiple native languages during the first half-year of development may lead to enhancement of some executive functions. It seems that being exposed to more than one language requires larger demands in attention. Kovács and Mehler (2009) found that bilingual children have better attention control than monolingual children at age seven months. Singh et al. (2015) reported a bilingual advantage in inhibitory control at six months of age. The authors compared monolingual and bilingual babies in a very basic task of information processing—visual habituation. Bilingual infants demonstrated greater efficiency in stimulus encoding as well as in improved recognition memory for familiar stimuli as compared to monolinguals. Other authors have found advantages in bilingual infants over monolinguals in visual detection (using mute videos of females speaking) when the language changed from one (i.e., French) to another (i.e., English). In a video, although monolingual infants failed to detect the change between languages, bilingual infants succeeded (Sebastián-Gallés, AlbaredaCastellot, Weikum, & Werker, 2012). Schonberg, Sandhofer, Tsang, and Johnson (2014) on the other hand, did not find differences in the way bilingual and monolingual infants perceive visually social and nonsocial stimuli; the authors suggest any cognitive differences found between these two groups in early childhood are more related to the active vocabulary production they are exposed to than to the perception of the environment alone. Bilingual infants have been shown to have an advantage in memory flexibility compared to monolinguals; this type of memory is defined as a balance between remembering specific features and being able to generalize that knowledge across different cues (Brito & Barr, 2012). This probably results from exposure to more varied speech patterns compared with monolingual infants. Also, they have more opportunities to encode information in a variety of language contexts. These authors confirmed that the differences in memory generalization in bilingual infants emerged at around six months, before language developed. This memory advantage has been explained as the result of the bilinguals’ better selective attention or superior relational representation abilities. Bilingual children may develop relational representation abilities earlier than monolinguals because they need to associate words from multiple languages and make connections at an abstract level between the two words and the same concept. Oller, Eilers, Urbano, and Cobo-Lewis (1997) compared language development longitudinally in monolingual and bilingual infants aged 4 to 18 months. Infants reared in bilingual and monolingual environments manifested similar ages of onset for production of wellformed syllables and proportion of usage of well-formed syllables and vowel-like sounds. The authors concluded that vocal development in the first year of life is not influenced by conditions of language exposure. However, differences in vocabulary size may emerge at an older age. Poulin-Dubois, Bialystok, Blaye, Polonia, and Yott (2013) compared lexical access and expressive and receptive vocabulary development in monolingual and bilingual toddlers at 24 months. They found significantly smaller expressive vocabulary size in the first acquired language (L1) in bilinguals compared to monolinguals, but this difference 121 Mónica Rosselli and Alfredo Ardila disappears when the vocabularies (L1 and the second acquired language [L2] together) were combined. These results support the view that the deficit in bilinguals’ vocabulary is eliminated when both L1 and L2 words are combined. In conclusion, most studies have reported advantages in cognitive functions rather than disadvantages. These advantages are in the discrimination of greater number of phonemes and in faster development of other areas of cognition such as attention and memory. Research has also shown that bilingualism acts as a variable of brain plasticity promoting the extension of the window for universal recognition of phonemes. Preschool and School Age Most studies reporting cognitive advantages of bilingualism early in development have been directed to preschool (three to five years) samples and have assessed executive functioning (e.g., Bialystok, Craik, Green, & Gollan, 2009). Seemingly, the bilingual child who has two active languages, monitors continually two linguistic systems and may without realizing it practice skills such as inhibition at an earlier age. Having to learn different sets of rules for each language, while avoiding interference between the languages, provides the bilingual child with greater experience in learning from a more diverse input linguistic set. Bialystok (1999) found that bilingual preschoolers have an advantage in the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task, in which children must conceptualize both the stimuli and the rules by constructing an appropriate mental representation. Increase in mental flexibility in bilingual and monolingual children has been associated with high verbal performance. Okanda, Moriguchi, and Itakura (2010) also used the DCCS task to compare Japanese– French bilinguals to two groups of Japanese monolingual preschool children. The results showed the bilingual children performed the task significantly better than the matched monolingual children. Bialystok and Shapero (2005) argued that bilingualism enhances selective attention since bilingual individuals are required to simultaneously ignore competing cues and focus on the relevant aspects of the stimuli. This bilingual advantage was observed in six-year-old children when performing tasks such as the Embedded Figures Test, a test that requires finding a simple visual pattern hidden in a larger complex drawing. Yang, Yang, and Lust (2011) and Yang and Yang (2016) support the attention advantage in bilingual children as well. They compared four-year-olds and five- and six-year-old Korean–English bilinguals to English monolingual children in the Attention Network Test (ANT) and found that the bilinguals surpassed monolinguals in global processing measures as well as local measures of executive control. Videsott, Della Rosa, Wiater, Franceschini, and Abutalebi (2012) analyzed the attentional mechanisms of multilingual children with differential degrees of language competence, using the ANT. The authors found that proficiency levels in early multilingual children may play a significant role in the development and enhancement of the alerting component of the attentional system. The advantage of bilingualism has been described even in weak bilingualism, for instance, learning two languages linguistically very close to each other such as Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek (Antoniou, Grohmann, Kambanaros, & Katsos, 2016). In contrast to the positive findings described above of bilingual advantages in working memory and attentional function and inhibitory tasks, some studies have failed to find evidence for bilingual benefits in childhood. For example, de Abreu, Conway, and Gathercole (2010) observed no difference in the efficiency of working-memory abilities of bilinguals compared to monolinguals in six- to eight-year-olds, followed over a longitudinal period of 122 Neuropsychology of Bilingualism three years. Moreover, the data showed that the monolinguals performed significantly better on the language measures across the years, whereas no language group effect emerged on the working memory tasks after verbal abilities were considered. Similar results were reported by Antón et al. (2014), who observed no bilingual effects in Basque–Spanish children in three age groups (seven, nine, and 11 years) as measured by the child ANT. Disadvantages in the development of language of bilingual preschoolers have also been described. Compared to monolingual peers, bilingual children present delays in language acquisition, lexical interference, mixtures of languages, and decreased vocabulary. Differences in vocabulary extension in monolinguals compared to bilinguals have been reported. Bialystok, Luk, Peets, and Yang (2010) measured the receptive vocabulary of over 1,700 children between the ages of three and 10 years old. All the bilingual children spoke English and another language, with English being the language of the community and school for all children. Across the sample and at every age studied, the mean standard score of receptive vocabulary was reliably higher for monolinguals than for bilinguals. Nonetheless, although a bilingual child’s production of words in any one of their languages may be on average less than that seen in monolingual children, the combined number of words produced taken from both of their languages equaled that of the monolingual child. It is interesting that the disparity in vocabulary size between bilinguals and monolinguals has mostly been described after the age of three. In younger bilinguals, total receptive and expressive vocabulary size have been reported to be comparable to that of monolinguals, although these bilinguals tend to have fewer words in each of their separate expressive languages (Oller & Eilers, 2002). Hoff et al. (2012) compared the language development of equivalently high-socioeconomic-status (SES) samples of bilingually and monolingually developing children from 22 to 30 months. The monolingually developing children were significantly more advanced than the bilingually developing children on measures of both vocabulary and grammar in single language comparisons, but they were comparable on a measure of total vocabulary. Within the bilingually developing sample, all measures of vocabulary and grammar were related to the relative amount of input in that language. Few longitudinal studies have approached the question of whether bilingualism has an effect on language development. One such study is the Miami Project (Oller & Eilers, 2002) in which 704 Spanish–English bilingual children were tested. All the children had been born in the United States. The children were tested in kindergarden, second, and fifth grade. At all grade levels, deficiencies of receptive vocabulary in both languages were seen if comparisons were made in terms of monolingual norms. The same was true if comparisons were made with the 248 monolingual children who were matched with the bilinguals and tested similarly in the Miami Project. For Spanish vocabulary, the pattern was generally similar, with scores showing a general depression with regard to the monolingual norms. However, differences between monolinguals and bilinguals diminished after a few years of schooling in English. The magnitude of the differences depended upon the grade level, the language background of the child, the type of schooling they received (two-way or English immersion), and the language being tested. High-SES children did better than low SES children in both the monolingual and bilingual groups. All the bilingual groups showed the apparent deficiencies that appear to be attributable to the distributed characteristic. For monolingual English speakers in the Miami Project, high SES produced an advantage on the receptive vocabulary test over low SES. It seems clear that exposure to a dual language environment during the school years generates executive function advantages and perhaps linguistic disadvantages when bilinguals are compared to monolinguals. 123 Mónica Rosselli and Alfredo Ardila Adulthood and Senescence In the adult population, evidence regarding effects of bilingualism on cognition has been mixed, with some studies showing advantages particularly in executive functions, others disadvantages particularly in verbal tasks, and some finding no effects (Bialystok et al., 2009; Paap & Greenberg, 2013; Rosselli, Ardila, et al., 2000). As demonstrated in bilingual children, the most typical positive effects of bilingualism on adult’s cognitive processes have been in tasks of inhibitory control (Bialystok, Craik, Klein, & Viswanathan, 2004; Bialystok, Craik, & Ryan, 2006) including the ability to block extraneous information in order to focus on the pertinent rules of interactions or tasks. One of the most common nonverbal inhibition tasks used to assess bilingual advantages is the Simon task. In this task, participants are given specific response keys, which they are instructed to press in response to visual stimuli presented on either the congruent or incongruent side of the response key. Bilinguals have been shown to provide more rapid responses to congruent and incongruent stimuli in comparison to monolinguals on measures of inhibition. A bilingual advantage has also been shown for nonverbal working memory tasks, such as the backwards Corsi Block task (Bialystok & Feng, 2009), and on set shifting tasks such as the global-local task (Prior & MacWhinney, 2010) in which attention switching is involved. Noteworthy, executive functions—i.e., complex forms of cognition, including but not limited to reasoning, problem solving, inhibitory control, set shifting, and working memory—are based on some mediators (Luria, 1976, 1979; Vygotsky, 1934/2012). Language represents the most fundamental mediator of human cognition, and it is not surprising that using two languages can result in an advantage in executive function tasks. The studies described above have demonstrated the bilingual advantage in individuals who are proficient in both of their languages but it seems unclear whether the advantage persists in less proficient bilinguals. As a matter of fact, it has been demonstrated that the degree of bilingualism (difference in proficiency in both languages) has an important effect on performance in verbal confrontation naming tasks (Gollan, Fennema-Notestine, Montoya, & Jernigan, 2007) as well as in nonverbal inhibitory control tasks (Rosselli, Ardila, Lalwani, & Vélez-Uribe, 2016). Age is a relevant variable in the expression of bilingual advantage on inhibitory control tasks in adulthood. Salvatierra, Rosselli, Acevedo, and Duara (2007) showed that older bilinguals were more efficient at inhibiting irrelevant information (using the Simon task) than older monolinguals, but the bilingual advantage was not seen in the younger adult sample. This finding supports an attenuation of the age-related decline observed in inhibitory control processes in bilingual participants. Both Bialystok et al. (2004) and Salvatierra and Rosselli (2010) found bilingual advantages on the simple condition of the Simon task but in different age groups. Bialystok et al. (2004) used samples of monolinguals and Tamil– English bilinguals, both samples divided into young and old adults. Salvatierra and Rosselli (2010) tested a monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual sample, divided in the same way. Both studies found that older bilinguals showed smaller Simon effects on the simple version of this nonverbal task, but this effect on the younger bilingual group was found only by Bialystok et al. (2004). General Advantages and Disadvantages of Bilingualism The positive findings regarding bilingualism have not always been replicated and remain controversial (e.g., Colzato et al., 2008; Costa, Hernández, Costa-Faidella, & Sebastián-Gallés, 124 Neuropsychology of Bilingualism 2009; Paap & Greenberg, 2013; Paap, Johnson, & Sawi, 2016). Kousaie and Phillips (2012) argued that most studies reporting an advantage for bilinguals relative to monolinguals have used samples that vary in the socioeconomic status (e.g., immigrant/nonimmigrant) and in the level of proficiency of the second language. They found that when French–English bilinguals and monolinguals were matched by status of native/second language and socioeconomic variables, the bilingual advantage disappeared on a task examining verbal inhibition (the Stroop task). Also, Rosselli et al. (2016) found that nonverbal intelligence significantly predicted performance on verbal working memory and verbal and nonverbal inhibition tasks, and it was a better predictor of executive function performance than bilingualism or language proficiency. Paap and Greenberg (2013) analyzed data from three studies comparing bilinguals to monolinguals on 15 indicators of executive processing (EP). Results showed no difference between language groups in any of the indicators. The authors argue that previous research tends to use only one task and use only one indicator for each EP component with no testing of convergent validity. According to the authors, those studies that have used multiple tasks show no bilingual advantages. It seems that although the manipulation of two languages can be advantageous in nonverbal executive function tasks, it can also be disadvantageous on verbal tasks (Gollan, Montoya, Cera, & Sandoval, 2008; Rosselli et al., 2000). Research shows that bilingual participants take longer and make more errors than monolinguals on naming tasks. Using the Boston Naming Test, bilinguals produced fewer correct responses (Gollan et al., 2007) and made more errors on a speeded version of the task (Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, 2008) than did monolinguals. The simple act of retrieving a common word seems to be more effortful for bilinguals. Also, when bilinguals are in a bilingual mode, the two languages are activated at the same time, and interference during word recall results in lower scores (Rosselli et al., 2000). Some researchers have suggested that bilingualism has protective effects from abnormal aging decline of executive functions (Bialystok et al., 2004; Bialystok et al., 2006; Bialystok et al., 2008). In support of this idea are the findings in a review of the literature (Gold, 2015) that Alzheimer’s disease has been diagnosed at a more advanced age in bilinguals compared to monolinguals. Others have not been able to support the protective effect of bilingualism in abnormal aging. For example, Zahodne, Schofield, Farrell, Stern, and Manly (2014) report longitudinal data that included 1,067 Spanish–English elderly bilinguals tested within 18–24 month intervals over a 23-year time span. Results showed that, although at baseline bilinguals presented better memory and executive functions, no differences between bilingual and monolinguals in the conversion to dementia was observed after adding covariates (level of education and years of immigration). A Sociocultural Perspective of Bilingualism Bilingualism can be approached from a sociocultural perspective. The sociocultural theory of psychological processes was initially developed by Vygotsky (Vygotsky, 1934/1968) and further advanced by different authors, especially by Luria (1976, 1979; Luria & Vygotsky, 1992). According to this theory, higher psychological processes are mediated. These processes, the concern of sociocultural theory, in general correspond to those intellectual abilities currently known as executive functions. So-called executive functions include but are not limited to abstracting, problem solving, temporality of behavior, inhibition control, prospection of behavior, morality, and working memory (Lezak, 1983; Ardila, 2008). 125 Mónica Rosselli and Alfredo Ardila Higher psychological processes are social in origin and complex and hierarchical in their structure; they all are based on a complex system of mediators both external and internalized (Luria, 1976, 1979). The idea of sociocultural origin of complex psychological activity assumes that these processes are developed through children’s activities within specific cultural-historical conditions; other people, for instance parents and teachers, can provide models and means to support the child’s cognitive development (Luria & Yudovich, 1972). Complex forms of cognition are mediated, and consequently require the involvement of external elements, such as objects and symbols. An intrinsic factor in systemic organization of higher psychological processes is the engagement of external artifacts, which have an independent history of development within each culture. Thus, there is not only a cortical, but also an “extracortical organization” of higher psychological processes. However, mediators may differ in each society; for instance, specific letter–sound correspondence in writing, the use of maps, etc. Evidently, the most important mediator of human cognition is language. Language developmental in the child follows some specific stages: initially, it is an external, social language, but progressively becomes private speech and finally an inner language (Vygotsky, 1934/2012). In a bilingual person, it is crucial to understand the potential involvement of L2 in private speech and hence in the regulation of psychological processes (Frawley & Lantolf, 1985; Lantolf, 2000; Lantolf & Pavlenko, 1995); Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). A bilingual’s two languages potentially result in a more complex control of cognitive processes. A central question in the psychology and neuropsychology of bilingualism is whether late bilinguals can use L2 to mediate cognition. Simultaneous early bilinguals have two native languages, and both can similarly mediate private speech and complex psychological processes, but what about late bilinguals? It seems clear that L1 should remain as the language for private speech. The answer to this question has been controversial. Initially, it was argued that late bilinguals can use L2 for social communication, but not for mediating complex psychological processes (Ushakova, 1994). It was assumed that L2—because of being learned on the foundation of L1—incorporated the phonological and semantic characteristics of L1; so, L2 was subordinated to L1. Other studies (e.g., Appel & Lantolf, 1994; McCafferty, 1994), however, did not support this interpretation. It was observed that in a variety of circumstances, such as recalling a story or explaining complex instructions, late bilinguals may externalize their private speech in L2. These conflicting observations can be the result of the specific characteristics of the target populations. The first study mentioned above, by Ushakova (1994), was conducted in a foreign language context, whereas the latter studies were instantiated in immersion L2 settings. Idiosyncrasies of the task, such as language used in the questions and in the community, could affect the subject’s access to private speech (Lantolf, 2006). Ardila, Benettieri, Church, Orozco, and Saucedo (2017) analyzed private speech in a sample of thirty-one 18–40-year-old Spanish–English early sequential bilinguals (learning L2 before the age of 10 years; their native language was Spanish, and English was learned as a consequence of moving to the US from a Latin American country). In 64% of the cases, English was the language that they reportedly used for thinking (e.g., planning, reflecting) and in 68% of the cases for problem solving/reasoning (e.g., solving math problems); only about 15% of the participants reported a preference for Spanish in these complex forms of cognition, and the remainder indicated that they used both languages for thinking and problem solving/reasoning. In these individuals, although their native language was Spanish, English had become the dominant language as a consequence of attending school in English. Simultaneous bilinguals with English as dominant language, on the other hand, used English 126 Neuropsychology of Bilingualism in about 90% of the cases for thinking and problem solving/reasoning; in the remaining cases, the use of both languages was reported; Spanish was never used in thinking and problem solving/reasoning situations. It was concluded that, in bilinguals, private speech to a significant extent corresponds to the dominant language of a community rather than to the first language learned. Brain and Bilingualism Fluent bilinguals have extensive experience in language switching that involves monitoring the situation to select the appropriate language, activating the selected language, and inhibiting the other language. That is, bilingualism appears in a particular social context that can be variable in different individuals. Switching between languages is particularly significant in active bilinguals, i.e., those bilinguals using both languages in everyday life. This extensive practice may lead to an enhanced ability in cognitive control that seems general and not language specific. Moreover, it carries brain structure and functional modifications. Studies have found increased gray matter (GM) density in the left inferior parietal cortex in bilinguals as compared to monolinguals, more evident in early than in late bilinguals (Mechelli et al., 2004). This difference in GM has also been reported for the anterior cingulate gyrus (Abutalebi et al., 2011), the left inferior frontal gyrus, and the left anterior temporal lobe (Stein et al., 2012). Stein et al. (2012) showed that the increase in GM correlated with the increase in proficiency in the second language. These changes are also reflected in modifications in white matter in the left parietal regions (Golestani, Paus, & Zatorre, 2002) and in the left Heschl’s gyrus (Golestani & Pallier, 2007) of the temporal lobe (see Figure 8.1). Differences in brain connections have also been reported. The fasciculi found to be more plastic in bilingualism are the left inferior frontal-occipital fasciculus (l-IFOF)—that is larger in simultaneous bilinguals compared to sequential bilinguals and monolinguals—and the bundle arising from anterior corpus callosum (CC) and projecting into the orbitofrontal lobe (AC-OL), which is smaller in simultaneous bilinguals compared to monolinguals (Stein, Winkler, Kaiser, & Dierks, 2014). The authors suggest that the IFOF-findings are Figure 8.1 B rodmann areas (BA) that show increased gray matter or cortical thickness in bilinguals compared to monolinguals: in both hemispheres, the anterior cingulate gyrus (BA 32); in the left hemisphere, the inferior frontal gyrus (BAs 44, 45 and 47), the anterior temporal lobe (BA 38), the inferior parietal lobe (BAs 39 and 40) and the Heschl’s gyrus (BAs 41 and 42) 127 Mónica Rosselli and Alfredo Ardila related to faster transmission of semantic information in simultaneous bilinguals; the interpretation the AC-OL finding remains unclear. Burgaleta, Sanjuán, Ventura-Campos, Sebastián-Gallés, and Ávila (2016) showed that managing more than one language from early childhood also has an impact on subcortical structures. A comparison of bilinguals and monolinguals revealed significantly expanded subcortical structures for bilinguals compared to monolinguals, localized in the bilateral putamen and thalamus, as well as in the left globus pallidus and right caudate nucleus. These findings suggest that perhaps the more complex phonological system in bilinguals may lead to a greater development of a subcortical brain network involved in monitoring articulatory processes. Functional studies have shown that managing more than one language particularly from early childhood has an impact on patterns of brain activation. As anticipated, language processing in bilinguals is more complex than in monolinguals and recruits larger brain areas. For example, late but not early bilinguals demonstrate increased activity of many neural substrates when speaking in an L2 compared with an L1 (Abutalebi, 2008). Such differences have been particularly salient in such regions as the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) (Hernandez & Li, 2007), and superior temporal gyrus (Abutalebi et al., 2013). Several fMRI studies have also demonstrated greater activation of speech-motor areas in late bilinguals than in monolingual controls. Kovelman, Baker, and Petitto (2008) found that although both bilinguals and monolinguals showed an increased activation of the left IFG (particularly Broadman areas 44/45) during a sentence judgment task, bilinguals revealed greater intensity activation in BA 45. Also, more distributed patterns of rest functional connectivity between frontal and posterior brain areas have been found in bilingual adults relative to monolinguals (Luk, De Sa, & Bialystok, 2011). The patterns of brain connectivity in early bilinguals may differ from the pattern observed in late bilinguals. For example, Berken, Chai, Chen, Gracco, and Klein (2016) found stronger functional connectivity for simultaneous bilinguals related to sequential bilinguals, between the left and right IFG, as well as between the inferior frontal gyrus and brain areas involved in language control, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior parietal lobule, and cerebellum. For sequential bilinguals, there was a significant correlation between age of acquisition of L2 and functional connectivity between the left IFG and the right IFG and the right inferior parietal lobule; the earlier the second language was acquired, the stronger the functional connectivity. Most evidence indicates that the acquisition and use of a second or even multiple languages recruits the same neural structures implicated in the acquisition of a first language (Abutalebi et al., 2013). There is consensus that functional differences in the bilingual brain manifest as alterations in regional brain activation rather than in the localization of language areas involved, although there are some differences in the degree of hemispheric involvement in early as compared to late bilinguals and monolinguals (Hull & Vaid, 2007). Bilingualism and Neuropsychological Syndromes Bilingual individuals may sometimes present language and general cognitive disorders that are not completely equivalent in L1 and L2. In these cases, it can be assumed that the sociocultural context of learning and use of L1 and L2 are different. This situation can be found in cases of acquired brain pathology, as well as in bilinguals who suffer from dementia syndromes. In cases of acquired language disturbances (aphasia), the language defect can be different when tested in L1 and L2. In cases of dementia, it has been observed that dementia 128 Neuropsychology of Bilingualism is not equally severe and parallel when using L1 and L2. As a matter of fact, the ability to use the L2—especially in late bilinguals—tends to decrease during normal aging, but this decrease is particularly evident in cases of dementia. Aphasia In bilingual individuals, language disturbances associated with brain pathologies are usually observed in both languages, although the specific aphasia clinical profile can be different. Besides differences in the type of aphasia and its severity, the pattern of language recovery can also vary across languages. Diverse clinical observations have demonstrated that bilingual individuals with aphasia do not necessarily manifest the same language disorders to the same degree of severity in both languages (Albert & Obler, 1978). Sometimes both languages are impaired in a similar way (parallel aphasia), but other times there is a different profile in each one of the languages (dissociated aphasia). It has been suggested that parallel aphasia is found in about 65% of the cases; in the remainder (35%), aphasia is dissociated: sometimes greater impairment is observed in L2, but other times greater defects are found in L1 (Fabbro, 2001). It is usually assumed that parallel aphasia is found in early bilinguals because brain language representation of L1 and L2 is similar; dissociated aphasia, on the other hand, is characteristic of late bilinguals; this is understandable considering the brain representation of the L1 is not completely coincidental with the brain representation of the L2 (Goral, Levy, & Obler, 2002; Green, 2008). Two opposing points of view were proposed during the 19th century to explain the language recovery in bilingual aphasics (a) Ribot’s law or Ribot’s rule (1882) states that the language best recovered by polyglot aphasics is the native language. (b) Pitres’ law or Pitres’ rule (1895). Pitres suggested that patients tended to better recover the language that was most familiar to them prior to the aphasia onset, whether or not it was the mother tongue. Both patterns of language recovery have been shown to be partially valid. Paradis (1977), however, described six different patterns of aphasia recovery in bilingual individuals: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. differential—each language is impaired separately and recovered at the same or different rate; parallel—different languages are similarly impaired and restored at the same rate; antagonistic—recovery of one language progresses, while the other regresses; successive—one language does not show any recovery until the other has been restored; selective—one language is not recovered at all; mixed—both languages are used in some combinations. However, most patients present the first (differential) or second (parallel) recovery pattern. The other patterns are unusual. Dementia It is well known that the ability to maintain fluency in more than one language decreases with age. With aging, people may tend to retreat to the native language, regardless of a 129 Mónica Rosselli and Alfredo Ardila lifelong history of bilingualism. Older bilinguals may also have increased difficulties handling two different languages due to the effects of cross-language interference. These usual outcomes in aging bilinguals could be significantly accentuated in those individuals who develop dementia. Frequently, difficulties in using the L2 represent an early sign of cognitive decline. Using a sample of elders (age 69–91 years), Salvatierra et al. (2007) observed that cognitively normal participants retrieved significantly more items under the semantic condition compared to the phonemic, whereas the performance of patients with Alzheimer’s disease was similar under both conditions; this observation suggests a greater decline in semantic verbal fluency tests. Mendez, Perryman, Pontón, and Cummings (1999) studied a group of patients who consistently used another language and were fluent in English. All patients were regularly exposed to English as a second language after the age of 13. Patients presented an evident tendency for words and phrases from their native language to intrude into English conversational speech. The authors observed that bilinguals presenting a dementia process tended to have asymmetrical language defects with preferential preservation of the native language. They suggested that in dementia, recently learned information is retained the least, and older, more remote information is often relatively preserved, consistent with a regression toward the predominant use of the patient’s earliest language. According to Mendez and colleagues (1999), in dementia, a retreat to the original language could result from an exacerbation of the cross-language difficulties that typically increases with age. People who are bilingual never completely deactivate either of their two languages, and this can result in interference or intrusions, particularly from the dominant language into the less dominant one. Dementia patients tend to mix languages, and they have specific problems with language selection. Similarly, De Santi, Obler, SaboAbramson, and Goldberger (1990) found, in a sample of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, the language difficulties may be different in each of the patient’s languages. A strong correlation between severity of dementia, problems of language choice, and code switching was found. An interesting observation is general cognitive functioning may be higher in demented patients when using L1 than in L2. This observation supports the assumption that, in bilinguals, private speech and complex forms of cognition are usually mediated by L1, at least in late bilinguals. Ekman, Wahlin, Viitanen, Norberg, and Winblad (1994) analyzed a sample of demented individuals who were born in Finland and had immigrated to Sweden and were Finnish–Swedish bilinguals. Many of these immigrants had difficulties communicating with their Swedish-speaking caregivers, while their communication with a Finnish-speaking caregiver was adequate. In other words, general cognitive functioning was particularly decreased when using L2, whereas when using L1 their intellectual level appeared higher. Noteworthy is the fact that normal bilinguals can use the knowledge of two languages to increase verbal production, whereas dementia patients are unable to profit from knowledge of two different languages. De Picciotto and Friedland (2001) studied verbal fluency abilities in a sample of normal aging English–Afrikaans bilingual speakers, and several subjects with Alzheimer’s disease. A semantic verbal fluency task (in this case, to say as many as possible animal names in one minute) was administered in the bilingual mode, Afrikaans and English. It was observed that some normal bilingual subjects used code switching as a strategy; however, no relationship between age of acquisition, pattern of use, and verbal fluency scores was found. In comparison, subjects with Alzheimer’s disease did not make use of code-switching strategies, but there was some relationship between age of acquisition, pattern of use, and verbal fluency scores. The authors concluded that normal aging bilinguals can recur to both languages in an attempt to increase performance, while Alzheimer’s disease patients are unable to use this strategy. 130 Neuropsychology of Bilingualism General Conclusions Bilingualism impacts the cognitive abilities and brain functioning across the life span. The effects of bilingualism are observed in diverse areas, but most especially in executive functions and, evidently, in verbal abilities. Executive functions—complex cognitive processes— represent mediated forms of cognition; language is the most important mediator of cognition, and it is clear that having and using two languages may impact complex cognition. This bilingualism effect is found since childhood but is different depending not only upon age but also on language proficiency, age of acquisition of the second language, and exposure to each language. Bilingualism has been suggested to have a protective effect during normal and abnormal aging. At the level of the central nervous system some significant differences have been found in the gray and white matter and in the patterns of brain activation when bilinguals are compared to monolinguals. Also, brain functioning differences have been described when L1 and L2 are used. 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Appel (Eds.), Vygotskian approaches to second language research (pp. 135–156). Westport, CT: Ablex. Videsott, G., Della Rosa, P. A., Wiater, W., Franceschini, R., & Abutalebi, J. (2012). How does linguistic competence enhance cognitive functions in children? A study in multilingual children with different linguistic competences. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15(4), 884–895. Vygotsky, L. S. (1934/1968). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1934/2012). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Yang, S., & Yang, H. (2016). Bilingual effects on deployment of the attention system in linguistically and culturally homogeneous children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 146, 121–136. Yang, S., Yang, H., & Lust, B. (2011). Early childhood bilingualism leads to advances in executive attention: Dissociating culture and language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14(3), 412–422. Zahodne, L. B., Schofield, P. W., Farrell, M. T., Stern, Y., & Manly, J. J. (2014). Bilingualism does not alter cognitive decline or dementia risk among Spanish-speaking immigrants. Neuropsychology, 28(2), 238–246. Further Reading Fabbro, F. (2013). The neurolinguistics of bilingualism: An introduction. New York: Psychology Press. The book presents a general overview of the neuropsychological aspects of bilingualism. The question of the representation and processing of language in the brain is analyzed. Hernandez, A. E. (2013). The bilingual brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The loss and recovery of languages in cases of brain pathology are discussed. Departing from these observations, an analysis of the brain organization of language in bilinguals is presented. Paradis, M. (2004). A neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism. Studies in bilingualism 18. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. This book proposes a set of hypotheses about the representation, organization, and processing of two or more languages in one brain. 135 9 Inner Speech and Its Impact on Teaching and Learning Anke Werani Introduction: Cultural-Historical Psycholinguistics The investigation of inner speech is an important topic of cultural-historical psycholinguistic research. The core of cultural-historical psycholinguistics is that individual consciousness and all higher mental processes—speech included—have a social genesis (Vygotsky, 1931/1997; Werani, 2011a, 2011b). This type of psycholinguistics reflects what was originally known as Soviet psychology, especially Vygotsky (1934/1987) and his circle (Bertau & Werani, 2011; Yasnitsky, 2011; Yasnitsky, van der Veer, & Ferrari, 2014;) that was very much influenced by Marx’s writings. Human existence is always social, meaning that all human activity is socially bound. Most important is the individual process of socialization (for example, origin, environment, education) and the linguistic community, into which a child is immersed from the beginning. Therefore, the ability to speak, and in fact all language activity, is essential to social and individual life. All of these aspects influence personality, and over the years we carry a kind of “biographical backpack” filled with all experiences, perceptions, language use and so on. Importantly, the notion of language activity as a central phenomenon in cultural-historical psycholinguistics is not seen as a vehicle transporting signs, but as a tool for constructing social and individual life. Hence, language activity is understood as a social process for interpersonal as well as for intrapersonal processes. However, the social origin of human beings leads to a holistic view of mental processes. The individual is not investigated on his/her own regarding only internal processes, but in social and cultural context as well. The “system” under investigation is enlarged, and both internal and external processes are interwoven units of analysis. Furthermore, in addition to the transition between external and internal processes, individuals are physiological and psychological beings; it is assumed that humans are psycho-physiological organisms treated as a single entity. Perhaps Descartes was wrong when he divided humans into body and mind. The point of entry in cultural-historical psycholinguistics is the individual as a unit, comprising body, emotion, activity, cognition, and language embedded in a social setting (Werani, 2011a). The consideration of social aspects in the investigation of mental functions is very much at the forefront of current psycholinguistic research today. For example, the theory of distributed 136 Inner Speech in Teaching and Learning cognition proposes that cognition is at least a socially distributed phenomenon (Sharifian, 2008). According to Mercer (2013), social conceptions of cognition involving language are motivating new insights into the nature of human cognition. Emotion and activity serve as a kind of baseline for other mental processes (see Veresov & Mok, this volume). Emotions are important for valuation and perception, as well as for language, cognition and activity. For instance, in communication processes emotions are the baseline for the success of understanding (Watzlawick et al., 1967), and in teaching processes it is well known that a good emotional baseline facilitates the learning process (Maslow, 1970; Manning & Payne, 1996; Caine et al., 2009). Historical Perspectives: Inner Speech in the Cultural-Historical Tradition The interest in inner speech has a long philosophical tradition and has been fixed in psychology from its early days (e.g., Humboldt, 1999). Inner speech became a central topic in Soviet psychology in the 1920s. It was Vygotsky who introduced consciousness in psychology, focused on semiotic mediation of higher mental functions and was convinced that consciousness is structured by language (Vygotsky, 1925/1999, 1931/1997). In the formation and functioning of consciousness, inner speech plays a central role and appears to be the key element in that it is directed towards communicative contexts and while it always remains genuinely social, it is at the same time inwardly directed and is involved in the development and formation of higher mental functions, highlighting here the mediating functions of language (signs) (Vygotsky, 1934/1987). In Soviet psychology, the phenomenon of inner speech is extensively described from various points of view and as having various functions (Vygotsky, 1934/1987; Ananev, 1963; Sokolov, 1972; Luria, 1982; Gal’perin (see Haenen, 1996)). The point of entry is Vygotsky’s (1934/1987) investigation of inner speech and his assumption that it is a separate form of speech with its own structure. In the following paragraphs, the central topics of inner speech relating to its genesis, structure and functions are summarized (cf. Werani, 2014a). Starting with the genesis of inner speech, the general consensus in Soviet literature is that inner speech is interiorized speech. Speech is—like every other higher mental function—originally distributed between people. Here, the discussion of Piaget’s (1926) view of egocentric speech must be mentioned, because it leads Vygotsky to the observation that egocentric speech is the transition point between the intermental and intramental functions of language. It promotes the process through which children’s social activity becomes individual activity. Vygotsky postulates three stages through which speech passes on its way to becoming inner speech: “external speech, egocentric speech, and inner speech” (Vygotsky 1934/1987, p. 114). Vygotsky regards interiorization as the basic process giving rise to the formation of higher mental functions. Importantly, interiorization is not seen as an internal copy of external processes. Furthermore, interiorization is a specific and dynamic process, which forms the inner level of consciousness, and which is always “quasi-social.” Luria (Vygotsky & Luria, 1930; Luria, 1982) and Gal’perin (see Haenen, 1996) were also interested in the interiorization process. In his research on the formation of free will, Luria (1982) was able to show how children first follow the parents’ linguistic instructions (intermental), interiorize them (intramental), and then finally are able to control their behavior through language in ways that resemble, but do not duplicate, the patterns deployed by their parents. Gal’perin (see Haenen, 1996) described the process of interiorization in a very precise manner and fixed his idea in a theory of stages in the development of mental acts. His point of entry to all mental activity is the orientation of an individual. Gal’perin was 137 Anke Werani • originally social External Speech Egocentric Speech • distributed between people • transition point between intermental to intramental functions • directed to communication Inner Speech Higher Mental Functions • directed to cognition • semiotic mediated through speech Figure 9.1 Genesis of inner speech and higher mental functions convinced that every mental activity was first a material (or materialized) action. These actions are accompanied by external speech and then transformed via unfolded speech towards inner speech. According to Gal’perin (see Haenen 1996), only with inner speech are complex intellectual actions or mental acts possible. In summary, the important fact is that interiorization is semiotically mediated, and describes how external speech is transformed into inner speech (see Figure 9.1). Concerning the structure of inner speech, Vygotsky described its syntactic, phonetic and semantic features. The central characteristics of its syntax are “fragmentation and abbreviation” (Vygotsky, 1934/1987, p. 266). In this context, the concept of predicativity is discussed and is seen as more important than the nominative function of language. It means that as speech moves toward abbreviation in form, its predicative function to describe action is preserved while its subject, or what an utterance is about, disappears. The concept of absolute predicativity was presupposed by Luria (1982) and Sokolov (1972); only Ananev (1963) postulated both predicative and substantive structures as important for inner speech (see also Frawley, 1987). Further, Vygotsky described the reduction of the phonetic features of speech: “In inner speech, the syntactic and phonetic aspects of speech are reduced to a minimum. They are maximally simplified and condensed” (1934/1987, p. 275). Vygotsky’s description is a famous metaphor for the idea that inner speech is a condensed form of external speech that leads to thinking in pure meanings, and it stresses the idea that inner speech is an independent form of speech. Vygotsky related inner speech not only to external speech but also to writing. Whereas external speech induces inner speech, inner speech is a precondition for writing. Considering syntax, inner speech and writing are at opposite poles, to the extent that 138 Inner Speech in Teaching and Learning inner speech is pure meaning without syntax, and written speech, especially in its formal registers (e.g., academic writing), is maximally syntactic. External social speech lies somewhere between these two poles, given that it can be highly syntactic, as in a formal lecture, or highly abbreviated as in a dialogue between socially close individuals. Aspects of meaning, especially word meaning as the unit of analysis in which consciousness is reflected, lead to the assumptions regarding the semantic structure of inner speech, in particular that word meaning is both an intellectual and a linguistic phenomenon. Following this assumption, word meaning is the link between speaking and thinking. The three distinctive features of the semantics of inner speech are precedence of word sense over word meaning, fusion (agglutination) of words in many languages, and flow of sense between words (idiomatic character). The supposed independent form of inner speech exposes these structural features as well as their functional specializations (cf. Vygotsky, 1934/1987). In summary, Vygotsky was convinced that inner speech is an independent form of speech with its own structure. Its main characteristics are fragmentation and abbreviation on the syntactic, phonetic, and semantic level. According to Vygotsky (1934/1987), the functions of inner speech can be related to two areas, just as the functions of speech are: inner speech is directed to others and is involved in the regulation of social intercourse via communication; and inner speech is directed to oneself and is the connection to higher mental functions. While Vygotsky (1934/1987) stressed the functions of mental orientation and problem solving, Luria (1982) focused on the role of speech in attentional processes, which lead to an enrichment and deepening of perception. Luria was convinced that inner speech is responsible for self-regulation and the formation of consciousness and volitional acts. Gal’perin (see Haenen, 1996) and Sokolov (1972) were more specific in assuming that inner speech is an instrument of thought. Whereas Gal’perin stressed the functions of creating complex mental activities together with the regulation of behavior, Sokolov highlighted the function of inner speech in language comprehension and language production. Ananev (1963) stressed the fact that inner speech is closely connected with the development of personality. In summary, the basic functions of inner speech in the Soviet tradition are regulation and control; inner speech is also related to thinking and to language processing. Furthermore, inner speech is involved in the development and the formation of consciousness and personality. Critical Issues and Topics: Psychology Without Language Activity Although it is obvious, especially in Soviet psychology, that language activity plays a central role in both social intercourse and higher mental functions, this dual function is by and large neglected in both contemporary psychology and linguistics. A primary factor resulting in the lack of interest in the role of language activity in higher mental processing is no doubt the tendency toward reductionism (Clegg, 2009), which proposes that “any given phenomenon can be reduced to its constituent elements without any loss of meaning” (Clegg, 2009, p. 3). In the case of language and speech, the reductionism occurs twice: in psychology it is mainly influenced by cognitivism and in linguistics by structuralism. As a consequence, there is no subfield within contemporary psychology that focuses on language activity as a single, unified, phenomenon. Language and speech have been separated; as a result there is interest in language as a system or in speech as a process (Werani, 2014b). Language is usually understood as a universally accepted set of signs, which are precise, detectable, and formally representable. Thus, language is seen as an abstract phenomenon, mostly described independently of situation and context. The focus of such investigations is the linguistic 139 Anke Werani product, treated as the object of systematic analyses. The abstracted product is interpreted as an independent reality and is thus considered to be an interiorized or native mechanism for linguistic processes. This approach leads to a problematic concept of language. In contrast, speech is seen as the process using linguistic signs dependent on each moment in a speech event. Hence, speech is the unique realized action of an individual in which speaking is a fundamentally social process. Context and previous knowledge are always constitutive of meaning, for example as interpretation by the listener. To connect language with speech, it must be seen as a common system that consists of repeated, previously experienced linguistic actions integrated in language activity. Language activity is closely linked to consciousness. Focusing on language activity, there is, first, social activity in that we are speaking-for-others. Second, there is interiorization in that an individual is speaking-for-the-self. Both of these aspects—social activity and interiorization—interact. The resulting speech style as a habitualized expression of the individual in each moment of conversation is therefore not seen as a linguistic concept that is only concerned with what and how something is said. Language activity, especially speech style, is vivid; it is a dynamic structure between speaker and listener in a specific context, constructing a unique and unrepeatable space composed by verbal (rhetoric, vocabulary, syntax), paraverbal (especially voice) and nonverbal features (especially gestures, facial expression, eye-contact). In summary, within the framework of cultural-historical psycholinguistics, language activity is indeed a powerful tool for human consciousness. It is the point of entry for communicative and cognitive processes and therefore also important for teaching. It is assumed that there is a dynamic system that is subject to a constant constructive process leading to communication, thinking, and identity. Current Contributions and Research: Inner Speech Beyond Vygotsky As mentioned above, inner speech has had its most comprehensive discussion in the Soviet tradition whereas, in Western research, inner speech, especially in its mediating function, has been by and large disregarded. Speech is regarded as responsible for the transmission of conventional signs with no relation to higher mental functions. There are of course exceptions, and a variation of the Vygotsky tradition can be found in the Western approach to psychology and language study (Yasnitsky, 2011; Yasnitsky, van der Veer, & Ferrari 2014; Daniels, Cole, & Wertsch, 2007). The investigation of inner speech is very complex because, for one thing, externalizing inner speech compromises its very nature as an internal process. Externalizing inner speech means that it is no longer inner speech, but it is a kind of private or egocentric speech. Egocentric speech is the transition point from external to inner speech, so this kind of verbalized speech can be analyzed for example with thinking-aloud-protocols. An important point here is that egocentric speech is at best indirect evidence for inner speech; it is not inner speech itself. The following paragraphs summarize some of the studies which deal with inner speech as having a mediating function. These are studies related to the approaches of the culturehistorical and the sociocultural tradition as well as activity theory. Toward a New Phenomenology of Inner Speech Indeed, it is necessary to develop the concept of inner speech further, because of the narrow way in which Vygotsky treated the concept. Vygotsky was convinced that inner speech is 140 Inner Speech in Teaching and Learning an independent form of language, a form with its own structure, semantics, and function. Indeed, some neuroscience research on the phenomenon of inner speech often focuses on the independent form of inner speech as well. However, especially with regard to brainimaging techniques, one finds many methodological problems, and the concept of inner speech is often equated with subvocalization (e.g., Shergill et al., 2002; Girbau, 2007; Jones & Fernyhough, 2007; Morin & Michaud, 2007). Perrone-Bertolotti et al. (2014) present an overview of the behavioral and physiological as well as the cerebral correlates of the form of inner speech. Besides deepening Vygotsky’s tradition, some studies have used Vygotsky as a source of inspiration. For example, Morin (2009, 2012) is interested in reintroducing the phenomenon of inner speech as fundamental for consciousness and psychology. Morin (2009) tracks this function of inner speech in the formation of consciousness and self-consciousness. Hurlburt, Heavy and Kelsey (2013) use the qualitative method of descriptive experience sampling to investigate inner speaking and draw new insight into the phenomenon, e.g., concerning the frequency with which different individuals use inner speech. Specific Aspects of Inner Speech Related to Functions In emphasizing the concept of inner speech, various functions are investigated. In this regard, one important aspect is its power to organize thinking. Wertsch (1991), for example, stressed the dialogic aspect of inner speech, and following Bakhtin (1981), presupposed several inner voices, which reflect the heterogeneity of thinking in dialogical formation (Wertsch, 1980; Wertsch & Stone, 1999) and is further elaborated by Larrain and Haye (2012). In his general genetic law of cultural development, Vygotsky (1931/1997) proposed that all mental processes appear twice, or on two planes: first, language activity is a social process; second, after interiorization, language activity becomes a higher mental process. Therefore, the functions of inner speech serve both social communication and all higher mental processes. According to communicative functions, Feigenbaum (2009) proposed a continuum from monological structures to variations of dialogical expressions. Here possibilities of different grades of unfolded formations of inner speech are mentioned. San Martín, Boada, and Feigenbaum (2011) are interested in inner speech and the formation of communicative competence, i.e., how inner speech influences communicative abilities. Within the domain of higher mental processes, problem solving, writing processes, and the formation of consciousness have been the focus of research. Werani (2011a, 2011b) argued that inner speech is not an independent form of language activity but is a type of speech, just as are speaking and writing. She is interested in the function of inner speech in problem-solving processes and has carried out research using the method of thinking aloud to uncover different types of speaking-thinking. For instance, she was able to show that inner speech can have either favorable or unfavorable effects on problem-solving processes. Good problem-solving processes are accompanied by high-quality language activity (see Swain, Lapkin, Knouzi, Suzuki, & Brooks, 2009 on L2 languaging). Inner speech is also important in the development of literacy Sokolov (1972) extensively researched reading and inner speech, and Ehrich (2006) has taken up this empirical area of investigation as well. Another central aspect in the conceptualization of inner speech is its role in the formation of consciousness (Vygotsky, 1934/1987). DeSouza, DaSilveira, and Gomes (2008) investigated egocentric speech as an expression of self-consciousness. 141 Anke Werani Language Acquisition Research First language acquisition research has focused on children’s “private speech” (egocentric speech in the tradition of Vygotsky’s research), which occurs in its typical form between three and seven years of age (Berk, 1992). A main topic is the question of how speech is gradually interiorized during early childhood. Berk (1986) summarized three levels of interiorization: the first level starts with task-irrelevant speech; on level two task-relevant speech can be observed through private speech, while in level three private speech is transformed to whispering and verbal lip movements. Studies that follow on this topic include those by Díaz and Berk (1992), Berk (1994), and Berk and Winsler (1995). Children’s use of private speech has shown a positive outcome on a range of cognitive tasks, for example planning and digit span tasks (Lidstone, Meins, & Fernyhough, 2011) or as a means of mediating their behavior (Fernyhough, 2008). For an overview of the conception of private speech, see Winsler, Fernyhough, and Montero (2009). Empirical studies on SLA and private/inner speech have been carried out by Lantolf and Appel (1994), Ushakova (1994) and, more recently, de Guerrero (2005). Pathogenesis of Inner Speech Aphasias as an aspect of pathogenesis were investigated by Luria (1970, 1973, 1976). Further studies dealing with inner speech in aphasia within the cultural-historical approach were conducted by Costello and Warrington (1989), Friedrich (2006), and Werani (2011a). Extending the conception of inner speech has been a general aim in this research. Inner speech is affected in aphasia, as well, and therefore not only is language disturbed in aphasia but thinking processes are as well. Luria was convinced by the idea of inner speech as an independent language formation, and he therefore tried to discover whether it is possible to have an isolated disturbance of inner speech. In addition to aphasias, inner speech is investigated in syndromes, including psychotic, mood, and anxiety disorders. Auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia have been studied by Fernyhough (2004), McCarthy-Jones and Fernyhough (2011), Jones and Fernyhough (2007), and Alderson-Day and Fernyhough (2015). These studies also test inner speech models in order to understand the phenomenon more clearly. Strikingly, the phenomenon of hearing a voice in the absence of a speaker is typical for schizophrenia. Here the atypical processing of inner speech is investigated in which inner speech is not perceived as produced by the individual but is identified as emanating from an external source (Alderson-Day & Fernyhough, 2015). In summary, it is obvious that Vygotsky inspired research in many areas. His idea that inner speech is an independent form of speech with its own syntax and semantics is advanced in the research that has been inspired by—but has moved beyond—Vygotsky’s original work. Inner speech is nowadays seen as a phenomenon that is a kind of speech, similar to speaking and writing, and its functions are expanded by further cognitive processes such as the formation of the self and the role of inner speech in communication processes. Recommendations for Practice: Inner Speech, Teaching and Learning It is assumed that language activity is a powerful tool for human consciousness. Inner speech can be seen as the core for orientation, regulation, and reflection of communicative and cognitive processes. External speech is transformed towards inner speech. In the teaching process, therefore, the development of inner speech must focus on two planes: first, the teacher is the 142 Inner Speech in Teaching and Learning model for useful and effective language activity, and his/her language activity can serve as an example to be interiorized by the students; second, the teacher has to correct ineffective language activity by the students in order to ensure that they learn and use positive and effective speech directed to themselves. Developing inner speech competences is the point of entry to push both communication abilities and cognitive skills to operate at an optimum level of ability. Learning processes are driven by inner speech, and indeed it is Holzkamp (1995) who deals with inner speech and the intention to learn. For Holzkamp, learning is a statement of inner speech directed to oneself. Here, much work remains, especially related to teaching, because a well-established language activity occurs first in external speech, such as commentaries, requests, instructions, and questions, which are then directed at the speaker herself or himself. Teaching is an important and responsible activity, and Holzkamp makes it clear that learning processes have to be developed within cooperating communities. Like language activity, learning processes occur twice; first socially on the interpersonal plane and then as they are interiorized and become higher mental processes, on the intramental plane. The theoretical baseline for the purpose of interiorizing learning processes is activity theory, especially Gal’perin’s psychology of learning (Arievitch & Haenen, 2005). In other words, teaching is a process of common activity interiorizing learning processes through language activity. Hence, in practice, teachers have to appreciate a student’s desire to learn. Important aspects in the process include the personal sense of the learning condition, generating one’s own learning goals, planning, completing, and controlling learning processes, and reflecting on one’s own learning activity. For both teacher and student, it is necessary to create a unit of instruction and construction with personal sense as the center of learning activity. Vygotsky’s model supposing a progression from external to inner speech via egocentric speech (private speech) is expanded in Figure 9.2. External Speech Egocentric Speech Inner Speech • be model • teaching • transition from external to internal Communication/ Teaching • self-regulation • self-reflection Cognition/ Learning Higher Mental Functions • thinking • consciousness Figure 9.2 Expansion of Vygotsky’s model on teaching and learning processes 143 Anke Werani Teaching entails communication processes, e.g., presenting information, giving instructions, asking questions, and the like. It is the materialized process that teachers use that empowers students to learn via external speech and trains them how to do this. Wellformed inner speech processes empower individuals to think. In other words, trained inner speech enables students to learn on their own. Making inner speech self-regulation and self-reflection possible leads to higher mental functions that ultimately coalesce in consciousness, which is always embedded in speech. The following focuses on research on the power of inner speech in learning and teaching processes. The research is categorized according to Figure 9.2 and the main functions of language activity, especially inner speech focusing on communication on the one hand and on cognitive processes on the other. Focus on Communication It is interesting that inner speech focusing on communication has not been extensively investigated. Strikingly, communication is the point of entry to improve inner speech. The fact is that the input, the external speech in communication, has a high degree of influence on improving higher mental functions. The positive influence of well-formed (inner) speech has been documented in studies concerning cognitive skills (see Mercer & Sams, 2006). Teachers should be aware that in presenting their language activity to students they are serving as models to be imitated by the students. It is important in communication processes that both speaker and listener be actively involved in the construction process of a specific communication zone. In this communication zone, reality is constructed and negotiated between speaker and listener (teacher and student). Each communication zone is unique and not repeatable. Such constructions depend, for example, on who is talking about someone or something, why they are talking, when and where they are talking, and particularly how they are talking. Language activity is an expression of one’s habitus (Bourdieu, 1984), and each individual forms his or her own personal speech style. It is also important for teachers to reflect their personal speech style, involving verbal, paraverbal, and nonverbal aspects of language activity. Understanding the importance of this way of using language needs to be part of the professional development of teachers because this type of language activity facilitates the interiorization of language by students. Teaching is mediated through language. Hence, the teacher’s externalization of cognitive processes is important in the development of the students’ inner speech. It is useful to make inner mental processes obvious through speech. The genesis assumes the stages of external speech, egocentric speech, and inner speech. In teaching processes, students should be empowered to use language, such as self-directed speech, to enhance their mental performances. Zakin (2007) made a convincing argument that self-directed speech does not represent distracting classroom behavior, but is an active constructivist activity necessary for metacognitive understanding. Ohta (2001) has identified private speech as a window into the mind to see how the learner copes individually with second language learning tasks. Private/egocentric speech is a data source in the classroom to supervise the cognitive processes of the learners. Egocentric speech is therefore a tool for both student and teacher to control language activity and influence language processes. In other words, the transition from external to inner speech should be seen as an active formation process that leads students to develop high quality inner speech. 144 Inner Speech in Teaching and Learning Focus on Cognitive Processes Vygotsky established that inner speech is an integral part of higher mental processes. Therefore, it is not surprising that inner speech should be investigated as it pertains to teaching. The investigation of inner speech and its role in the acquisition of cognitive processes opens several research areas. To present an overview, these are summarized in what follows under the topics of metacognition, self-talk, problem solving, valuation and autosuggestion, and identity. Metacognition Inner speech is often subordinated to metacognition. Inner speech can be seen as the process enabling metacognition. Zakin (2007) proposed a model called “ARE” or “Act/ Reflect/Evaluate” (p. 4) which is termed “The Inner Speech Cognitive Problem Solving Assessment Tool” (p. 5). In this approach, improvement in the students’ cognitive skills begins with teacher demonstration and modeling, and then the process moves to students’ participation in various settings (whole group, small group, partner interaction). A remarkable connection has been discovered between metacognition and inner speech. The three steps in the “ARE” approach are “inner speech thinking steps” (questions), “inner speech facilitating comments” (reflective remarks), and “evaluation of inner speech use” (evaluative speech comments) (p. 5). From the cultural-historical and activity theory point of view, this approach is fruitful, as it indicates that the process of forming inner speech processes starts with teacher models aiming at self-regulation. Self-Talk In the discussion of inner speech and metacognition, the role of self-talk is highlighted. Manning & Payne (1996) considered various principles to be fundamental for regulating and controlling activity. The point of entry is a teacher’s positive mental initial state, manifested in self-awareness/confidence, self-acceptance, self-esteem, and self-responsibility. Manning and Payne (1996) start from the basic principle that a teacher’s emotional stability is responsible for ideal learning conditions, and Maslow (1970) pointed out that a learner must feel physically and psychologically safe in order to learn. Mayr and Neuweg (2006) showed in their empirical study that emotional stability has an enormous effect on teaching. Manning and Payne (1996) as well as Payne and Manning (1998) recommended reducing such negative thinking as stress, anger, frustration, or boredom. To release one from negative thinking they use self-talk for teachers in a positive and supporting manner. Teachers have to be aware of their language activity and of internalized patterns, because the quality of utterance affects emotions, thinking, and acting. It is important to recognize that speech in a supporting and positive form has beneficial effects on learning processes, a suggestion proven in neurodidactic studies (Caine et al., 2009). Hall and Smotrova (2013) present an empirical study investigating teacher self-talk in classrooms during unplanned moments of instruction. Among their interesting findings is that through teacher self-talk the traditional teacher–student relationship is reshaped, making it possible to elicit empathic responses from the students. Problem Solving Studies investigating language activity and problem solving have established coherence between language activity and problem solving (Werani, 2011a, 2011b). Using the method 145 Anke Werani of thinking aloud, Werani was able to show that speech and problem-solving processes are clearly interwoven. However, it is not only a fact that speech mediates thinking processes; the quality of the speech used plays an important role in generating positive or negative problem-solving strategies. This outcome leads to four different speaking-thinking-types, indicating that there is a relationship between the quality of speech and the strategies used in problem-solving behavior. The four types manifest different speech profiles. The pragmatic type, for example, uses speech when a problem occurs and has the positive aim of resolving the problem. The doubting type, in contrast, shows a lack of awareness of a problem and therefore triggers the problem-solving process very late. Speech of this type is characterized by negative and demotivating speech acts. The doubting type also entails significantly more mistakes than the pragmatic type. The third type, talkative, is characterized by continual use of problem-solving speech, and appears to be a strategy designed to counter possible problems. In contrast to the pragmatic type of egocentric speech, talkative-speech is not economical because problem-solving processes last a long time. Nevertheless, this type of speech does lead to positive results in problem solving. The final, taciturn, type of egocentric speech uses speech sparingly for problem solving. It is noteworthy that this type of speech is the least effective in solving problems (Werani, 2011b). Interestingly, the quality of speech has an influence on the results of the problem-solving process but the quantity—how much speech is produced during the problem-solving task—is not a predictor of outcomes. For the teaching context, it could be relevant as to which type of egocentric speech students are encouraged to use as a problem-solving tool. Mercer and Sams (2006) presented an example of how to instruct students to empower logical thinking through language. Practicing language in a procedure called thinking aloud constitutes a powerful tool to solve logical and mathematical problems. In other words, teaching students to use language activity to improve their inner speech as a tool, improves problem-solving processes in general. In their study, the quality rather than the quantity of speech is stressed. Further concepts on how to speak in classrooms are discussed in Mercer and Howe (2012). Mercer (2013) focused again on language as a tool for thinking (see also Swain, 2006). In his concept of the social brain, he attempts to build a relationship between individual and collective thinking. Valuation and Autosuggestion Inner speech is also important for one’s valuation of the world. It was Asch (1946) who highlighted the influence of language on valuating processes. He asked a group of participants to imagine a person with the following characteristics: “intelligent, skillful, industrious, warm, determined, practical, cautious.” The subjects were then asked to evaluate other personality characteristics of the imagined person. Another group of subjects was then tasked with a similar set of characteristics, but Asch replaced the word warm with cold and asked them to evaluate additional personal traits. The results are quite revealing: the first group (warm) thought that the person was emotional, optimistic, relaxed; the second group (cold) thought that the person was mainly thin and pale. The results attest to the power of language activity to shape the thinking process. With the replacement of only one word, the construction of a worldview was seen to vary markedly. Applying these findings to teaching makes it clear that each student valuation may lead to different interactional processes. In this context, mental techniques are also important. They are also based on valuation, and if they are mastered and applied, they can exercise a powerful influence on perception. All perceptions are valuated: things in our environment, other 146 Inner Speech in Teaching and Learning people and oneself, and the use of language enables us to overwrite valuations. One technique in this context is autosuggestion. The imagination and the will are essential elements in autosuggestion. One needs only a resolution and a so-called guideline. Here, positive expression is important because every verbal instruction is processed cognitively and is consciously present. For example, if one is asked not to think about something, one immediately does so. The linguistic operator not is understood, but the brain activates the something one thinks about automatically. Once again, language is proven to be a powerful tool in this process: in instructing someone to do something it is much more effective to describe what someone is supposed to do, not what someone is supposed not to do. For this reason, the instruction “not to do” something should be avoided by teachers to the extent possible, a fact that is often forgotten in educational processes, including language instruction. Identity Formation Teaching is a complex pursuit. Language activity is necessary for the construction of our reality and our identity. It is important to view language activity in its mediating and constructing role as a dynamic formation of our Self. For example, through consideration of the virtual world of media and social networks, we see that it is possible, using language, for one to be anyone or everyone. Through language, it is possible for one to be anyone or everyone in a virtual world. Similar to language, identity is a dynamic interacting process between intermental (social identity) and intramental performances (personal identity). This echoes the model of the formation of ego-identity as a dynamic process between personal and social identity (Goffman, 1963). In external processes, social identity is obvious. Social identity involves playing a specific role in a specific context and thus taking part in the role-play system. In a social context, others confront the individual with traits, attributions, and normative expectations. All in all, these are expected to resemble the traits, attributions, and normative expectations of the others. Personal identity summarizes all specific traits that make the individual unique. Here, the internal processes are stressed. This is a kind of biographical self-interpretation and demands that the individual be distinctive. The challenge is to find a balance between social and personal identity and to develop and form ego-identity. This constructive and dynamic tension implies that both language activity and identity are a dynamic inter- and intramental system. Depending on the circumstance and on the addressee, any communicative situation is a unique speech event that reveals different personal speech styles and ego-identities. The specific speech style in language activity is constructed depending on the habitus and the specific role of the individual in the communication process. It is postulated that personal speech style is an expression of ego-identity and therefore interwoven with it. In summary, inner speech is a powerful tool involved in a variety of cognitive processes as well as in the preparation of communicative actions. A teacher’s role is comprehensive, for language activity is not only an instrument to communicate; it is also a tool for mediating and constructing higher mental processes. Future Directions The basis of language activity is sociality, and humans are immersed in language activity from the beginning of life. Inner speech is a powerful tool mediating social communication processes as well as higher mental functions. The basic functions of inner speech are regulation and control, which structure consciousness and form personality. 147 Anke Werani With regard to teaching, the power of language activity, especially inner speech, has to be emphasized. Language activity is not only a means to transport information; it is a creative and dynamic tool that forms communication, cognition, and identity. In teacher education, it seems necessary to reintroduce language activity as a powerful pedagogical tool. Awareness of speaking, as well as the complexity of its functions, has to be learned. Certainly, a main question is how interiorization can be emphasized in classroom situations. 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Journal of Education and Human Development, 1(2), 1–14. Further Reading ISCAR: www.iscar.org This site enables you to get into contact with other researchers. Thomas, T. (Ed.). (2014). Encyclopedia of critical psychology. Heidelberg: Springer. This volume offers an overview of critical psychology. Yasnitsky, A., van der Veer, R., & Ferrari, M. (Eds.). (2014). The Cambridge handbook of culturalhistorical psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This handbook provides an overview of cultural-historical psychology. 151 10 Private and Inner Speech in L2 Learning The Impact of Vygotskyan Sociocultural Theory María C. M. de Guerrero Introduction One of the areas of second language (L2) research in which Vygotskyan sociocultural theory (SCT) has proved to have greatest “heuristic value” (Kozulin, 1986, p. lvi) has been that of private and inner speech. Evidence from the early days of Western SCT-inspired L2 research (Frawley & Lantolf, 1985; Lantolf & Frawley, 1984) shows that private and inner speech have been, from the start, Vygotskyan core concepts worthy of investigation from an L2 perspective. In this paper, I assess the impact of Vygotskyan SCT on private and inner speech phenomena in L2 research. After briefly considering Vygotsky’s treatment of private and inner speech in relation to additional language learning, I survey the major research findings on private/inner speech occurrence in L2, foreign language (FL), and bilingual/multilingual learning. Particular attention is paid to advances—and gaps—in the exploration of the role of private/inner speech in L2 learning and the development of the capacity to think verbally in a language other than the first (L1). Lastly, I point out areas in need of further research. Vygotsky on Private/Inner Speech and Language Learning Private and inner speech are exceptionally important notions in Vygotsky’s (1978, 1986) theories. Vygotsky himself, however, did not explicitly relate his discussion of private and inner speech to the learning of other languages. As Kozulin (1986) observes, although the problem of inter- and intrapersonal communication was at the forefront of Vygotsky’s theory, he did not have time to develop his ideas on “the typology of the overt and inner dialogues in which culture acquires its psychologically individualized form” (Kozulin, 1986, p. xxxvii, italics added). This lack of specificity in Vygotsky’s theories on the development of private/inner speech from an additional language perspective did not mean, however, a lack of interest in FL learning and multilingualism. Vygotsky (1986, 1997) indeed addressed these issues at considerable length, and some inferences can be made about what he may have thought about developing private/inner speech in an L2. In particular, his framing of the discussion of the differences and reciprocal influences between learning the native language 152 Private and Inner Speech in L2 Learning and learning an FL suggests a special concern with the nature of the semantic component of verbal thought resulting from the acquisition of another language. In this respect, it is clear that Vygotsky saw the development of the semantic aspects of an FL, particularly when learned by children as a school subject in a deliberate and conscious fashion, as a process of transferring already-acquired meanings in the L1 to the L2. He also recognized, however, that the question of multilingualism and its possible (positive or negative) effects on mental and speech development was still not completely and satisfactorily resolved at his time and had to be looked at in all its complexity by further research (1997, p. 257). Vygotsky may have been hinting at the need for research to explore the inner speech of an individual in the context of multilingualism, as he put it, “the need . . . to descend from the surface . . . and to penetrate deeply, to take into account internal structures of the processes that are directly involved in speech development of the child” (p. 257). The question of multilingualism, Vygotsky concluded, had to deeply address the influence of speech development on the whole intellectual, emotional, and character development of the child (pp. 258–259), thus opening the door for future studies exploring the full impact of additional language learning on individual development. The possibility of extending Vygotsky’s generic views on private/inner speech to more specific L2, bi- and multilingual situations has triggered—to date—a substantial amount of research, to be appraised subsequently. Underlying this research, there are certain recurrent key questions of interest: Can human beings internalize a language other than the L1 to the point of making it an additional or primary mediator of inner speech? How does acquisition of an L2 affect the nature of private and inner speech? Do private speech and inner speech in the L2 have the same functions and structure as in the L1? To what extent does the private/ inner speech of L2 learners or speakers rely on the L1, and what role does this L1 play? Does development of verbal thought in the L2 follow the same internalization sequence (from social, to egocentric, to inner speech) as in the L1? What is the impact of internalizing an L2 to the point of inner speech on an individual’s sense of self—intellect, emotions, and personality included—as Vygotsky suggested? The ensuing overview provides a measure of the extent to which many of the above concerns have been dealt with in the last 30 (or so) years of SCT-inspired L2 research. Thirty Years of Research on L2-Private Speech Private Speech as Self-Regulation The first Vygotskyan-informed Western studies on private speech among L2 learners approached it as a mind-regulatory phenomenon where speech is used externally (verbalized out loud) for self-regulatory purposes (to control mental activity and guide action). Two early studies centered on the private speech of adult L2 learners engaged in cognitive-verbal tasks (Frawley & Lantolf, 1985; Lantolf & Frawley, 1984). The studies exposed peculiar formal features in the private speech of L2 learners trying to gain control over challenging narrative production tasks in the L2. Early on, interest was also expressed about the self-regulatory function of private speech among bilingual children in studies which focused on the extent of private speech, code-switching, and language dominance (see, for example, Amodeo & Cardenas, 1983; Diaz, Padilla, & Weathersby, 1991). Following these early studies, considerable subsequent SCT-based research helped document and characterize the private speech phenomenon as a self-regulatory mechanism, incidentally or deliberately elicited, in natural and artificial settings, among both young and adult L2 learners and bilinguals engaged in 153 María C. M. de Guerrero particular task situations, for example, oral text recall (Appel & Lantolf, 1994), performing classroom assignments (Broner & Tarone, 2001), problem solving (Anani Sarab & Gordani, 2015; Centeno-Cortés & Jiménez-Jiménez, 2004; Jiménez-Jiménez, 2015), collaborative writing (DiCamilla & Antón, 2004), picture narration (McCafferty, 1992, 1994), and playing language-focused games (Smith, 2007; Sönmez, 2011). In general, studies unequivocally showed that L2 and FL learners and speakers, children as well as adults, sometimes externalize their thinking processes through private speech when solving challenging intellectual tasks that demand use of the L2. Interestingly, SCT research has also been able to demonstrate that L2 learners self-regulate not only through orally externalized private speech but also through written private notes (DiCamilla & Lantolf, 1994; Lee, 2008; Roebuck, 2000; Yoshida, 2009), drawings (Lee, 2008), and gestures (Lee, 2008; McCafferty, 2004; Steinbach-Kohler & Thorne, 2011). Another important line of research has focused on the functions of self-regulatory private speech among L2 learners. Four distinct functions are generally recognized: cognitive (to plan and guide actions), metacognitive (to monitor or denote awareness of one’s cognitive processes), affective (to express emotions), and social (to orient and denote awareness of others in collaborative discourse) (McCafferty, 1994; Yoshida, 2009). It is noted that private speech utterances are usually multifunctional; for example, the utterance “That’s not right” whispered by a student in reference to using an incorrect word form during collaborative pair-work (DiCamilla & Antón, 2004, p. 51) serves not only a metacognitive but also a social function, as it expresses both self-awareness of an error and orients the other towards further corrective dyadic action. With respect to the dual intra- and intermental function of private speech in social discourse (DiCamilla & Antón, 2004; Wells, 1998), several recent L2 studies have pursued the social role of self-regulatory L2 private speech in interactive situations (Smith, 2007; Sönmez, 2011; Steinbach-Kohler & Thorne, 2011; Yoshida, 2009). Learning-Focused Private Speech and Internalization In regard to private speech and self-regulation, Frawley and Lantolf (1986) pointed out that, in Vygotskyan theory, all private speech—and not just some forms—is self-regulatory, i.e., private speech is always a means to control one’s own mental activity. One distinctive form of self-regulatory private speech that L2 learners have consistently exhibited is that of “learning-focused private speech” (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006, p. 184), that is, speech that learners address to themselves to regulate their own learning of the L2. Because this form of L2 private speech sometimes involves behaviors that may lead to the internalization of new L2 features, it has been referred to as the “internalizing” function (Lantolf & Yáñez, 2003) of L2 private speech. Outstanding evidence of L2 learning-focused private speech was seen in Saville-Troike’s (1988) seminal study of the strategies employed in learning English, the language of the school context, by small children of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean L1 backgrounds. Among their private speech strategies were selective or close repetition of others’ utterances, employment of words or phrases heard previously, experimentation with meaning and manipulation of form (grammatical, morphological, and phonological), creative construction of new linguistic forms (sometimes combining the L1 with the L2), and rehearsal of language prior to actual production. As Saville-Troike (1988) suggests, the children’s private speech strategies may have contributed to acquisition of the L2 although no claim to internalization in the long term was made due to the short time the children remained in the L2 context (pp. 586, 588). However, the data on manipulation of form in particular can be interpreted, according to Saville-Troike, as belonging to the highest level 154 Private and Inner Speech in L2 Learning on the Vygotskyan developmental hierarchy of self-regulatory private speech, with levels ranging (low to high) from rehearsal, to experimentation, to creativity (p. 587). The view of L2 private speech as an L2 learning/internalizing mechanism has been consolidated throughout numerous studies involving children and adolescents (Broner & Tarone, 2001; de Courcy, 2003; Smith, 2007; Wang & Hyun, 2009; Yi, 2010) as well as adults (Abadikhah & Khorshidi, 2013; Borer, 2007; Centeno-Cortés, 2003; Lantolf, 1997; Lantolf & Yáñez, 2003; Ohta, 2001; Stafford, 2013; Yoshida, 2009). The studies have repeatedly shown learners engaging in behaviors that may lead to appropriation and learning of the L2, such as immediate and delayed repetition (both verbatim and modified), vicarious response and participation, experimentation with meaning and language forms, meaning-focused translation, rehearsal for memorization or future production, and displays of metalinguistic awareness. When placed on the Vygotskyan “rehearsal-experimentation-creativity” hierarchy of self-regulatory private speech (Saville-Troike, 1988), these behaviors may be indicative of development towards internalization of the L2, as they provide learners with the opportunity not only to reinforce existing knowledge but also appropriate new elements of the L2 (lexical, grammatical, and semantic) and engage in transformative imitation, a crucial mechanism, in Vygotskyan theory, for internalization and developmental progress (Vygotsky, 1986). In the following sample, GeGe, a preschooler of Chinese-L1 background in an Englishspeaking school, provides an example of delayed, creative imitation in private speech as he recalls and recites to himself the children’s rhyme “Five Little Hot Dogs”: GeGe: One little bang. One little dog bang. One went bang. One bang bang. (Chen, 1987, pp. 114–115) Specific Language Use in Private Speech Another crucial issue where years of SCT-grounded research have been illuminating is that of language-specific use in private speech by L2 learners and bilinguals, particularly on the extent and role of the L1 as cognitive mediator. Reviews of studies (Guerrero, 2005; Guerrero, in press) reveal that, whereas in monolinguals the L1 constitutes the sole instrument of self-mediation, among individuals who are in the process of learning or have become more or less proficient in another language, externalized private speech emerges in varying degrees of L2 use relative to the L1. Variation in L1 reliance ranges from zero presence of the L1 (e.g., Clark, 2005; Smith, 2007) or small amounts (e.g., Sönmez, 2011; Yi, 2010; Yoshida, 2009) to moderate or substantial use (e.g., Abadikhah & Khorshidi, 2013; JiménezJiménez, 2015; Stafford, 2013; Steinbach-Kohler & Thorne, 2011; Wang & Hyun, 2009). In actuality, the issue of language-specific use in private speech, i.e., the extent to which L1 or L2 is used, reflects a very complex configuration of interrelated variables: L2 proficiency and L1 or L2 dominance; type, level of difficulty, and language(s) of task; function of private speech; situational context of use; and presence and language background of interlocutors or potential hearers, to name some of the most salient. The research shows that, although proficiency in the L2 is important, it is definitely not the sole determinant of its use as the predominant medium for private speech. In a study by Centeno-Cortés and Jiménez-Jiménez (2004), for example, use of Spanish (the L2) for private speech 155 María C. M. de Guerrero increased with proficiency; however, although the advanced learners were able to perform most of their reasoning in Spanish while solving challenging intellectual problems, they still switched to English (the L1) when the task became too difficult. In Jiménez-Jiménez (2015), it was language dominance (degree of daily use or confidence in using a language), rather than proficiency, that appeared to determine the language medium for private use. While task difficulty or language dominance may influence use of a particular language in private speech, context of language use may also be a factor (Clark, 2005). At any rate, when used in private speech during challenging cognitive tasks, the L1 serves a variety of task-regulatory purposes: self-encouragement and release of emotions, planning and evaluation, searching for words, translating, and meaning-making. In short, the L1 appears to be used strategically in private speech by L2 learners or bilinguals as a readily available and convenient cognitive resource. Private Speech and the Internalization Process A Vygotskyan approach to private speech in the L2 would ideally call for research showing the genesis of L2 development (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006) as a process involving the progressive privatization or intellectualization (Guerrero, 2009) of L2 social speech as it morphs into inner speech. A crucial question is thus what role externalized private speech in the L2 plays in this movement toward complete covertness. An immediate concern that arises in answering this question is that not all learners appear to engage in outwardly vocalized private speech (Centeno-Cortés, 2003; Saville-Troike, 1988) and some engage in it only minimally (Clark, 2005; Ohta, 2001). In Saville-Troike’s (1988) study, whereas some children underwent a “silent” period which was nonetheless very vocal privately, other children—more other- than inner-directed, according to the researcher—produced no audible signs of self-talk. For various reasons, not the least avoiding behavior that might be considered socially inappropriate, some learners, particularly adults, may prefer to engage in subvocal, rather than vocal, verbalizations of the L2, imperceptible to others. Within his step-like schema of the internalization process, Gal’perin (1967) has referred to the stage of ordinary speech without volume as the phase of “external speech to oneself” (p. 30). This stage, in his view, constitutes the first form of “action in the mind” in an external-to-internal process which culminates with inner speech. A study showing use of external speech to oneself in the L2 without the volume as a progressive intellectualization process was conducted by Guerrero (2004). In the study, based on diary data, beginning learners of English reported experiencing a variety of concealed behaviors in an attempt to learn the L2: inward reproduction of language being heard or read, spontaneous or deliberate recall of language heard or read previously, mental preparation of future language production, imagining conversations in the L2, and silent verbalization of private thoughts. From the available research evidence, it might be concluded then that private speech in the L2 has indeed a key role in the process of L2 intellectualization as a transitional stage between social communicative speech and internal psychological speech; however, not all learners will experience it in the same way, with its materialization as externalized speech shifting both within and across individuals from audible to inaudible articulation. In the study of L2 private/inner speech from a genetic Vygotskyan perspective, most studies—as has been shown—have adopted a microgenetic approach, that is, documenting short-term development based on the direct observation of private speech at particular points in time, changes which ultimately are presumed to bear on L2 ontogenesis (development over the lifespan). Not many studies on L2 private/inner speech have adopted a 156 Private and Inner Speech in L2 Learning long-term approach to ontogenetic development through longitudinal data showing movement from social to inner speech across the lifespan. Ohta (2001) and Centeno-Cortés (2003), for example, both documented private speech occurrence among L2 college learners over a relatively long period of time (roughly an academic year), being able to show connections between private speech production and L2 internalization, from which a transition to inner speech might be inferred. Longitudinal data on the ontogenetic transition from social to inner speech among L2 learners can also be found in case studies of early L2/ bilingual acquisition (see, for example, Chen, 1987; Leopold, 1949; Saville-Troike, 1988). More recently, Yi (2010) was able to show developmental progression from subvocal private speech to silent inner speech in the L2 over the course of a year among three Korean preschoolers learning English in a US school. These findings suggest that Vygotsky’s (1986) general hypothesis that vocalized private speech emerges in early childhood, peaks right before school age, and fades off in the school years as it turns into inner speech might be extended to L2 acquisition, just as it has been demonstrated in L1 learning (Alarcón-Rubio, Sánchez-Medina, & Prieto-García, 2014; Damianova, Lucas, & Sullivan, 2012; San Martín, Boada, & Feigenbaum, 2011). At least, this might be the case in early bilingual acquisition of an L2. In a recent review of studies on private speech among bilinguals, Sawyer (2016) concludes: “Taken as a whole, the studies tentatively suggest that bilingual private speech follows a similar developmental trajectory to the private speech of monolinguals” (p. 493). Thirty Years of Research on Inner Speech and L2 Learning Within an SCT-L2 framework, the exploration of inner speech development has followed— on the whole and justifiably so—Vygotsky’s experimental-genetic method, which claims that higher forms of mental development must be studied in their formation, through their observable, ontogenetically earlier external manifestations. Thus, most L2 studies have focused on private speech, the developmental precursor of inner speech. A problem which this approach has generated is that the study of L2 private speech, as extensive as it has been in the last 30 years, has for the most part centered on private speech as an object of research in itself, with few studies seeking evidence of internalization (as discussed above) and making grounded inferences (as a Vygotskyan approach would call for) as to the status of L2 inner speech, the final phase in the developmental progression. Some methodological alternatives to the genetic method, however, have been able to throw some light on L2 inner speech (for a critical evaluation of methodologies in private/inner speech research, see Guerrero, 2005, in press). Research on the Inner Speech of L2 Learners and Users Using experimental methodology, Ushakova (1994) and colleagues studied the inner speech mechanisms involved in vocabulary acquisition of an artificial language. Their findings led Ushakova to conclude that inner speech is strongly influenced by L1 semantics and that L2 acquisition is basically a process of incorporating new semantic structures into a preformed system of the L1, a conclusion which is consistent with Vygotsky’s (1986) belief that when learning an FL at school people “use word meanings that are already well developed in the native language, and only translate them” (p. 159). Several methodological features, however, limit the applicability and generalizability of Ushakova’s conclusions (and Vygotsky’s beliefs) to language learning situations where the L2 is learned through translation, at very 157 María C. M. de Guerrero initial stages of acquisition, and in the absence of intense contextualized language exposure and socialization. Despite its limitations (see critique in Guerrero, 2005, p. 66), Ushakova’s research nonetheless raises an important question on the nature of inner speech in L2 acquisition, namely, whether the semantic/conceptual foundation of inner speech is static and fixed on the architecture laid out by the L1, or it is susceptible to change on the basis of an L2. Empirical evidence on the issue of semantic and conceptual reorganization at the level of inner speech as a result of L2 acquisition, bilingualism, or multilingualism is provided in a number of studies. Based on self-report data obtained through interviews with adult L2 and FL learners, John-Steiner (1985) concluded, “the relationship of language to thought is not one of static connections; it changes with the shifting lines of development of the two languages” (p. 357). The intricate ways in which advanced L2 or FL learners, bilinguals, and multilinguals are capable of restructuring their L1 conceptual and semantic foundations has been thoroughly investigated by Pavlenko (1999, 2005). The process of developing a dual system of meanings as a basis for inner speech is a complex one, often entailing profound changes in self-identity and conceptualizing the world. This was the focus of Pavlenko and Lantolf’s (2000) research (extended in Pavlenko, 2014), based on data in the form of autobiographical narratives from late bilinguals who had managed to develop very high levels of L2 competence and had become in most aspects indistinguishable from native speakers. Pavlenko and Lantolf’s analysis revealed a long and conflicted process of self-reconstruction on the basis of a new language for these bilingual/ bicultural individuals. As the researchers explain, the process usually involves, initially, a series of losses related to the L1: losing one’s linguistic identity, the inner voice, and the ability to access a conceptual store shaped by personal “senses” (as Vygotsky would call them) of words in the L1. Gradually, as the L2 becomes the dominant medium for naming things and experiences and communicating in the new linguistic environment, the individual undergoes a phase of self-reconstruction through the L2 as the new medium for thinking. Changes in inner speech also take place at the level of internal autobiographical memory, as demonstrated in Larsen, Schrauf, Fromholt, and Rubin (2002). Using questionnaire and key-word methodology, the researchers found consecutive bilingual immigrants to operate on the basis of two different but co-existing sets of memory representations, one shaped by L1 culture and semantics and another one by L2 culture and semantics. Working on an SCT assumption that internalization of an L2 might entail development of an internal plane of thinking mediated by the L2, Guerrero (1994, 1999) pursued the investigation of L2 inner speech from a proficiency point of view to observe effects on L2 inner speech development. The studies, based on questionnaires and interviews, focused on the rehearsal function of inner speech, i.e., covert language behavior for purposes of practicing the language, memorizing, planning and monitoring speech production, playing with language, imagining dialogues or self-talking, and the like. The combined studies found that as L2 proficiency increased (from low to highly advanced), so did the frequency of L2 inner speech. The frequency of certain functions, however, fluctuated. Whereas mental rehearsal for memory storage/retrieval, planning, and monitoring decreased with proficiency, the use of L2 inner speech for creating imaginary dialogues with oneself and others increased. Variables Involved in L2 Inner Speech Use Proficiency seems to be an important variable affecting the frequency and functions of L2 inner speech (see also Schrauf, 2009). Other factors, however, appear to be highly influential 158 Private and Inner Speech in L2 Learning in the development and utilization of the L2 as a tool for thought. Recent studies conducted by Dewaele (2009, 2015), Ewert (2010), and Gabryś-Barker (2014) have explored the variables that affect development and frequency of use of an additional language (LX) in inner speech among multilinguals. Data for Dewaele’s research came from questions in the bilingualism and emotions questionnaire (BEQ, Dewaele & Pavlenko, 2001–2003) on the silent use of language for mental calculations, forming sentences, and expressing feelings to oneself. Responses from a total of 1,579 multilinguals representing 77 different L1s and up to four additional languages revealed an overall preference for the L1 for inner speech in all three functions. Preferred L1 use, however, did not mean exclusive use (see similar results in Ewert, 2010, and Gabryś-Barker, 2014). L2s, for example, were used “frequently” or “all the time” by more than half of the participants for inner speech sentences and by more than a third for mental calculations. LXs learned later in life were used decreasingly less for these cognitive functions. The strongest predictor of language of choice for inner speech was frequency of use in everyday interactions. Other variables that appeared to predict whether an L2 or L3 would become the medium for inner speech were age of onset of acquisition, proficiency, socialization in the language, size of network of interactants, context of acquisition, and number of learned languages. Studies indicate that shifts in the language of inner speech may take place not only throughout the lifetime but also as code-switching at any given moment (Ewert, 2010; Gabryś-Barker, 2014). According to Ewert, internal code-switching among multilinguals responds to a variety of reasons, for instance, not knowing (or finding) the right word or expression in any of the languages, seeking for precision in meaning, and making inner communication easier and faster. The following participant self-report captures the language shifts that may occur in a competent multilingual’s mind: I often think in English [L2]. For instance, when writing this text it is easier to think in English than in Polish [L1]. I switch languages when thinking very often. It happens that I start my thought in English and finish it in Polish, or the other way round. (Gabryś-Barker, 2014, p. 197) Inner Speech in the Performance of L2 Verbal Tasks Lastly, a few noteworthy SCT-grounded studies have focused on the inner speech that occurs during performance of verbal tasks that involve use of the L2 (reading, translation, writing). An early study by Sokolov (1972) and colleagues investigated the nature of inner speech during the reading of FL texts. Based on think-aloud protocols and psychophysiological techniques (e.g., interference with speech articulation and electromyography), the experiments revealed the instrumental role of inner speech processes in comprehending FL texts, such as selecting meaningful units, retaining information, and making semantic generalizations. Another study (Gabryś-Barker, 2006), also using think-alouds, examined the inner speech of trilinguals engaged in translation tasks. Very complex patterns of activation of all three languages were found depending on the languages used in input (text to be translated) and output (verbalized translation). Finally, the studies by Huh (2002) and Mahn and John-Steiner (2013), based respectively on think-aloud and dialogue journal methodologies, looked into the inner speech processes of L2 writers, highlighting the interactions that occur between L1 and L2 in making meaning during the composing process. 159 María C. M. de Guerrero Conclusion Final Assessment The overview of work presented here provides an impressive measure of the impact that a Vygotskyan SCT approach has exerted on research on private and inner speech from an L2 perspective. As shown, private speech appears to be a widespread phenomenon among L2 learners and users, both as a general self-regulatory mechanism in cognitive tasks involving an L2 and as a language learning tool potentially leading to internalization. In form, private speech among L2 learners or users may be externalized in various modalities: orally, in writing, in drawing, and in gestures, appearing in various degrees of covertness (from audible to inaudible) and reliance on the L1 (see Stam’s chapter in this volume for a view of the private/inner speech aspects of L2 gestures). In function, L2 private speech serves cognitive, metacognitive, affective, and social purposes. Although long-term studies are scarce, the microgenetic research produced within the SCT approach does seem to indicate that Vygotsky’s conception of private speech as a transitional stage between social and inner speech can be extended to L2 development, confirming the role of private speech as a major component of the L2 intellectualization process. As an application of Vygotsky’s genetic method, the study of private speech manifestations in L2 learning and use has yielded important insights on the nature of L2 inner speech, that is, speech mediated by the L2 at its most internalized phase in the developmental progression. Vital information on L2 inner speech has also been obtained through SCT-grounded research seeking methodological alternatives in a variety of approaches: traditional experimental research as well as introspective and retrospective verbal report procedures (think-alouds, diaries, questionnaires, interviews, and self-narratives). Overall, this research shows that L2 learning may indeed lead ultimately to changes in inner speech supporting the use of an L2 for verbal thinking and self-communication. Evidence from highly competent L2/FL learners and users, bilinguals, and multilinguals suggests certain conditions are necessary for the development of the capacity to use the L2 intramentally: high levels of proficiency, intense past and present exposure and socialization in the L2, and substantial conceptual/semantic restructuring on the basis of the L2. Actual activation of the L2 for internal purposes, however, is likely to depend on a host of social, cognitive, and affective factors, such as, for example, linguistic environmental context, the particular mental task to be performed, and personal attitudes towards using the L2. Whereas for most individuals the L1 continues to be their preferred medium for thinking, at least for certain functions, the research reveals lifetime dependence on the L1 for inner speech is not absolute. Sustained and efficient use of an L2 in inner speech is possible and frequently does take place contingently on the above-mentioned conditions and factors. When, as Vygotsky (1997) suggested, the full impact of the development of an L2 is assessed, profound changes in the whole of a person’s intramental life—intellect, emotions, sense of self—appear to occur as a result of the development of L2 inner speech. Further Research Although great strides have been made in applying Vygotskyan theory to private and inner speech from an L2 perspective, further research is needed in some areas. More studies are necessary showing linkages between L2 private speech and internalization that might signal development of greater L2 mediation in inner speech. Both microgenetic and studies over 160 Private and Inner Speech in L2 Learning longer periods of time could provide evidence of movement from social, to private, to inner speech in L2 development. In particular, longitudinal case studies could be undertaken documenting ontogenetic stages in the attainment of the capacity for verbal thought in another language in various acquisition scenarios (e.g., simultaneous or consecutive bi-multilingual acquisition; children and adult FL/L2 learning through academic instruction). Differences in various aspects of L2 private and inner speech, such as frequency and functions, across different age groups could also be further investigated. Another area where SCT-inspired research could make a valuable and interesting contribution is the nature of inner speech in its conceptual/semantic foundation as a result of changes effected through internalization of a new language. Specifically, studies could pursue the impact of conceptually based approaches to L2 instruction on the systematic and deliberate development of new ways of thinking through an L2. For Vygotsky (1997), “the pedagogical effect on the development of the native and the foreign language” was one of the most important aspects in solving the question of children’s multilingualism (p. 257). Greater research efforts are thus needed to investigate the role of instructional intervention (in various modalities) on L2 private and inner speech development. Also, there is still great potential to be explored on the issue of verbal reception and production tasks such as listening, reading, writing, and speaking, and the role played in them by L2 private/inner speech processes. Finally, a general recommendation for future studies on private/inner speech from an SCT stance is to broaden the scope of populations to be included, taking into account the great diversity of sociocultural and individual factors that shape the various L2, FL, bilingual, and multilingual learning settings and that ultimately affect a person’s capacity for private thinking and self-communication. 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Second language learning as participation and the (re)construction of selves. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 155–177). New York: Oxford University Press. Roebuck, R. (2000). Subjects speak out: How learners position themselves in a psycholinguistic task. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 79–95). New York: Oxford University Press. San Martín C., Boada, H., & Feigenbaum, P. (2011). Private and inner speech and the regulation of social speech communication. Cognitive Development, 26, 214–229. Saville-Troike, M. (1988). Private speech: Evidence for second language learning strategies during the “silent” period. Journal of Child Language, 15, 567–590. Sawyer, J. (2016). In what language do you speak to yourself? A review of private speech and bilingualism. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 36, 489–505. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2016.01.010 Schrauf, R. W. (2009). English use among older bilingual immigrants in linguistically concentrated neighborhoods: Social proficiency and internal speech as intracultural variation. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 24, 157–179. 163 María C. M. de Guerrero Smith, H. J. (2007). The social and private worlds of speech: Speech for inter- and intramental activity. The Modern Language Journal, 91, 341–356. Sokolov, A. N. (1972). Inner speech and thought. New York: Plenum. Sönmez, S. S. (2011). A study of private speech and cognitive regulation in native-nonnative speaker interactions. (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 3477273) Stafford, C. A. (2013). What’s on your mind? How private speech mediates cognition during initial non-primary language learning. Applied Linguistics, 34, 151–172. Steinbach-Kohler, F., & Thorne, S. L. (2011). The social life of self-directed talk: A sequential phenomenon? In J. Hall, J. Hellermann, S. P. Doehler, & D. Olsher (Eds.), L2 interactional competence and development (pp. 66–92). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Ushakova, T. (1994). Inner speech and second language acquisition: An experimental-theoretical approach. In J. P. Lantolf & G. Appel (Eds.), Vygotskian approaches to second language research (pp. 135–156). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). The question of multilingual children. In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 4: The history of the development of higher mental functions (pp. 253–259). New York: Plenum (Original work published 1935). Wang, L. & Hyun, E. (2009). A study of sociolinguistic characteristics of Taiwan children’s peer-talk in a Mandarin-English-speaking preschool. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 7(1), 3–26. Wells, G. (1998). Using L1 to master L2: A response to Antón and DiCamilla’s “Socio-cognitive functions of L1 collaborative interaction in the L2 classroom.” The Canadian Modern Language Review, 54, 343–353. Yi, S. (2010). Three young Korean children’s English language learning in two American preschool classrooms. (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 3443615) Yoshida, R. (2009). Learners in Japanese language classrooms. Overt and covert participation. London: Continuum. Further Reading Ehrich, J. F. (2006). Vygotskyan inner speech and the reading process. Australian Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology, 6, 12–25. Discusses Vygotskyan theory in relation to inner speech in silent reading. Guerrero, M. C. M. de. (2012). Inner speech in second language acquisition. The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. doi:10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0539 Describes inner speech from a Vygotskyan perspective and summarizes studies on inner speech in L2 acquisition. Guerrero, M. C. M. de. (2012). Private speech in second language acquisition. The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. doi:10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0955 Explains the notion of private speech and synthesizes research on private speech from an L2 acquisition perspective. Pavlenko, A. (2011). Bilingualism and thought in the 20th century. In A. Pavlenko (Ed.), Thinking and speaking in two languages (pp. 12–42) Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Presents a view of “thinking” as inner speech and discusses multilinguals’ experiences in transitioning from one language of thought to another. 164 11 Gesture as a Window Onto Conceptualization in Second Language Acquisition A Vygotskian Perspective Gale Stam Introduction For more than 25 years, Gullberg (1998), McCafferty (1998), and Stam (1998) have argued for the importance of looking at learners’ co-speech gestures in addition to their speech in second language (L2) acquisition. In particular, Stam (1998, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014a, 2015, 2016, 2017) has demonstrated that L2 learners’ gestures provide an enhanced window onto their mind through which we can view their thinking and mental representations. In this chapter, I discuss how this view is fundamentally a Vygotskian perspective and how it can be used to enhance our understanding of second language acquisition and teaching. Vygotsky’s view of child development as “a complex dialectical process characterized by periodicity, unevenness in the development of different functions, metamorphosis or qualitative transformation from one form to another, intertwining of external and internal factors, and adaptive processes which overcome impediments that the child encounters” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 73) can easily describe second language acquisition (SLA), which Stam (2017, p. 332) has characterized as “a complex, gradual, nonlinear, and dynamic process (e.g., De Bot, Lowie, & Verspoor 2007; Ellis 2008; Larsen-Freeman 1997).” In this process learners must learn appropriate forms of the new language as well as how to use them in different contexts (Stam, 2007, 2017). The problem is how to identify where learners are in this process and how to facilitate their learning. As Vygotsky (1986, p. 227) pointed out “[to] study an internal process, it is necessary to externalize it experimentally, by connecting it with some outer activity; only then is objective functional analysis possible.” The method developed by McNeill (1992) of looking at both speakers’ speech and gesture provides us with a way of externalizing mental processes, an enhanced window onto the mind (Stam, 2007). In this chapter, I show how this method can be applied to L2 acquisition and how looking at co-speech gestures enables us to study the conceptualizations of both L2 learners and teachers. First, I will discuss what co-speech gestures are and how they are viewed within McNeill’s (1992, 2005, 2012) framework of a single-integrated system of speech and gesture and his 165 Gale Stam growth point (GP) hypothesis. Then I will discuss example SLA studies that have applied the perspective of speech and gesture being a single-integrated system to both L2 learners and teachers. Following this, I will discuss the main research methods for this perspective. Finally, I will conclude with recommendations for future research. Co-Speech Gestures Co-speech gestures are the spontaneous movements of the arms and hands that people make when they speak. They perform the same pragmatic and semantic functions as speech (McNeill, 1992, 2005). Co-speech gestures only occur during speech, are synchronous with it, and tend to occur with elements of high communicative dynamism, i.e., new, focused or contrastive information (McNeill, 1992, 2005), and their meaning is tied to the speech they accompany. They are not speech-linked gestures that occur with speech but are asynchronous with it and fill a grammatical slot in an utterance, such as he went gesture for climbing, or emblems (culturally specific or lexicalized gestures such as the thumbs up sign that is used by members of a cultural group; Stam, 2013). According to McNeill (1992, 2005, 2012) co-speech gesture and speech form a singleintegrated system, arise from the same underlying mental process, and complement each other. From this perspective (McNeill, 2005), thought, language, and gesture develop over time and influence each other. McNeill proposes that speech and gesture develop from a growth point, a minimal unit that combines both the static and dynamic dimensions of language. This is an extension of Vygotsky’s (1986) idea of a psychological predicate to include gesture. McNeill states that “[g]rowth points are considered to be psychological predicates and are, accordingly, units of inner speech, in Vygotsky’s terms. However, unlike inner speech, they are not spoken or even necessarily speakable—to get to speech, something further takes place, and this is what will be termed unpacking” (McNeill, 2005, p. 82). A growth point can be thought of as a kernel or a seed of thinking from which speech and gesture develop together and influence each other: [I]t is the initial unit of thinking-for-speaking (Slobin, 1987) out of which a dynamic process of utterance-level and discourse-level organization emerges. Imagery and spoken form are mutually influencing. It is not that imagery is the input to spoken form or spoken form is the input to imagery. The GP is fundamentally both. (McNeill et al., 2008, p. 121) Growth points cannot be seen and can only be inferred by looking at speakers’ speech and gesture in ongoing discourse (for examples, see McNeill, 2005, 2012). However, it is not the identification of growth points themselves that is important in understanding speakers’ conceptualizations. It is the synchrony of their speech and gesture and what is actually being communicated through these two modalities that is. Together co-speech gestures and speech give us a complete picture of speakers’ thinking (McNeill & Duncan, 2000): their imagistic (gesture) and their verbal (speech) thinking. Co-speech gestures and speech can indicate exactly the same entities, or co-speech gestures can indicate aspects of the speakers’ thoughts that are present, but not expressed in speech (Stam, 2006, 2008, 2013). Co-speech gestures perform many functions, some cognitive (for self) and some communicative (for others), and they can perform these simultaneously (for a review of these functions see Stam, 2013; Stam & McCafferty, 2008; Stam & Tellier, 2017). These gestures can be analyzed according to their degrees or dimensions of semiotic properties 166 Gesture and Second Language Acquisition (McNeill, 2005; Stam, 2013): their degree of concreteness—representation of concrete objects or actions (iconicity); abstractness—representation of abstract ideas (metaphoricity); concrete and abstract pointing in space and time (deixis); temporal highlighting—quick movements of the hands that accompany repairs; prosody; introduction of new material (beats); and interaction—addressing an interlocutor (social interactivity). Although speakers produce gestures, they do not necessarily gesture all the time. Whether or not speakers gesture and how they gesture is affected by the context of an interaction, the discourse situation, and the speakers’ emphasis (Bavelas, 2007; Kendon, 1997; McNeill, 2005; Özyürek, 2002; Stam & Tellier, 2017): It is useful to see gesture as a “material carrier” of imagery (the material carrier concept is borrowed from Vygotsky 1986). . . . Imagery can exist without gesture but then it is in its least material form, without actional substance. A lack of materialization occurs under predictable conditions. A material carrier has enhancing power, and the absence of gesture appears when this “enhancing power” is neither used nor wanted. (McNeill, 2005, p. 54) When we look at co-speech gesture and speech, we are looking at language from a new perspective (McNeill, 2005, 2012; Stam 2014b, 2017): a perspective that combines the synchronic (static) dimension of language as an object and the dynamic dimension of language “as a process not a thing . . . the ‘activity’ of language” (McNeill, 2005, p. 63), a perspective that is well positioned within the Vygotskian tradition of examining human behavior as “analyzing processes, not objects” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 61). Speech and gesture together allow us to see the totality of a speaker’s thinking and how it changes over time (McNeill, 1992, 2005; Stam, 1998, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014a, 2015, 2016, 2017). Gesture as a Window in L2 Research Over the past three decades, studies in SLA taking the perspective that speech and gesture are a single-integrated system have increased (for reviews, see Gullberg & McCafferty, 2008; Stam, 2013; Stam & McCafferty, 2008). Among these, several have taken the perspective that gestures provide an enhanced window onto the mind for understanding the relationship between speech and gesture in L2 private speech, learners’ appropriation of metaphoric gestures, the role of gestures in building zones of proximal development and facilitating the learning of L2 prosody (e.g., Lee, 2008; McCafferty, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2008; McCafferty & Ahmed, 2000), and learners’ patterns of thinking for speaking (Slobin, 1987) about motion (see Stam, 2015 for a review). McCafferty (1998) examined the types of gestures that accompanied the object-, other-, and self-regulated private speech of four Japanese and four Venezuelan learners of English in two tasks: a narrative recall and a picture narration.1 He found that the participants used beats when they were having difficulty expressing themselves as a way of gesturally “highlighting” their linguistic difficulties (McCafferty, 1998, p. 93). He also found that almost all forms of object-regulated and other-regulated private speech had accompanying gestures, while only one form of self-regulated private speech did. He attributed this lack of gesture with self-regulated private speech to the learners turning inward and engaging in inner speech rather than private speech. In addition, he found that there were differences in the gestures used, based on the two different task stimuli, and emphasized the importance of considering context in the interpretation of data. 167 Gale Stam Additionally, with Ahmed (McCafferty & Ahmed 2000), McCafferty investigated whether Japanese learners of English in two conditions (a naturalistic one and an instruction-only one) would appropriate American gestures of the abstract. Four groups of participants— eight advanced naturalistic Japanese learners of English, 10 instruction-only advanced Japanese learners of English, 12 monolingual American English speakers, and eight monolingual Japanese speakers—were asked to talk about the topic of marriage. Their conversations were videotaped and bounded and unbounded container gestures of the abstract were noted and analyzed. They found that the Japanese and American versions of the unbounded and bounded container gestures differed in form. In the American version of the unbounded container gesture, the hands were slightly tilted, while in the Japanese version they were flat, and for the bounded container gesture a one-handed version was produced by only American English speakers and the naturalistic language learners. They concluded that the naturalistic learners had indeed appropriated some of the American forms of gestures of the abstract such as the one-hand container gesture. Furthermore, McCafferty (2002) conducted a longitudinal study of the interactions of a Taiwanese learner of English with a native–English-speaking graduate student over 15 sessions to investigate how gesture helps create zones of proximal development (ZPD) for L2 learning and teaching within an activity framework of co-construction. McCafferty found that the learner used few gestures before he began talking with the graduate student and that in his interactions with the graduate student he began to gesture more: he used gestures to elicit words as well as to represent words that he didn’t know. The graduate student also used gestures to explain vocabulary and idioms. In addition, many of these gestures were used by both participants in the co-construction of meaning and were carried over from session to session. McCafferty concluded that the interaction of the two participants and their use of gesture helped create ZPDs that facilitated both L2 teaching and learning. Looking at the same data of the Taiwanese learner of English, McCafferty (2006) examined the learner’s use of beat gestures. He found that the learner often produced a beat gesture with each syllable of a word. He claimed that these beat gestures served an intrapersonal function for the learner of “materializing prosodic features of the L2” (p. 205) and thus facilitated his learning of English prosody by providing “a physicalized (kinesic) sense of the rhythm, stress, and intonation of the language in concert with vocalization” (p. 205). In L2 studies that investigate patterns of thinking for speaking, the focus is on the semantic domain of motion, how this domain is represented in different languages, how the languages encode the components of motion events linguistically and gesturally, and how L2 learners express these components in their L2 (see Stam, 2015). In other words, do L2 learners express motion events in their L2 using an L1 pattern, an L2 pattern, or a combination of the two? The interaction of speech and gesture in learners’ narrations or directions and the timing of the gesture stroke are crucial in discerning this. Let us consider the differences between languages when it comes to the linguistic expression of motion. Languages have been classified into three types—verb framed, satellite framed, and equipollently framed (not discussed here; Slobin, 2006; Brown, 2015)—based on how path and manner are encoded (Talmy, 2000; Slobin, 2006). In verb-framed languages, such as Spanish, motion and path (direction) are encoded linguistically on the verb, and manner, if it is present, is indicated by an adverbial such as a gerund or an adverbial phrase. An example of this would be the Spanish expression sale rodando “exits rolling” where the verb sale indicates direction and the gerund rodando indicates manner. In addition, because path is indicated by the verb, boundary crossings require the use of a new verb and hence a new clause. The following sentences illustrate this: Marco entró por la puerta “Mark entered through the door.” 168 Gesture and Second Language Acquisition Subió las escaleras “He went up the stairs.” Entró en su cuarto “He entered his room.” In contrast, in satellite-framed languages, such as English, motion and manner are encoded linguistically on the verb, and path is indicated by a satellite: an adverb particle or a preposition of motion (Stam, 2006), for example, rolls out, where the verb rolls indicates manner and the satellite out indicates path. Boundary crossings in English do not require the use of a new verb. Consequently, several path components can be accumulated in a single clause such as Mark went through the door, up the stairs, and into his room (Stam, 2010, 2015). There are also differences between languages in the gestural expression of motion. For example, the path gestures of Spanish speakers tend to be curvilinear, tend to occur with the verb, and do not cross boundaries, whereas the path gestures of English speakers tend to be linear, tend to occur with a satellite unit, and there may be several path gestures in a clause that cross boundaries (McNeill, 2005; Stam, 2010). In addition, when it comes to manner, Spanish speakers often have manner gestures when there is no manner expressed in speech, while English speakers almost never have manner gestures when there is no manner expressed in speech (McNeill & Duncan, 2000). Furthermore, because manner is expressed in verbs, English speakers modify the importance of this aspect of the verb by either downplaying the manner, by producing a path gesture or no gesture at all, or by reinforcing manner through the production of an accompanying manner gesture (McNeill, 2005). Studies (e.g., Aguiló & Negueruela-Azarola, 2015; Brown, 2008, 2015; Brown & Gullberg, 2008, 2011; Choi & Lantolf, 2008; Kellerman & van Hoof, 2003; Negueruela et al., 2004; Stam, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014a, 2015, 2017) that have looked at second language learners’ speech, path, and manner gestures in the expression of motion events have found that learners were able to produce grammatically correct utterances in their L2, but their gestures indicated that they were not thinking for speaking in their L2. Rather the gestures indicated that the learners’ thinking for speaking was somewhere between their L1 and their L2. On the basis of speech alone, this could not be discerned. The following examples coded according to McNeill’s (1992) coding scheme illustrate this. In the examples, < > indicates filled pauses and elongated speech sounds, / unfilled pauses, # breath pauses, % nonspeech sounds, such as laughs and clicks, and * selfinterruptions, self-corrections, and repetitions. For the gesture examples, the gesture phrase (the entire movement from preparation to retraction, return to rest position) is enclosed in [ ], the stroke (the part of the gesture with meaning) is in bold and any holds, where the hand is held in position either before the stroke or after the stroke (prestroke or poststroke) are underlined (Stam, 2015). When two gesture phrases are related, for example, when the second one begins where the first one ended without returning to rest position, there is an additional set of brackets around them. (1) L2 learner—2006 narration a. b. and he goes a<a>ll out of the pipe a<a>nd he goes <uh> to the bowling place (Stam, 2016, p. 302) If we look at the speech in Example 1, we see that the learner produces grammatically correct sentences with the satellites out and to indicating direction. We also see that the learner has produced two clauses to describe a scene from the cartoon she has seen where Sylvester (a cat) goes down a drainpipe and to a bowling alley (1a and 1b). These two clauses tell us “that the learner is conceptualizing this part of the cartoon as two separate motion events, 169 Gale Stam but we cannot see how the learner is conceptualizing individual motion event components, for example, . . . path, manner, and boundary crossings” (Stam, 2016, p. 302). To do that, we need to look at her speech and gesture together in Example 2. (2) L2 learner—2006 narration: speech and gesture a. [[and he goes a<a>ll] [out of the pipe]] a b a: b: b. iconic: right hand wrist bent at waist moves slightly to the right to lower right side <Sylvester + bowling ball going out the drainpipe> PATH iconic (reduced repetition of previous gesture): right hand wrist bent at lower right side moves to the right and slightly up <Sylvester + bowling ball going down and out the drainpipe> PATH (Stam, 2010, p. 79) [a<a>nd he goes <uh> to the bowling place] iconic + deictic/localizer: right hand at lap moves to the right in an arc (semicircle), continues moving to the right while making three circles to extreme right periphery (hand shoulder level, elbow slightly bent) <Sylvester rolling to the bowling alley + location of bowling alley> PATH + MANNER (Stam, 2015, p. 94) Looking at the speech and gesture together in Example 2, we see that the learner is conceptualizing Sylvester’s movement down the pipe (a) and out the pipe (b) as two separate motion events in 2a. “In other words, although she is speaking English, she is conceptualizing boundary crossings in a Spanish manner” (Stam, 2016, p. 305). She also has another utterance for Sylvester going into the bowling alley, 2b. Additionally, there is no mention of manner in her speech, but her gesture shows that she is conceptualizing both path and manner—Sylvester and the bowling ball rolling to the bowling alley. Furthermore, her gesture does not cross the boundary into the bowling alley (a Spanish pattern). She merely points to the bowling alley indicating its location. This information would have been missed if we had looked at her speech alone. Based on her speech alone, we would have concluded that the learner is thinking for speaking in an English way because she uses a satellite correctly to express direction when in reality her thinking for speaking is a mixture of her L1 Spanish and her L2 English. It is only by looking at both speech and gesture that we can attain a total picture of the learner’s thinking and how she is conceptualizing this part of the cartoon episode. The approach of looking at the synchrony of speech and gesture to have a complete picture of speakers’ thinking and to ascertain their conceptualizations is not limited to thinking for speaking studies. It has also been applied to oral proficiency interview data examining the speech and gesture of both the L2 learner and the interviewer to see what the gestures tell us about the participants’ conceptualizations and how the interview interaction changed over time (see Stam, 2016). Additionally, it has been applied to L2 classrooms to investigate teachers’ use of gesture as a mediational tool in explaining the meaning of L2 concepts (e.g., Rosborough, 2014; Smotrova & Lantolf, 2013) and to a word explanation task by future teachers of French to investigate how their speech and gesture differ when they are interacting with native and non-native speakers of French (Stam & Tellier, 2017; Tellier & Stam, 2012). 170 Gesture and Second Language Acquisition Although the number of studies that look at both speakers’ speech and co-speech gestures is increasing, this area of research is still in an emergent stage within the field of SLA. The approach has the potential to contribute much more to our understanding of SLA and teaching, and I strongly encourage researchers to apply the approach to their own work so that they can see the totality of their participants’ thinking and interaction. The following section provides guidelines for conducting this type of research. Research Methods Paramount to researching what gestures can tell us about L2 learners’ and teachers’ conceptualizations is the interaction of speech and gesture. This involves the analysis of videotaped data. Data Collection In the researching of thinking for speaking, a book or a video has been used as a stimulus, and participants retell what they saw, and this is videotaped (Stam & Buescher, under review). However, classroom data as well as naturalistic conversations can also be videotaped and the speech and gesture analyzed. What is important is good-quality video and sound so that speech can be transcribed and gestures coded. It is also crucial that participants not be aware that their gestures are being studied (see procedures in Stam, 2006, 2015). In addition, having research questions before data are collected is key because they guide the focus of the data collection and analysis. Speech Transcription and Gesture Coding Once the data have been collected, there are several steps that need to be followed. First it is important to back up the data. Next is the decision of whether to transcribe and code the data using Word and Final Cut Pro or whether to use a language annotator such as ELAN (http://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/) a free language annotator from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, the Language Archive, Nijmegen, the Netherlands (Sloetjes & Wittenburg, 2008). If ELAN is chosen, a template with tiers needs to be set up for each element that is important for the analysis of the data (for example, see Figure 11.1). After the template is set up, speech needs to be transcribed. This includes speech, but also nonspeech sounds, pauses (filled, unfilled, and breath), and repetitions, self-corrections, and self-interruptions. The McNeillian (1992) speech transcription scheme uses the following symbols: nonspeech sounds (%); breath (#), filled (< >), and unfilled (/), pauses; repetitions, self-correction, and self-interruptions (*). Elongated consonants and vowels can be indicated by adding another consonant or vowel such as baack or by enclosing the elongated sound in angle brackets ba<a>ck. It is very important to transcribe L2 data exactly as they are and include mispronunciations as well as grammar and vocabulary errors. Speech should be transcribed both as a stream and as word for word so that the synchrony of speech and gesture can be pinpointed (see tiers 1 and 2 in Figure 11.1). To accurately code gesture, it is necessary to view the videotaped data at both regular and slow-motion speed multiple times. The first thing that needs to be coded is the gesture phrase— the entire movement of the hand from beginning to end. Then the various phases of the gesture phrase are coded. This includes the preparation, the movement of the hand in preparation for producing the stroke, the part of the gesture with meaning, any holds, maintaining the hand in 171 Gale Stam Figure 11.1 Example ELAN template for the coding of speech and gesture a position either before the stroke (prestroke) or after the stroke (poststroke), and retractions, or returns, when the hand returns to rest position. It is important to remember that a gesture phrase must have a stroke as this is the part with meaning, but it does not need to have a preparation, hold, or retraction, which are optional. Coding of the gesture phases can be done by creating a controlled vocabulary dropdown menu in ELAN. If the transcription is done in Word, then the gesture phrase (the entire movement from preparation to retraction) should be enclosed in brackets [ ], the stroke should be marked in bold and holds (prestroke or poststroke) should be underlined (McNeill, 1992). Next, depending on the research focus, gestures need to be coded for gesture dimension: iconic, metaphoric, beat, deictic, interactive as well as superimposed beats (Bavelas, Chovil, Lawrie, & Wade 1992; McNeill 1992, 2005, 2012); or pragmatic function: representational, discursive, deictic, interactive, word searching (Kendon, 2004). Gesture dimensions indicate the semiotic properties of gestures. Iconic gestures represent concrete actions or objects, for example, both hands turning over each other to represent rolling. Metaphoric gestures 172 Gesture and Second Language Acquisition represent abstract ideas such as the right hand extended with the palm up to represent holding an idea. Beat gestures are quick movements of the hand either up and down or back and forth in time with the rhythm of a language. These function to highlight and emphasize information. For instance, they introduce new characters and themes, accompany speech repairs, and summarize action. Beats are often superimposed on other gestures for emphasis. Deictic gestures are pointing gestures that indicate a concrete or abstract location of an entity in space or time. Interactive gestures are gestures that are addressed to the interlocutor, such as an arm extended to the listener with the palm up, inviting the listener to speak. It is important to note that these dimensions are not mutually exclusive. Rather they are degrees of semiotic properties that gestures have, and gestures can have multiple dimensions at the same time. For example, a gesture of one hand holding an idea is both an iconic gesture for container and a metaphoric for idea (Stam, 2010, 2013; Stam & McCafferty, 2008). The pragmatic functions of gestures indicate how the gestures are being used in the discourse. For example, representational gestures, as the name implies, represent both concrete and abstract entities. These would be iconic and metaphoric gestures according to their semiotic properties. Discursive gestures perform the function of introducing new characters and themes, indicating speech repairs, and summarizing action and would be beats according to their semiotic properties. Deictic gestures are gestures that indicate a concrete or abstract location of an entity in space or time by pointing at it. Interactive gestures are addressed to the interlocutor, and word-searching gestures indicate that the speaker is searching for a word. Next, the gesture should be described in terms of form and meaning. Form includes hand shape, movement, and the use of gesture space (see space manikin; McNeill, 2005, p. 274), while meaning is what the gesture represents, such as an idea, a package, climbing, rolling. If research is being done on thinking for speaking, it is also necessary to indicate whether the gesture is showing path, ground, or manner, what motion event speech element the gesture occurs with in terms of synchrony (verb, satellite, more than one, ground noun phrase, or other; see Stam, 2010, p. 68), and whether the gesture crosses a boundary (Stam, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2017). For how to transcribe and code data in classroom-based gesture research, the interested reader should consult Smotrova (Chapter 30 this volume, 2014), Smotrova and Lantolf (2013), and van Compernolle and Smotrova (2017). Data Analysis The analysis of the data is dependent on the initial research questions. It can be quantitative, qualitative, or a combination of the two. In the analysis of data, the focus in SLA research is on what the gestures add to learners’ or teachers’ speech to enhance our understanding of their conceptualizations (see Stam, 2016). In other words, what is expressed in speech, and what is expressed in gesture? Are they indicating exactly the same entities, or is the gesture indicating another aspect of the speakers’ thoughts that is not being expressed in speech? Therefore, an analysis of the interaction between speech and gesture is crucial. It is only through looking at speech and gesture together that the growth point and speakers’ conceptualizations can be viewed. Looking at speech alone gives us only part of the picture. Speech alone tells us, particularly in thinking-for-speaking studies, that the speaker is using the correct lexical item such as a manner or a path verb (e.g., Papafragou, Massey, & Gleitman, 2002, 2006), but it does not tell us how the speaker is conceptualizing the actual motion event (e.g., McNeill & Duncan, 2000; Stam, 2006). For example, it does not tell us whether an English speaker is downplaying manner by using a path gesture or no gesture 173 Gale Stam with a manner verb, or whether a Spanish or Greek speaker is adding manner gesturally to a path verb with no manner in speech (McNeill, 2005). Furthermore, with L2 learners, speech alone is very misleading because, as Stam (e.g., 2006, 2008, 2010, 2015) has shown, learners can produce the correct grammar constructions with appropriate path satellites in English, but their gestures indicate that they are not conceptualizing the motion event according to the English pattern. Their thinking is actually somewhere between their L1 and L2 patterns. This is not discernable from speech alone. Recommendations for Future Research Analyzing language use from both its static dimension (speech) and its dynamic dimension (gesture) allows us to see the totality of speakers’ thinking and mental representations (McNeill, 2005, 2012; Stam 2014b, 2016, 2017). By doing so in relation to L2 acquisition and teaching, we can investigate how learners are actually conceptualizing aspects of the L2 and how teachers use gesture in explaining concepts to facilitate L2 learning (Smotrova, 2014, this volume; Smotrova & Lantolf, 2013; Stam & Tellier, 2017; van Compernolle & Smotrova, 2017). An understanding of this is important not just for L2 learners and teachers, but also for moving the field of SLA forward. To accomplish this, much more L2 research needs to be done examining speech and cospeech gestures of learners and teachers. The speech and gesture of learners across different proficiency levels, languages, contexts, and tasks all need to be investigated. In addition, the speech and gesture of teachers in the classroom and in one-on-one situations need to be explored. This should include a clear description of the activity they are engaged in, the context, and classroom and interpersonal dynamics. Nearly 100 years ago, Vygotsky introduced his sociocultural theory and challenged other existing theories. McNeill has expanded on Vygotsky by adding gesture to our understanding of what speaking and thinking are and how they interpenetrate during the activity of thinking for speaking. As we move forward in the L2 research field, it is imperative that we no longer ignore gesture and view it as ancillary to language. It is time that we recognize it as the material carrier it is (McNeill, 2005), an integral part of language, and a window onto conceptualization. Note 1 Two participants from each ethnolinguistic group were at the intermediate level of English language proficiency, and two were at the advanced level. Proficiency of the participants was based on the subjects’ TOEFL test scores and interviews for placement in the Intensive English Program’s courses. References Aguiló Mora, F. & Negueruela-Azarola, E. (2015). 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Universal development and L1–L2 convergence in bilingual construal of manner in speech and gesture in Mandarin, Japanese, and English. In E. Bylund & P. Athanasopolous (Guest Editors), The language and thought of motion in second language speakers. Modern Language Journal, 99(S1), 66–82. Brown, A., & Gullberg, M. (2008). Bidirectional crosslinguistic influence in L1–L2 encoding of manner in speech and gesture: A study of Japanese speakers of English. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30, 225–251. Brown, A., & Gullberg, M. (2011). Bidirectional cross-linguistic influence in event conceptualization? Expressions of path among Japanese learners of English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 79–94. Choi, S., & Lantolf, J. P. (2008). Representation and embodiment of meaning in L2 communication: Motion events in the speech and gesture of advanced L2 Korean and L2 English speakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30, 191–224. Gullberg, M. (1998). Gesture as a communication strategy in second language discourse. Lund: Lund University Press. Gullberg, M., & McCafferty, S. G. (2008). Introduction to gesture and SLA: Toward an integrated approach. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30, 133–146. Kellerman, E., & van Hoof, A.–M. (2003). Manual accents. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 41, 251–269. Kendon, A. (1997). Gesture. Annual Review of Anthropology, 26, 109–128. Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Lee, J. (2008). Gesture and private speech in second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30, 169–190. McCafferty, S. G. (1998). Nonverbal expression and L2 private speech. Applied Linguistics, 19(1), 73–96. McCafferty, S. G. (2002). Gesture and creating zones of proximal development for second language learning. The Modern Language Journal, 86(2), 192–203. McCafferty, S. G. (2006). Gesture and the materialization of second language prosody. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 44, 195–207. McCafferty, S. G. (2008). Material foundations for second language acquisition: Gesture, metaphor, and internalization. In S. G. McCafferty & G. Stam (Eds.), Gesture: Second language acquisition and classroom research (pp. 47–65). New York: Routledge. McCafferty, S. G. & Ahmed, M. K. (2000). The appropriation of gestures of the abstract by L2 learners. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp.199–218). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press McNeill, D. 1992. Hand and mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press McNeill, D. (2005). Gesture and thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McNeill, D. (2012). How language began: Gesture and speech in human evolution. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. McNeill, D., & Duncan, S. (2000). Growth points in thinking-for-speaking. In D. McNeill (Ed.), Language and gesture (pp. 141–161). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McNeill, D., Duncan, S., D., Cole, J., Gallagher, S., & Bertenthal, B. (2008) Growth points from the very beginning. In M. A. Arbib & D. Bickerton (Eds.), Holophrasis vs. compositionality in the emergence of protolanguage [Interaction Studies 9:1] (pp. 117–132). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Negueruela, E., Lantolf, J. P., Rehn Jordan, S. R., & Gelabert, J. (2004). The “private function” of gesture in second language speaking activity: A study of motion verbs and gesturing in English and Spanish. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14, 113–147. Özyürek, A. (2002). Do speakers design their cospeech gestures for their addressees? The effects of addressee location on representational gestures. Journal of Memory and Language, 46, 688–704. 175 Gale Stam Papafragou, A., Massey, C., & Gleitman, L. (2002). Shake, rattle, ’n’ roll: the representation of motion in language and cognition. Cognition, 84, 189–219. Papafragou, A., Massey, C., and Gleitman, L. (2006). When English proposes what Greek presupposes: The cross-linguistic encoding of motion events. Cognition, 98, B75–B87. Rosborough, A. (2014). Gesture, meaning-making, and embodiment: Second language learning in an elementary classroom. Journal of Pedagogy, 5(2), 227–250. doi:10.2478/jped-2014–0011 Slobin, D. (1987). Thinking for speaking. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 435–444. Slobin, D. I. (2006). What makes manner of motion salient? Explorations in linguistic typology, discourse, and cognition. In M. Hickmann & S. Robert (Eds.), Space in languages: Linguistic systems and cognitive categories (pp. 59–81). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Sloetjes, H., & Wittenburg, P. (2008). Annotation by category – ELAN and ISO DCR. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2008). Smotrova, T. (2014). Instructional functions of speech and gesture in the L2 classroom (Doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA. Smotrova, T., & Lantolf, J. P. (2013). The function of gesture in lexically focused L2 instructional conversations. The Modern Language Journal, 97(2), 397–416. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2013.12008.x Stam, G. 1998. Changes in patterns of thinking about motion with L2 acquisition. In S. Santi, I. Guaïtella, C. Cavé, & G. Konopczynski (Eds.), Oralité et gestualité: Communication multimodale, interaction (pp. 615–619). Paris: L’Harmattan. Stam, G. 2006. Thinking for speaking about motion: L1 and L2 speech and gesture. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 44, 143–169. Stam, G. 2007. Second language acquisition from a McNeillian perspective. In E. Levy, S. Duncan, & J. Cassell (Eds.), Gesture and the dynamic dimension of language: Essays in honor of David McNeill [Gesture Studies 1] (pp. 117–124). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Stam, G. 2008. What gestures reveal about second language acquisition. In S. G. McCafferty & G. Stam (Eds.), Gesture: Second language acquisition and classroom research (pp. 231–255). New York/London: Routledge. Stam, G. 2010. Can a L2 speaker’s patterns of thinking for speaking change? In Z. Han & T. Cadierno (Eds.), Linguistic relativity in SLA: Thinking for speaking (pp. 59–83). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Stam, G. 2013. Second language acquisition and gesture. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.), The encyclopedia of applied linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. doi:10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal1049 Stam, G. (2014a). Further changes in L2 thinking for speaking? In C. Müller, A. Cienki, E. Fricke, S. H. Ladewig, D. McNeill, & S. Tessendorf (Eds.), Body – Language – Communication: An international handbook on multimodality in human interaction (Vol. 2, pp. 1875–1886). Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science/Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft. Berlin/New York: Mouton De Gruyter. Stam, G. (2014b). Why Gesture! AL Forum – The Newsletter of the Applied Linguistics Section, TESOL, September 2014. Stam, G. (2015). Changes in thinking for speaking: A longitudinal case study. In E. Bylund & P. Athanasopolous (Guest Editors), The language and thought of motion in second language speakers. Modern Language Journal, 99(S1), 83–99. Stam, G. (2016). Gesture as a window onto conceptualization in multiple tasks: Implications for second language teaching. In J. Goschler & S. Niemeier (Eds.), Cognitive Approaches to Second Language Learning and Teaching, 2016 Special Issue of Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Stam, G. (2017). Verb framed, satellite framed or in between? A L2 learner’s thinking for speaking in her L1 and L2 over 14 years. In I. Ibarretxe-Antuñano (Ed.), Motion and space across languages and applications (pp. 329–365). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 176 Gesture and Second Language Acquisition Stam, G., & McCafferty, S. G. (2008). Gesture studies and second language acquisition: A review. In S. McCafferty & G. Stam (Eds.), Gesture: Second language acquisition and classroom research (pp. 3–24). New York: Routledge. Stam, G., & Tellier, M. (2017). Gestures: The sound of silence: how gestures in pauses can enhance interaction. In R. B. Church, M. W. Alibali, & S. D. Kelly (Eds.), Why gesture? How the hands function in speaking, thinking and communicating (pp. 353–377). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Stam, G., & Buescher, K. (under review) Gesture research. In A. Phakiti, P. De Costa, L. Plonsky, & S. Starfield (Eds.), Palgrave handbook of applied linguistics research methodology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Talmy, L. (2000). Towards a cognitive semantics. Volume II: Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Tellier, M., & Stam, G. (2012). Stratégies verbales et gestuelles dans l’explication lexical d’un verbe d’action. In V. Rivière (Ed.) Spécificités et diversité des interactions didactiques (pp. 357–374). Paris: Riveneuve éditions. van Compernolle, R. A., & Smotrova, T. (2017). Gesture, meaning, and thinking-for-teaching in unplanned vocabulary explanations. Classroom Discourse, 8(3), 194–213. doi:10.1080/1946301 4.2016.1275028 Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner and E. Souberman, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Further Reading Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This book provides an in-depth overview of the history of gesture, what gesture is, how it is used in interaction, and different types of gesture. McCafferty, S. G., & Stam, G. (Eds.) (2008). Gesture: Second language acquisition and classroom research. New York: Routledge. This volume is the first volume on gesture in second language research and provides solid evidence for why gesture should be considered in second language research. It contains an overview of gesture studies and its application for second language research as well as illustrative studies of second language and gesture research in different contexts. McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. The book explains McNeill’s theory of the interconnectedness of gesture, speech, and thought; what gestures are; how they are used in different contexts; and how they can be studied (including McNeill’s coding scheme). McNeill, D. (2005). Gesture & thought. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. This book further develops McNeill’s theory, provides a clear description of his growth point (GP) hypothesis, presents evidence from speech and gesture studies conducted by both McNeill and others that support his viewpoint, and includes a chapter on gesture coding. 177 Part III Concept-Based Instruction 12 Concept-Based Instruction Investigating the Role of Conscious Conceptual Manipulation in L2 Development Próspero N. García Introduction This chapter explores the role of concept-based instruction (CBI) in the second language (L2) classroom paying special attention to the transformative value of learners’ conscious conceptual manipulations (CCM) in fostering the development and internalization of categories of meaning as mental tools to mediate L2 communication. As originally developed by Negueruela (2003), the goal of CBI, based on Gal’perin’s (1992a) model of systemic-theoretical instruction and Vygotsky’s (1986) distinction between scientific and spontaneous (i.e., everyday) knowledge, is to support L2 conceptual development in the language classroom. In this regard, CBI is a pedagogical approach where learners actively interact with concepts in a significant, coherent, and systematic manner, and where the materialization, manipulation, and transformation of their conceptual understandings are essential to effectively promote L2 learning and development. The chapter begins by situating the historical origins of CBI within sociocultural theory (SCT), linking it to the works of Vygotsky and colleagues, and briefly explaining some of the key constructs supporting this approach. The following sections review the most relevant applications of CBI in the L2 classroom, focusing on those that underscore the importance of teaching grammatical concepts as systematic and goal-oriented activity, and their connection to L2 conceptual development and internalization (Vygotsky, 1978, 1986). To conclude, the chapter examines the role of CCM as an essential process to promote L2 conceptual development as a socially mediated and transformative process. Vygotsky’s Model of Developmental Education: The Role of Concepts The idea of mediated mind is paramount to SCT, and it particularly applies to language learning and the importance of transformational activity for L2 development. Based on Vygotsky’s (1978, 1986) proposals, an SCT approach to analyzing learning and development understands that human relationships with the world are not direct but mediated through physical and symbolic (i.e., psychological) tools (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). While the former 181 Próspero N. García Table 12.1 Vygotsky’s (1986) Distinction Between Everyday and Scientific Knowledge Spontaneous concepts Scientific concepts Based on observation and vital experiences Non-systematic Contextualized Concrete Formal and artificial Systematic Non-contextualized Abstract facilitate material interactions with our surroundings (i.e., using a shovel to dig a hole rather than our hands), the latter mediate our thinking, helping us regulate our behavior by using new or preexisting tools to facilitate our interactions with the world (for example, using a compass or a map to reach a destination, using mnemonic devices to deliberately remember something, etc.). In his search for more effective educational methods, Vygotsky’s (1986) theory of development and concept formation also argues for the categorization of knowledge into everyday (i.e., spontaneous) and scientific concepts. Although these two categories can be connected through instruction, there is a clear distinction between them. While spontaneous concepts are characterized as contextualized, based on empirical observation and subject to concrete practice, their scientific counterparts are largely abstract, systematic in nature (see Table 12.1), and generally learned in educational settings (Wertsch, 2007). Despite these differences, both types of knowledge should be conceived as complementary, constantly influencing one another towards the ultimate goal of fostering learner development (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 157). As summarized in the Table 12.1, spontaneous concepts are typically developed from observation and life experiences, lacking the malleability and transferability that would allow learners to readily use them in a wide array of contexts. A child, for example, may be able to explain the seasonal changes by connecting how the leaves change color and eventually fall from trees in the autumn. As seen in this example, everyday knowledge is characterized by emerging from bottom-up reasoning, starting the analysis from specific experiences that are later on developed as abstract notions by the learner (i.e., the leaves are changing color and falling from the trees, hence it must be autumn). But what if we had to guess a particular season while being in an area where all the trees are perennial? Would someone be able to infer the change of season based on a previously acquired everyday concept? Probably not. This shows that, on their own, spontaneous concepts have the potential to help learners internalize new knowledge and develop abstract thought; however, they are not easily generalized because of their lack of systematicity. This shortcoming can be observed in the context of L2 learning and teaching, where teachers and learners alike resort to the use of rules of thumb (based on observation and situated contexts) to characterize complex grammatical notions (Negueruela & Lantolf, 2006; Whitley, 2002). Everyday concepts in the L2/FL classroom include the recommendation of never beginning a sentence with but, or ending it with a preposition in English; the indication to always use the imperfect in Spanish when an action is repeated in the past, or vous as the form of address in French when referring to a person who is older than you. Unfortunately, learners often fail to see that these types of simplified rules have limited functionality (García, 2014; Negueruela & Lantolf, 2006; van Compernolle, 2014). Consequently, contextualized rules based on observation tend to be applied indiscriminately to a wide variety of contexts, regardless of whether these are appropriate or not (García, 2012, 2014; Negueruela, 2003; Negueruela & Lantolf, 2006; van Compernolle, 2014). 182 Concept-Based Instruction In addition to their level of abstraction, systematicity, and origin, scientific concepts differ from their spontaneous counterparts in that they are consciously learned and applied (Swain, Kinnear, & Steinman, 2015, p. 50). As Vygotsky (1987) stated, conscious awareness and the presence of a system are synonyms when we are speaking of [scientific] concepts, just as spontaneity, lack of conscious awareness, and the absence of a system are three different words for designating the nature of the child’s [everyday] concept. (pp. 191–192) Unlike spontaneous knowledge, scientific concepts are primarily learned in educational environments and developed in a top-down fashion, extending the abstract to everydayconcrete phenomena in the expectation that they would become functional tools to mediate our relationship with the world in a broad array of diverse contexts. If we go back to our previous example on seasonal changes, a scientific explanation would include the fact that the seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth’s rotational axis as it travels through its year-long path around the sun. Moving from an abstract to a concrete use of this concept would help us understand that it is winter in December in the Northern Hemisphere, because the North Pole is tilted away from the sun and the South Pole is titled towards it, resulting in the summer season along the Southern Hemisphere. In contrast with spontaneous concepts, this type of knowledge can be contextualized across the board, allowing learners to be more systematic and precise instead of rooting their understanding on empirical experience alone (Bodrova & Leong, 2007, p. 168). Some examples of scientific concepts in the context of L2 learning and teaching include the use of concepts such as verbal aspect (Gánem-Gutiérrez, 2016; García, 2012; Negueruela & Lantolf, 2006; Polizzi, 2013; Yáñez-Prieto, 2014), mood (Garcia-Frazier 2013; Negueruela, 2008), or voice (Swain, Lapkin, Knouzi, Suzuki, & Brooks, 2009) as mediational tools to foster the development and internalization of categories of meaning as mental tools to mediate L2 communication. Despite its abstract, hierarchical, and systematic nature, scientific knowledge has a malleability that allows learners to intentionally manipulate, transform, and eventually internalize very complex notions. Thus, in the context of L2 teaching–learning, scientific concepts should not be characterized as static (i.e., definitions that leaners are supposed to memorize and produce as needed), but as cognitive tools that learners can use to mediate their performance both inside and outside of academic settings (Swain, Kinnear, & Steinman, 2015, p. 55). Vygotsky (1987, p. 164) explains that concepts are not just empty explanations (what he calls verbalisms); rather, they need to be functional tools to facilitate problem solving. In this sense, Newman and Holzman (1993), following Vygotsky, propose the metaphorical distinction between “tools-for-result” and “tools-andresult.” Whereas the former are constructed with a firm goal in mind (i.e., I use a screwdriver to assemble Ikea furniture; I memorize Spanish verbal morphology to reproduce it in my midterm exam, etc.), the latter are modeled and utilized as part of the results (i.e., a tool can be seen as a resource to solve an activity, as well as the result of tool-making). From this perspective, scientific concepts should not be replicated for communicative purposes or used as tools-for-result in the L2; instead, they should be seen as tools-andresult in concept formation as they are both the content and the tool that mediate thinking and L2 communicative activity. When students are engaged in tool-and-result activities in the L2 classroom, they are not limited to the memorization of concepts with the objective of building up metalinguistic knowledge or reproducing verbal morphology. Instead, learners 183 Próspero N. García are encouraged to think and speak through concepts to create and internalize new meanings in the L2; conceiving concepts in this process as both tool and result (García, 2012). The Vygotskyan notion of using scientific concepts as mediational tools for understanding and creating meaning in the teaching–learning–development dialectic, which is the basis of CBI and CCM, was further developed by Davydov’s (1999, 2004) and Gal’perin’s (1969, 1989, 1992a, 1992b) pedagogical models, discussed in the next section. Gal’perin’s Systemic Theoretical Instruction, Davydov’s Movement From the Abstract to the Concrete and the Basis of Concept-Based Instruction Davydov (1999, 2004) and Gal’perin (1969, 1989, 1992a, 1992b) argued that scientific concepts needed to be the minimal unit of instruction in educational settings based on Vygotsky’s (1986) proposals on development through concept formation. Despite grounding their pedagogical models on the importance of conceptual thinking, both authors operationalized them in a different manner. Davydov’s (1999, 2004) germ-cell approach is concretized in a “movement from the abstract to the concrete” (MAC), where learners engage with activities that facilitate their understanding of how scientific concepts are constructed, interrelated, and worked from the bottom-up (Ferreira, 2005, p. 47). In this approach, learners are explicitly exposed to the characteristics of a scientific context, and are encouraged to manipulate it and design their own model of study to achieve a deeper understanding of the concept at hand. Davydov believes that successful instruction helps learners to connect “theoretical knowledge [concepts] to specific concrete goal-directed activity” (Ferreira & Lantolf, 2008, p. 283). The MAC approach, for example, asks students to become active learners through the study, manipulation, and materialization of scientific concepts. Throughout this process, learners move from the abstract to the concrete in several stages: 1) situating the problem, 2) modeling, 3) modifying the model, 4) applying the model to solve tasks, 5) monitoring the actions, and 6) evaluating the actions. Davydov’s MAC framework has been successfully implemented in the classroom of several fields of study, such as math, biology, or history (for a more detailed account of these studies see Ferreira, 2005; Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2010). In the field of L2 learning, Ferreira and Lantolf (2008) report on the implementation of a MAC approach to foster the development of the concept of genre in a university ESL writing course over a period of 16 weeks. The goal was to observe whether the implementation of MAC would help learners shift from empirical to theoretical thinking as a means of improving their writing ability. At the end of the study there were some indications that students had begun to think theoretically about writing (there was awareness at the level of conceptualization of genre); however, they were still deemed unable to internalize the concept to the point where they could shape the tool to fully mediate their writing performance. Also based on Vygotsky’s proposals, Gal’perin (1969, 1989, 1992a, 1992b) developed a theory of mental actions, consisting of three processes: 1) orientation, which indicates the goals of our actions and how to successfully achieve them; 2) execution, detailing our performance based on the plan set out in the orientation phase; and 3) control, including the monitoring and evaluation of our results based on the plan established during the orientation phase (van Compernolle, 2013). Gal’perin implemented this approach in more than 800 classroom settings in virtually every subject and general cognitive ability (see Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2010), showing that “the quality of students’ orienting basis for action had significant consequences for the quality of the actions and their abilities to deal with new 184 Concept-Based Instruction and unfamiliar contexts” (van Compernolle, 2013, p. 346). Based on these results, Gal’perin proposed the creation of systemic-theoretical instruction (STI), an approach where scientific concepts are presented to students as a “scheme of complete orienting basis of action” (SCOBA), with the ultimate goal of promoting “the development of holistic, systematic, concept-based knowledge of the object of study, and to link that knowledge to the capacity to act in concrete practical activity” (van Compernolle, 2013, p. 346). Despite its effectiveness, implementing STI in real educational settings is no easy task, as it requires the reorganization of the entire curriculum given that concepts and actions are inherently connected to one another (Haenen, 1996). In his work, Gal’perin proposed a reconfiguration of the subject matter of instruction where conceptual units organize what is to be learned in a way that allows for learner development (García, 2012). The implementation of this approach in the L2 classroom will be discussed in the next section. Concept-Based Instruction Although there were a few early attempts to implement Gal’perin’s ideas and Vygotsky’s (1986) theory of concept formation in L2 instruction (Carpay, 1974; Carpay & van Oers, 1999; Haenen, 2001; Haenen, Schrijnemakers, & Stufkens, 2003; Karpova, 1977) extensive integration of this pedagogical approach began with the dissertation of Negueruela (2003). CBI is a pedagogical approach that engages learners with concepts in a significant, coherent, and systematic manner to create meanings in the L2, and where the materialization and transformation of their conceptual understandings are essential to promote L2 learning and development (Negueruela, 2003; Negueruela & García, 2016). Negueruela’s (2003) conception of concept-based instruction (CBI) was aimed at promoting the internalization of complex grammatical L2 concepts such as tense, aspect and mood in the Spanish L2 classroom (see Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Negueruela & Lantolf, 2006; and Negueruela, 2008). Since then, CBI has been successfully implemented in the L2 classroom to explore a vast myriad of topics such as the development of sociopragmatic categories as self-representation, social distance and power in L2 French and Spanish (van Compernolle, 2014; van Compernolle, Webber, & Gomez-Llaich, 2016; van Compernolle & Henery, 2014); voice in French (Swain, Lapkin, Knouzi, Suzuki, & Brooks, 2009); aspect in Spanish (Gánem-Gutiérrez, 2016; García, 2012, 2014, 2017; Polizzi 2013; Yáñez-Prieto, 2014) and L2 Chinese (Lai, 2012); mood and modality (Garcia-Frazier, 2013) and aspect (García & Perez-Cortes, in press) in the Spanish heritage language classroom; French and Spanish L2 literacy development (Buescher, 2015; Yáñez-Prieto, 2008); French and Spanish locative prepositions (Buescher & Strauss, 2015; Serrano-López & Poehner, 2008); Chinese topicalization (Zhang, 2014); L2 German declension (Walter & van Compernolle, 2015); or motion events in Spanish (AguilóMora & Negueruela, 2015); among others. In what follows, I discuss the characteristics that make CBI a unique approach for fostering and examining the notion of L2 development as a conceptually grounded process in which learners’ conceptual understanding is used as a way of guiding performance. CBI departs from mainstream pedagogical approaches in significant ways. Traditional models of L2 instruction expect students to acquire forms first and then link those to their meanings (for example, learning verbal morphology related to the Spanish preterit and imperfect, followed by their respective uses). In contrast, CBI focuses on teaching categories of meaning and explaining how they are connected to L2 forms in communicative activity (Negueruela & García, 2016; van Compernolle, 2014). The development of a CBI approach to the L2 classroom follows a three-step methodology (Negueruela & García, 2016). 185 Próspero N. García First it requires the materialization of the concept as the minimal unit of instruction, that is, the design of a complete, functional and pedagogically adequate explanation of a particular concept based on a category of meaning (for example, introducing the concept of aspect to develop the notions of perfectivity and imperfectivity in the Spanish L2 classroom). The targeted concept also needs to be presented by means of concise visual representations, as illustrated by Gal’perin’s SCOBAs. Lastly, learners need to consciously manipulate the concept in social interaction with the self and others through written and oral verbalizations, reformulating their understandings in the shape of models and new representations. Following this sequence, practitioners looking to implement CBI in the L2 classroom need to start by identifying the concept to be used as the minimal unit of instruction (for example tense, mood, aspect, social distance, voice, etc.), and then develop a complete, coherent, and sophisticated—yet simple—explanation so that learners can assign it a functional value in meaning-making activity (Negueruela, 2013; Negueruela-Azarola, García, & Buescher, 2015; Negueruela & García, 2016). The issue, as indicated by Langacker (1987), Blyth (1997), and Negueruela and Lantolf (2006), is that the pedagogical models found in many L2 textbooks are generally comprised of incomplete and unsystematic lists of rules that are oriented towards very specific uses and contexts that “learners are expected to master in order to perform appropriately in the L2” (Negueruela & Lantolf, 2006, p. 83); thus, compromising their agency as language learners (García, 2014). Based on Vygotsky’s (1986) distinction between everyday and scientific concepts, a CBI approach to instruction requires the design of adequate didactic models that represent the structural, procedural, functional, and content properties of the concept under study (Karpova, 1977). These models need to raise awareness of the linguistic resources available to learners, promoting the emergence of categories of meaning to orient and facilitate communicative performance. New pedagogical explanations and didactic models adopting conceptual categories of meaning as the minimal unit of instruction allow learners to interact with them as tool-and-result (Newman & Holzman, 1993), as they become both the content and tool that mediate their thinking and communicative performance (García, 2012; Negueruela, 2008). Thus, rather than ask learners to memorize grammatical lists and apply them mechanically to specific situations, CBI proposes more complete models that allow for the creation of new conceptual meanings in the L2 that learners can recontextualize in a wide array of communicative situations both in speech and in writing (García, 2014). The second step in implementing CBI in the L2 classroom consists in presenting learners with concepts in the shape of concrete graphic representations that can be manipulated and used as mediational tools to construct functional understandings. It is essential that these scientific representations be abstract, hierarchical, and systematic in order to allow for learners’ conscious manipulation, transformation, and eventual internalization of the concept. These pedagogical diagrams are, in turn, accompanied by written and/or oral explicit explanations. As a result, a concept such as aspect may be used in the L2 classroom to mediate learners’ understanding and control over Spanish preterit and imperfect forms and uses in communicative activity (García, 2012; Negueruela, 2003). Figure 12.1, for example, illustrates a pedagogical representation of this grammatical concept based on Bolinger’s (1991) explanation supported by the visual representations proposed by Bull (1965) and Whitley (2002). In Spanish, aspect is determined by two factors: the inherent semantic value of a given verb (lexical aspect), and the speakers’ perspective regarding the development of a particular action (grammatical aspect). During CBI, learners are prompted to orient their understanding of aspect on the semantic nature of a verb as well as their perspective on 186 Understanding ASPECT The concept of aspect indicates the speaker’s perspective over an action. That is, what is the part/ action that you as the speaker/writer want to profile? Aspect is determined by two factors: a) Lexical aspect: based on the meaning of the verb (bounded or unbounded). b) Grammatical aspect: based on the context of an action (perfective or imperfective). When these two elements are combined they can profile the beginning, end, middle, or completion of an action. The speaker’s perspective over the past action to choose between preterit and imperfect is determined by the following questions: - What part of the action is the speaker profiling? - Does the verb have bounded meaning on itself (e.g., To fall)? - Where in the past is the action from our present perspective? PRETERIT IMPERFECT Profiles the beginning or end of an action or that an action is completed from the present perspective (our perception from the present) Profiles an action that has no boundaries (limits) in the past 3 Present 2 1 Present Juan vivía en Perú (unbounded event, we don’t know its beginning, end, or duration in the past) 1 Beginning P Sali de casa a las 6:00 (bounded event, points to the beginning of the action) 2 Ending P El banco cerró a las 3:00 (bounded event, points to the end of the action) 3 P Viví en Londres durante un año (completed action from a present perspective) Figure 12.1 A pedagogical tool for understanding the concept of aspect in Spanish (García, 2012) Próspero N. García the meanings they are attempting to create. Consequently, students have the possibility of presenting past events by focusing on the beginning of an action (Salí de casa a las 6:00, “I left home at 6:00”), its end (El banco cerró a las 3:00, “The bank closed at 3:00”), or its completion as a whole (Viví en Londres durante un año, “I lived in London for a year”). Similarly, students are also able to express that an action has no clear temporal boundaries in the past—beginning, ending, or total duration (Juan vivía en Perú, “Juan lived in Perú”). As illustrated by the pedagogical model below (Figure 12.1) and the previous examples, the key to mastery of Spanish aspect is not dependent on the memorization of preterit and imperfect morphological endings, but on the understanding of how this concept allows speakers to adopt a wide range of temporal perspectives that can be manipulated according to their communicative intentions (García, 2014, 2017). Although identifying a concept as the minimal unit of instruction, and designing an appropriate pedagogical tool to mediate learner orientation are essential components in CBI, they only represent the tip of the iceberg in the process of concept formation (Negueruela & García, 2016). In Newman and Holzman’s (1993) words, students need to use these models as tool-and-result in the process of meaning-making during communicative activity in the L2. Although it is critical that learners use pedagogical representations as thinking devices to mediate their linguistic performance as a first step towards L2 conceptual development, performance and conceptual understanding form a dialectic, where each one draws from and is affected by the other. Vygotsky (1986) explained that when the form is almost ready to emerge in speech, the concept begins to emerge as well. This view on language development implies that the emergence of form marks the beginning of L2 development as a conceptual process. In the following section, I propose that this third and critical step is achieved through CCM. Conscious Conceptual Manipulation for L2 Development Limiting instruction to the presentation of conceptual tools and representations, regardless of how linguistically sound these may be, is not sufficient for development to take place. In some cases, it runs the risk of passing on inert knowledge to students, which Vygotsky characterizes as verbalism, knowledge that is excessively abstract and detached from reality (1986, p. 148). In order to achieve genuine development, concepts need to be manipulated and transformed by the learners through meaningful communication. However, not all goaloriented activity in the language classroom is significant L2 developmental activity. In order to be considered among the latter, activity and materials implemented in the process of teaching–learning need to have functional significance for the learners so they can be transformed through concrete CCM. During this process, it is essential that learners are explicitly exposed to, and engage with, the original pedagogical models (i.e., SCOBAs) and make them their own, transforming, internalizing, and externalizing them through social interaction with others and psychological interaction (private and inner speech) with the self (Negueruela, García, & Buescher, 2015). Throughout the chapter it has been emphasized that consciousness, understood as conscious awareness (Vygotsky, 1987), plays a key role in a sociocultural understanding of how L2 development of conceptual categories of meaning proceeds: “concepts are relevant for the formation of consciousness because they shape how we perceive, understand, and act in and on the world” (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014, p. 61). Hence, materialization is not just about copying and repeating the model offered during instruction, but about understanding 188 Concept-Based Instruction it through observation, imitation—for Vygotsky (1986, p. 188) a creative and transformative process—interaction, and manipulation so that the model can be internalized and eventually externalized in its new form. This is the basis for CCM, a sense-making activity by which learners become engaged in teaching–learning–development activity. CCM is defined as a dynamic and conscious process where learners reflect on their communicative choices by using concepts with the intent of constructing new understandings. This procedure entails many different forms of socially mediated activity, such as physical modeling (transforming the original materialization in the form of diagrams, outlines, schemas, flow charts, etc.), as well as oral and written manipulation of the concepts through dialogic interaction, verbalizations, or conscious attention and comprehension (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 147). In this sense, CCM enables learners to interact directly with something that is originally abstract (i.e., scientific) and make it concrete, providing them with a window to transform interpersonal conceptual knowledge into intrapersonal and functional knowledge. Transformation is necessary for the internalization of conceptual categories as tools-and-result, as concepts are not “isolated, ossified, and changeless formation, but an active part of the intellectual process constantly engaged in serving communication, understanding, and problem solving” (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 98). CCM’s transformative nature has the potential to provide learners with conceptual awareness and foster L2 conceptual development. As part of a properly designed learning environment, CCM can be the dialectical glue that links learning and development. Figures 12.2 and 12.3 are examples of how CCM can help learners internalize the grammatical concept of aspect by transforming the original model presented in Figure 12.1 into different—and crucially personal—representations (García, in preparation). Figure 12.2 Learner pedagogical representation of aspect as inside or outside of the box 189 Próspero N. García Figure 12.3 Pedagogical representation of aspect as in or out of focus In this study, an intact class of high-school Spanish level 3 students (N = 27; mean age = 13.1) was exposed to the concept of aspect to mediate their understanding and control over Spanish preterit and imperfect forms (see Figure 12.1). Following this phase, students engaged in communicative activities for a period of ten 45-minute sessions aimed at fostering their L2 conceptual development and control over the concept of aspect and its corresponding morphological forms. These tasks ranged from interpreting and identifying aspectual contrasts in their L1 (establishing connections between English and Spanish), writing narrations in the past based on visual stories, representing scenarios following DiPietro’s (1987) model of strategic interaction, to completing individual and in-group verbalizations to reflect on their conceptual understanding and guide their aspectual choices. Once the sessions were completed, learners were divided into groups and asked to work towards the materialization of a model that would represent their aspectual understanding and how they guided their performance in relation to use of Spanish preterit and imperfect. The pedagogical diagrams in Figures 12.2 and 12.3 are examples of how two different groups of learners understood and used the concept of aspect as a tool for thinking to regulate their communicative performance. These pedagogical diagrams represented learners’ developing aspectual awareness, intentionally (i.e., consciously) appropriated and transformed from the original model (Figure 12.1) through the use of socially created metaphors. Learners working on Figure 12.2, for example, interpreted the dialectical relationship between preterit and imperfect by characterizing perfective actions as bounded, specific, precise, and metaphorically happening “inside the box.” Imperfective actions, on the other hand, were featured as unbounded—or happening “outside of the box”—hence free, unspecific, and random. 190 Concept-Based Instruction By using this graphic metaphor, the students were able to successfully represent how aspect can be used in Spanish based on how the speaker intends to describe an action in relation to his or her inherent lexical information and the context in which it occurs. In contrast, learners working on the pedagogical diagram illustrated in Figure 12.3, represented their aspectual understanding of preterit and imperfect using the metaphor of being in or out of focus. In their conceptual representation, this group of learners moved beyond the model provided in Figure 12.1 by choosing to emphasize the speaker’s perspective over an action. This was represented by the stick figure standing in the present “looking down at the past” (as seen at the top of the picture), who calls attention to certain actions with the help of a spotlight. In their materialization, learners used the metaphor of the past as a stage where events can be seen as either enclosed by the spotlight (perfective), or remaining out of it, becoming blurred if seen from the present (imperfective). While both groups of learners were able to transform their conceptual understanding through CCM, those behind the creation of Figure 12.3 showed a more complete and sophisticated understanding of the grammatical concept of aspect. By being able to incorporate the speaker’s perspective over an action, as well as other notions such as boundedness and unboundednes in their materialization, they successfully transformed the model provided on Figure 12.1, creating a very powerful tool for thinking in their path towards conceptual internalization. Teaching–learning and development form a dialectically connected, transformative activity, where a properly organized learning sequence, such as the one presented above, may lead to learner development, eventually restructuring their mental behavior (Lantolf, 2013, p. 1). As development from this perspective “focuses on the formation of mediational ability through appropriating and internalizing symbolic artifacts” (Lantolf, 2011, p. 26), CCM is a mediational tool that allows learners to reflect upon their own performance, helping them reach levels of abstraction that they would not be able to attain otherwise. As a result, L2 conceptual development is not seen as the mere act of memorizing linguistic structures to use them in rather unrealistic communicative settings. From this perspective, development is understood as the use of conceptual knowledge to mediate actions and transform the way learners see the world, and internalization as the conscious manipulation and transformation of categories of meaning in a systematic manner, creating new meanings through and with concepts as they move from the social plane to the self (i.e., from interpersonal to intrapersonal). Moreover, CCM also becomes a useful tool for teachers and for researchers, who are able to observe L2 conceptual development from its inception. Conclusions and Recommendations for the Future This chapter has explored the role of concept-based instruction in the second language (L2) classroom as a pedagogical tool for supporting L2 development as a conceptually-based process. Although there is sound research to support that CBI fosters L2 conceptual development, the discussion on conscious conceptual manipulation presented in this chapter, along with the work of Aguiló-Mora and Negueruela (2015), Negueruela (2013), Negueruela and Fernandez-Parera (2016) on mindful conceptual engagement (MCE), and that of Poehner and Infante (2015) devoted to mediated development (MD), opens new roads for promoting and analyzing L2 concept formation as transformative activity. MCE, as developed by Negueruela (2013), is an approach to communicative instruction based on the principles of CBI that “develops an explicit and overt focus on learners’ engaging with categories of meaning, which underlie L2 communicative use” (Negueruela & Fernandez-Parera, 2016, p. 196). Mediated development, postulated by Poehner and Infante (2015), is an approach 191 Próspero N. García to L2 development that draws from SCT principles, combined with Feuerstein’s model of mediated learning experience (Feuerstein, Feuerstein, & Falik, 2010), and informed by models of STI (Gal’perin, 1992a, 1992b). As such, MD is a dynamic process of joint thinking where mediator and learner engage in instructional tasks as dialectical activity with the goal of promoting conceptual understanding (see Chapter 15 by Infante in this volume). While research implementing CCM, MCE, and MD in L2 classrooms has been promising so far, it needs to be applied to areas other than L2 grammatical features to fully explore these models’ effectiveness as drivers of conceptual development. Another issue worth contemplating in relation to the implementation of CBI in the L2 classroom is curricular design. A Vygotskyan approach to L2 education considers that learning has a key role in learners’ L2 conceptual development as “properly organized learning results in mental development set in motion a variety of developmental processes” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 90). Thus, one can assume that properly organized conceptual instruction is likely to lead to L2 learning first, and L2 conceptual development later on. Based on Gal’perin’s proposals, Haenen (1996) indicated that implementing such a pedagogical approach in real classroom environments requires the reorganization of the entire curriculum. Indeed, concepts and mental activity need to be systematically connected to one another and cannot occur in isolation (Negueruela & Lantolf, 2006, p. 81). Therefore, to maximize the efficiency of a model of L2 developmental instruction, each concept presented in the curriculum needs to be coherently connected to the next. At this point, it seems essential to reorganize the curriculum around relevant categories of meaning to maximize learners’ L2 potential development. Negueruela (2003), for example, systematically connected the grammatical concepts of mood, tense, and aspect in the same course. Although extremely informative, other studies have only partially modified class content in order to implement CBI that targeted a specific feature of language. I would like to argue that it is now imperative to formulate an integrated CBI curriculum for L2 language instruction, one that takes account not only of grammatical and discourse features of a language, but also incorporates focus on pragmatics, literacy development, and use of figurative language, something that has only been explored in a single CBI study to date (see Kim & Lantolf, 2018). References Aguiló-Mora, F., & Negueruela, E. (2015). 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Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 178–192). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitley, S. (2002). Spanish/English contrasts: A course in Spanish linguistics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Yáñez-Prieto, C. (2008). On literature and the secret art of the invisible words: teaching literature through language (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Yáñez-Prieto, C. (2014). Sense and subjectivity: teaching literature from a sociocultural perspective. Language and Sociocultural Theory, 2(1), 27–54. Zhang, X. (2014). The teachability hypothesis and concept-based instruction: Topicalization in Chinese as a second language (Unpublished doctoral thesis). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA. Further Reading Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (Eds.) (2008). Sociocultural theory and the teaching of second languages. London: Equinox. Fourteen original studies reporting on the implementation of different pedagogical approaches rooted in Vygotsky’s theory extended to second language classrooms. Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (2014) Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative in L2 education. Vygotskian praxis and the research/practice divide. London: Routledge. Explores pedagogical praxis in the field of L2 education, explaining the dialectical connection between teaching and research while paying special attention to research on concept-based instruction. Negueruela, E., & García P. N. (2016). Sociocultural theory and the language classroom. In G. Hall (Ed.) The Routledge handbook of English language teaching (pp. 295–309). New York: Routledge. Explores Vygotsky’s views on conceptual development and how these can be applied to L2 classroom through concept-based instruction and dynamic assessment. 195 Próspero N. García Swain, M., Kinnear, P., & Steinman, L. (2015). Sociocultural theory in second language education: an introduction through narratives (2nd ed.). Toronto: Multilingual Matters. Reviews some of the main tenets of the SCT approach to L2 learning and development, including concept-based instruction, through the use of narratives from L2 learners and teachers. van Compernolle, R. A. (2014). Sociocultural theory and L2 instructional pragmatics. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Proposes a sociocultural framework for teaching and learning L2 pragmatics through the appropriation of L2 sociopragmatic concepts to mediate learners’ pragmalinguistic choices. 196 13 Concept-Based Instruction of Chinese as a Second Language Jie Zhang and Xian Zhang Introduction Over the past two to three decades, China’s increasing global influence has generated worldwide interest in Chinese language teaching and learning. As a result, Chinese as a second language (CSL) has been recently recognized as an independent discipline of study (Ke, 2012). Yet as a new discipline, CSL is still in its initial stage of disciplinary building (Wang & Ruan, 2016). Much work needs to be done so that continued growth of CSL can be supported by a well-constructed, coherent disciplinary discourse. Among the many challenges CSL faces, a constant, perplexing question of the field concerns the role of research in CSL instruction. CSL researchers and practitioners have been asking such questions as, what is the role of theory in CSL teaching? How is research relevant to teaching? How can we bridge the gap between theoretical studies and instructional practices? How should we support CSL development through theory-based practices? In this chapter, we focus on concept-based instruction (CBI), an empirical research and teaching approach in the tradition of sociocultural theory (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). With its tenet to unify theory and practice, CBI offers an original, viable solution to the challenges that the field of CSL is facing. Although CBI was only applied to the context of CSL very recently, with Lai (2012) being the first study in this area, the small number of studies adopting a CBI approach has nevertheless presented powerful evidence regarding the effects of CBI in supporting CSL learners’ development of conceptual understanding and language proficiency (e.g., Ai, 2015; Kao, 2014; Lai, 2012; X. Zhang, 2014). This chapter begins with a brief historical overview of CSL as a field and how CBI fits into the ongoing discourse. Then, we introduce some critical topics discussed in the available literature on CBI in the CSL context. This is followed by a review of current research, findings, and methodology of CBI. We then propose suggestions for pedagogical practice for those who are interested in adopting CBI in their instructional practices. We conclude the chapter by pointing out promising directions to push forward this line of research from aspects of research design, scope of topics, and CBI materials development. 197 Jie Zhang and Xian Zhang Historical Perspectives Outside of the Asian context, it is only very recently that CSL has become a popular option among students wishing to learn additional languages. Historically, the influence of Chinese upon other languages or cultures was limited to countries in the vicinity of China, in particular Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, all of which used to maintain stronger commercial, cultural, and religious ties to China (Wang & Ruan, 2016). Mainly driven by China’s fast-growing economy and increasing international power, the past two decades has witnessed Chinese rise to become a popular choice in other regions of the world, even surpassing some of the European languages in popularity among language students at both the secondary and postsecondary level. CSL in the United States can be dated back to 1871 when Yale University offered the first Chinese language class and later in 1879 when Harvard University established the first Chinese program (Wang & Ruan, 2016; Yao & Zhang, 2010). The small number of Chinese instructors back then were either Sinologists or Christian missionaries, who taught Classical Chinese through the reading and translation of ancient literary texts (Liu & Liu, 1990). During World War II, CSL instruction grew moderately because of its usefulness for military purposes. The establishment of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey California, funded by the Department of Defense, was a major initiative during that time. Chinese instruction back then, as with other languages taught during the war years and immediately after, adopted the audio-lingual method with a practical focus on listening and speaking Mandarin, the official language of China (X. P. Zhang, 2009). From the 1960s to 2000s, several government policy initiatives promoted learning of critical foreign languages, one of which was Chinese. With support of these initiatives, CSL gradually expanded into elementary and secondary schools (Wang & Ruan, 2016). CSL grew exponentially after entering the 21st century when China eventually grew into an economic and political powerhouse on the international stage. With increasing interests in business and national security, and accelerated by the Chinese government’s forceful promotion of Chinese language and culture through the establishment of Confucius Institutes worldwide, CSL has now become a popular foreign language in many parts of the world, including the United States. According to the Modern Language Association of America’s report, by the fall semester of 2006, 661 post-secondary institutions were offering Chinese language courses with a total enrollment of 51,582 students (MLA, 2006). By fall 2013, the number had increased to 61,055 (Goldberg et al., 2015). In K-12 public schools, CSL has enjoyed the largest percentage increase among all foreign languages in the past decade, growing from 0.23% of all students taking a foreign language in 2004–2005 to 3% in elementary schools and 4% in secondary schools in 2008 (ACTFL, 2011). According to Robelen (2010), about 60,000 K-12 students took Chinese classes in the 2007–08 academic year, compared with 20,000 in 2004–05. The above statistics do not yet include the large number of people who take various Chinese language and cultural classes through Confucius Institute classrooms in local communities (cf. Li & Wang, 2016; Yao & Zhang, 2010). The growing demand for CSL learning and the rapid expansion of CSL programs in both educational and at grassroots contexts worldwide have forged CSL into an independent field of study with close ties to Chinese linguistics, second language acquisition, and foreign language pedagogy (J. Zhang, 2016). Chinese linguistics studies have contributed to our understanding of linguistic specificities of the Chinese language and how it differs typologically from other languages, serving as a solid foundation for explaining the unique features of Chinese to learners from an array of L1 backgrounds. Still, knowledge of the 198 Chinese Concept-Based Instruction Chinese language alone cannot adequately address all aspects of learning CSL. Second language acquisition (SLA), a relatively new discipline in its own right, has had a significant impact on the field of CSL. Through systematically investigating how people acquire a second language (L2) cognitively and socially, SLA greatly enriched our knowledge about L2 learners, their learning processes, and learner language (cf. J. Zhang, 2016). As the typical CSL learning context is in formal classroom settings, CSL teaching practices have, unsurprisingly, been influenced by pedagogies designed for instruction in other, mostly, European languages. As we mentioned, the earliest CSL instruction in the US adopted the grammartranslation method and in the 1940s switched to the audio-lingual method. In the 1980s with the popularity of communicative language teaching, CSL classroom and pedagogical materials began to incorporate elements of communicative language teaching. Most recently, owing to the advocacy of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), proficiency-based instruction has gained strong momentum in teaching CSL (J. Zhang, 2016; Zhu, 2010). As one would expect, CSL teaching practices over time have been anything but uniform. For one thing, at the college level, depending on the tradition of the Chinese program, the CSL teaching force may come from very different backgrounds, ranging from Asian studies, Chinese literature, to Chinese linguistics, and more recently SLA and education. They adhere to their own philosophies in teaching CSL and building Chinese programs. CSL teaching in the K-12 setting, on the other hand, presents an even more diverse picture as many practitioners have not received systematic training in teaching CSL before taking a teaching position. The establishment of the Chinese Language Teachers Association in the US in 1961, together with its annual CLTA meeting and its flagship journal Chinese as a Second Language. The Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association USA, to some extent helped disseminate and standardize CSL teaching practices. Even so, whether CSL instruction should be theory-guided and research-based, and if so, how to bridge the gap between theory and practice remain controversial for CSL practitioners coming from different academic backgrounds. In a recent roundtable on “Reflections on Empirical Studies in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language” at the 2nd CLTA International Symposium on Chinese Language Teaching and Learning (Chou et al., 2016), scholars engaged in a hot debate regarding whether empirical research is needed in CSL. The intent of the roundtable was to showcase the value of empirical research in CSL. However, it became evident that scholars held different opinions in this regard, generating a heated discussion among the panelists and audience. Using their respective research as illustrations, Boping Yuan, Zhaohong Han, and Nan Jiang tried to make the point that SLA research could shed light on and better inform CSL instruction and pedagogy. Still, questions were raised as to a lack of direct linkage between SLA theoretical findings and teaching CSL. One of the panelists pointed out that instruction without research produces similar learning outcomes and that the marginal effects of research-based instruction can hardly justify the benefits of empirical research. To bridge the gap between research and instruction, other scholars such as Yang Xiao-Desai made the proposal of preparing teacher-researchers who are able to conduct classroom-based research (2016). We believe the focus of this chapter, CBI, can make a unique contribution in addressing the debate. We devote this chapter to CBI, an SLA model grounded on Vygotsky’s general theory of learning (Vygotsky, 1978, 1997). What distinguishes CBI from other SLA or pedagogical theories lies precisely in the fact that CBI achieves a dialectic unity of theory and practice (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014), thus rendering a possible solution to the current debate on the dualism of theory and praxis in the field of CSL. CBI is grounded in Vygotsky’s principle 199 Jie Zhang and Xian Zhang that formal education must provide complete, systematic knowledge of concepts, in any academic domain, to learners in such a way that they can understand and use the concepts inside and outside of the educational setting. Moreover, it relies on systematic and careful implementation of stages from orientation, concept presentation, verbalization, and internalization. For CBI, theory is developed to serve learning, the effect of which can only be determined if learning indeed takes place. In other words, CBI does not rely on controlled experimental settings to test its claim, but on the educational setting itself. Due to the scope of this chapter, we refrain from discussing the theoretical aspects of CBI and its historical evolution; interested readers are directed to the relevant chapters in the current volume indicated at the end of the present chapter. While the effectiveness of CBI has been assessed in the fields of psychology, general education, and different L2 classroom contexts (ESL and Spanish in particular), in the field of CSL it represents a relatively new instructional model that was implemented for the first time only a few short years ago. To our knowledge, the first attempt to implement a CBI pedagogy for CSL is represented by Lai’s (2012) study on teaching the Chinese temporal and aspectual systems. A second study was carried out by X. Zhang (2014) on testing Pienemann’s teachability hypothesis with regard to Chinese topicalization. Two additional projects include Kao’s (2014) dissertation on teaching Chinese rhetorical structures in writing, and Ai’s (2015) research on teaching the Chinese ba-construction. Ongoing projects include J. Zhang’s (in progress) study on developing CBI materials for instruction that address Chinese orthographic, lexical, syntactic, and discourse features. We will offer a review of these studies in the section “Current Contributions and Research.” Prior to that, we will first discuss some critical issues addressed in the available literature on CBI for CSL. Critical Issues and Topics What Are Spontaneous Concepts and Scientific Concepts? Vygotsky distinguishes scientific concepts from everyday, spontaneous concepts (Vygotsky, 1986). Spontaneous concepts are primarily derived through observing the external world as they appear to our senses. They are inductive, heavily empirical, and often cannot be separated from concrete everyday experiences. They are “the result of generalization of everyday personal experience in the absence of instruction” (Karpov, 2003, p. 63). As a result, some types of spontaneous concepts are superficial and therefore incomplete or even erroneous (Lantolf, 2011). Spontaneous concepts are usually voluntary and are not readily brought to conscious awareness. In contrast, scientific concepts “represent the generalization of experience of humankind that is fixed in science” (Karpov, 2003, p. 66). They are explicit, abstract, and domain-specific (Lantolf, 2011). Although scientific concepts may not be directly observable, they can be brought to conscious awareness. According to Vygotsky, formal education should be organized around scientific concepts not spontaneous concepts, although education should begin with the students’ understanding of everyday concepts as well as previous learning in a particular subject area. A perusal of current CSL pedagogical materials suggests that CSL instruction is for the most part dominated by spontaneous concepts. Important grammatical categories are usually presented in a rule-of-thumb manner where students are asked to memorize those rules and try to apply them in a variety of communicative situations. Such narrow rule-based approaches tend to be less accurate, restricted to specific contexts, or fall short of explaining what are often referred to as “exceptions” (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014). 200 Chinese Concept-Based Instruction Moreover, rule-of-thumb pedagogy restricts the agentive role of learners in shaping the meanings they wish to convey to an interlocutor and often compels them to passively accept the rules without trying to relate the new concepts to their existent cognitive knowledge repertoires. One can ask learners to memorize rules by heart, but memorization without a deeper understanding of the underlying concepts tends to be less accurate and prone to errors. In contrast, scientific concepts of the same linguistic categories offer learners a conceptual tool to work with and allow them to take on an active role in choosing the appropriate linguistic means to meet their communicative needs. For this reason, conceptual knowledge is not only considered the minimal unit of instruction but, more importantly, a fundamental means of promoting learners’ ability to voluntarily control their actions in order to achieve specific communicative goals. Consider the treatment of polysemous words in CSL pedagogical materials. Chinese is a compound language with more than 70% of its vocabulary comprised of compound words (Institute of Language Teaching and Research, 1986). A single Chinese morpheme appears in an average of 17 compound words (Yuan & Huang, 1998). Despite the high repetition of morphemes in compound words, words sharing the same morpheme are presented in textbooks as individual entries without being related semantically. Learners are simply asked to memorize the vocabulary case-by-case without a clear understanding that they are semantically related, something that should facilitate their learning and use. As an example, the highly polysemous and frequent verb kai “open” has several meanings when it appears as the second morpheme of a compound verb. However, in CSL textbooks words sharing the same kai “open” morpheme are not grouped together as a semantically coherent set; instead they are introduced as individual vocabulary entries whenever such a word appears in the textbook materials. In other words, the presentation of the V-kai compound verbs is random, mirroring in some way how these words are encountered in naturalistic communicative contexts. Based on analysis of a native Chinese corpus, J. Zhang (2015) found that the meanings of the compound verbs V-kai can be grouped into four types: to separate or split, to disperse or spread, to move away, and to initiate an action. Using cognitive linguistics as her theoretical framework, J. Zhang analyzed the radical category of V-kai and identified its prototypical sense and peripheral senses. Her analysis revealed that the distinct senses of V-kai are cognitively motivated and can be explained through general cognitive mechanisms of image schema and conceptual metaphor. The seemingly unrelated senses are connected at the conceptual level, thus forming a coherent conceptual structure and demonstrating the nonarbitrary nature of language. Understanding of the systematicity and motivation of the semantic structure of polysemous words has important implications for CSL learning and teaching. We argue that presenting learners with the underlying semantic motivation in a principled way facilitates learner understanding of the target language and induces more satisfactory learning outcomes than more traditional pedagogical approaches that do not take full account of lexical and morphological meaning. This in turn may well enhance comprehension, retention, production, and cultural understanding of the linguistic forms. How Should We Teach Scientific Concepts? Given that scientific concepts have advantages over spontaneous concepts in helping learners acquire the target linguistic concepts more systematically, the next question would naturally be, are scientific concepts teachable? If so, how should we systematically present linguistic concepts to learners? A crucial element of CBI is designing the SCOBA (schema 201 Jie Zhang and Xian Zhang for orienting basis of action; Gal’perin, 1989) which is a concise, visual presentation of the scientific concept. In sociocultural theory, development takes place through three phases: object regulation, other regulation, and self-regulation (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Lantolf & Poehner, 2014). The SCOBA can be understood as the conceptual tool of object regulation. Compared with the rule-of-thumb explanations in most textbooks and pedagogical materials, the SCOBA presents a scientific concept in a way that is systematic, organized, accurate, and more accessible to learners (Lantolf &Thorne, 2006; Lantolf & Poehner, 2014). As such, a successful CBI project relies on the design and quality of the SCOBA. To date, a variety of materialized pedagogical illustrations (i.e., SCOBAs) have been used in the CBI literature, including images, flowcharts, pictures, 3-D clay models, and animations, among others. Recall the V-kai compound verbs we discussed previously. J. Zhang (in progress) developed the following SCOBA to present the semantic network of V-kai (Figure 13.1). In the SCOBA, the dotted line indicates the initial state, and the solid line indicates the final, actual, and resultative state. The central meaning of kai “open” as a verb is “to open.” The first meaning of V-kai is “to separate into parts,” which foregrounds the change from a whole into several pieces (for example, opening one’s mouth, eyes, a door, a window, or a parcel). The first meaning can be extended to describe a group of individual entities usually of similar types, hence the second meaning “to spread out/apart” (for example, people lining ᘙ㻌kai (open) Verb + ᘙ separate into part spread out/apart move away begin to function ON OFF Figure 13.1 SCOBA of V-kai compounds (J. Zhang, in progress) 202 Chinese Concept-Based Instruction up against, raindrops splashing). The third meaning “to move away” highlights the change from nonaction to action that creates distance between two entities. Such actions are usually physical (for example, running, walking, or jumping away from a reference point). The fourth meaning “to begin to function” foregrounds change from nonfunction to function. Such usages are frequently seen in the compound verb da-kai (hit-open) to denote turning on a light, computer, cell phone, or other device. Another frequent application of this meaning is initiation of a new action, event, or change. Accompanied with textual explanations, the SCOBA can be grasped by learners and is more easily remembered than the current textbook presentations of these words. The semantic network of these verbs can be used as a conceptual tool by learners in processing, storing, and retrieving vocabulary. How Should We Help Learners Internalize Scientific Concepts? With the SCOBA serving as object regulation, the next critical step is to help learners internalize the scientific concepts. CBI utilizes two kinds of activities aimed at this goal: verbalization and meaningful communicative practice. Verbalization requires learners to explicitly reflect on their conceptual understanding (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). Different forms of verbalization can be used. In Kao (2014), the students were asked to verbalize what they had learned and revise the SCOBA they designed. In X. Zhang (2014), verbalization was conducted through learners’ oral account of the concepts. In addition, communicative activities are designed to help learners apply the concepts in real communicative activities. X. Zhang (2014), for example, used video narration and open-ended interviews. Kao (2014) engaged learners in new writing tasks that facilitated mastery of three typical Chinese rhetorical styles: the open-the-door-and-see-the-mountain approach, the Qi-Cheng-Zhuan-He approach, and the “dragon” approach. For sure, depending on the targeted concepts and learners’ language proficiency levels, more traditional task types can be employed as well. Lai (2012) and Ai (2015) used translation tasks to elicit learners’ production of the target forms. Current Contributions and Research One of the very first studies that applied CBI to teach Chinese was Lai (2012), in which temporal expressions and aspect markers were taught to beginner L2 Chinese learners. Temporal expressions and aspect markers in Chinese are different from those in English. In order to help learners understand the underlying concepts, Lai applied Gal’perin’s methods in her intervention study. SCOBAs were constructed to visually present the temporal particles of “up” and “front” as past, and “down” and “back” as future in Chinese. A five-day training period based on Gal’perin’s systemic theoretic instruction (STI) was provided to an intact university beginner-level class taught by Lai. Two groups of learners, one from a parallel session of the beginner-level class and one from an intermediate-level class, were used as control groups. Compared to the beginner-level control group, who received “traditional instruction” on the Chinese temporal system, learners receiving STI training performed better in a post-test on a narrative writing task. Interestingly, the experimental group’s written performance was as proficient as that of the intermediate-level control group. Since the intermediate learners had more exposure to temporal expressions than the beginning level students, Lai concluded that CBI was more effective in enhancing CSL development. In a recent study, Kao (2014) applied CBI to teach Chinese writing rhetorical styles to intermediate and advanced Chinese learners enrolled in a study-abroad program in Taiwan. 203 Jie Zhang and Xian Zhang Participants received CBI in an enrichment program that focused on directing participants to learn and apply in their writing the concept of three different Chinese rhetorical styles that are different in organizing paragraphs, placing the thesis statement, presenting ideas, and so forth. To help learners fully understand the Chinese rhetorical patterns, Kao integrated Gal’perin’s and Davydov’s approaches of CBI in her study. Participants learned the concept of Chinese rhetorical patterns via teacher-created SCOBAs. Later on, learners also created their own SCOBAs, which would be revised and refined over time through group discussion and reading and writing activities. For practice, learners read sample texts that utilized a variety of Chinese rhetorical styles. They also practiced these in writing tasks of different genres such as expository and argumentative writing. Through learners’ refinement of the SCOBAs and verbal and written performance, Kao was able to observe development in the process of concept formation. Another example of using CBI in the CSL context is X. Zhang (2014), reported on in Zhang and Lantolf (2015), who tested the claims of the teachability hypothesis proposed by Pienemann (1989). Pienemann made the claim that instructed second language development consistently follows the specific stages predicted by processability theory (PT). According to PT, because language development is fundamentally a process controlled by cognitive mechanisms, noncognitive factors, such as teaching, may only speed up or slow down the developmental process but cannot alter its course (Pienemann, 1989). Such a claim aligns with Piaget’s theory that teaching and instruction are subordinated to human cognitive development. In contradiction to Piaget’s theory and, by implication, Pienemann’s teachability hypothesis, Vygotsky (1997) argued that human higher mental functions are mediated by social relations and, if those relations vary, development can follow different paths. Teaching or instruction is in fact the primary source of cognitive development. X. Zhang (2014) tested the differences between Pienemann and Vygotsky. Based on the topic hypothesis that predicts three stages of development in Chinese including SVO, Adj.+SVO, and OSV (Pienemann et al., 2005), X. Zhang recruited participants whose Chinese ability was limited to the initial stage in the topicalization sequence, that is, they were only able to produce utterances using the canonical SVO order. X. Zhang then employed CBI to teach stage X+2 (the OSV structure). The hypothesis is that via the right type of instruction, learners could skip stage X+1 (Adj.+SVO structure). Two types of mediation/SCOBA were used in X. Zhang (2014): PowerPoint animations and Cuisenaire rods. The animations used labeled pictures that were repositioned to illustrate the various topicalization options in Chinese. For example, the canonical SVO showed pictures of a man, the verb “eat,” a bowl of rice, and optional temporal and locative adverbs positioned between the subject, “man,” and the verb “eat,” yielding the sentence “Man, at 2:00, at home, ate, rice” (The man ate the rice at home at 2:00). This was then transposed to illustrate a topicalized object (OSV), “rice”: Rice, at 2:00, at home, man, ate (The rice, the man ate at home at 2:00). The second type of SCOBA used was Cuisenaire (colored) rods, which helped participants practice the topicalization structure by physically manipulating the rods. Each rod, with its special physical length and color, was used to represent different sentence constituents. In Figure 13.2, for example, the green rod represents the subject, the blue rod the verb, and the yellow rod the object. The red rod represents the locative phrase and the beige rod the temporal phrase. These rods also had different lengths. The long blue rod was used to represent the verb, which was like an anchor because in Chinese it cannot occur in initial position. The shorter rods, which were used to represent the time and location, had more freedom to move around. 204 Chinese Concept-Based Instruction Top Subject adj adj (time) (place) verb Object Figure 13.2 Materialization of the Chinese topicalization concept (X. Zhang, 2014) Learners were encouraged to manipulate the rods and in this way physically experienced repositioning the constituents of a sentence. Using the rods in instruction had another purpose: by observing and recording how learners used the rods during the instruction phase of the project, it was also possible to document whether the process of higher mental function of learning an L2 grammar followed the trajectory from object-regulated mental activities (referring to mental activities mediated by artifacts in the environment) to self-regulated mental activities (referring to mental activities with little or no external mediation) (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). Based on evidence from a post-test administered after instruction, X. Zhang (2014) found that all learners in the study acquired the OSV structure by skipping the middle stage X+1. As a result, Zhang and Lantolf (2015) proved Vygotsky’s theory that instruction plays a crucial role in shaping and guiding human cognitive development. Ai (2015) developed an enrichment program that used CBI to help learners develop conceptual understanding of the Chinese ba-construction, a unique sentence structure that is difficult to render clearly in other languages. Six English-speaking university students at the intermediate level attended a six-week tutoring program during which they learned and practiced how to use the ba-construction appropriately. The SCOBA used in the study focused on the functional purpose of the ba-construction (in such a structure, the object is placed before the verb and the auxiliary ba is added and placed before the object, see an example below) as well as how it differs from the canonical SVO and the topicalization OSV word orders in a Chinese sentence. Example: Wo ba wan xi le. I ba dish washed. What’s unique about Ai’s (2015) study is that he developed an intelligent computer-assisted language learning (ICALL) program specifically for learners to practice using the baconstruction. The ICALL program incorporated the use of gradual meditational prompts that gave learners multiple opportunities to formulate a correct pattern. Comparison of pre- and post-test scores, as well as participants’ verbalization data before and after receiving instruction showed that all learners, although to different degrees, benefited from the instructional intervention and developed a more mature conceptual understanding of what traditionally has been considered one of the most complex features of Chinese for English speakers to appropriate: the ba-construction. 205 Jie Zhang and Xian Zhang Main Research Methods A number of designs have been used in CBI of CSL. One common method is the interventional study with a pre-test and post-test design. For example, in X. Zhang (2014) participants first received a pre-test as a screening procedure to determine their stage of development with regard to the processing hierarchy proposed by Pienemann. Only participants at the right stage of development were invited to participate in the study. The pre-test was immediately followed by two sessions of CBI. This was intended to minimize the possibility, even though it was highly unlikely, that the participants might have been able to develop some control over the targeted stage between the pre-test and the start of instruction. A post-test was administered after the intervention to evaluate whether learners had indeed developed the capacity to use the targeted word-order in structured, semi-structured, and open-ended activities. A delayed post-test one month after the immediate post-test was also administrated to examine whether learners could still produce the target structure. Using such a design, X. Zhang (2014) showed that CBI could help learners skip from stage X to stage X+2 without first learning X+1, as predicted by processability theory (Pienemann et al., 2005). For interventional studies, a common practice is to include a control group as the baseline for comparison of the effectiveness of an intervention. However, X. Zhang (2014), Kao (2014), and Ai (2015) did not include a control group. It should be pointed out, for example that X. Zhang’s study was not designed to compare effectiveness of CBI to other types of instruction. The goal was, however, to evaluate whether instruction could alter developmental sequences predicted by the topic hypothesis. For this reason, a control group was not regarded as necessary in the research design. Similarly, the purpose of Kao (2014) was to observe development of concept formation and to evaluate whether CBI could have a positive effect on how learners understand and apply rhetorical styles in writings. Lai (2012), on the other hand, used a quasi-experimental design that included a control group so as to evaluate the effectiveness of CBI. An experiment class and a control class were recruited from the regular instructional program at a large public university. Since the participants were beginner Chinese learners, they were assumed to have little knowledge, if any, of the targeted Chinese temporal expressions and aspect markers. Differences in post-intervention performance between the experimental and control classes were used as evidence to assess the effectiveness of the CBI intervention. For sure, not all control groups receive instructional treatments. In such a case, the control group is often treated as a reference point. For example, in Lai’s study besides the first control class who received traditional instruction, a second control class was also recruited. The second class consisted of learners from an intermediate-level Chinese class that was different from the experimental and the first control classes in terms of proficiency and knowledge of the targeted structures. Since the second control class did not receive any intervention on the targeted temporal expressions, it was used as a baseline to evaluate the post-intervention performance of the experimental class. Not all studies in the CBI paradigm compare CBI to other types of instruction. Kao (2014), for example, was designed to observe concept formation while learning Chinese rhetorical styles. With mediation from the teacher and peers, participants were able to build conceptual understanding of the targeted styles. Microgenetic analysis of mediation and interaction between learners and teachers showed how individual and group mediation promoted development. CBI also helped learners transform their conceptual understanding of rhetorical styles into actual writing. Similarly, the goal of Ai’s (2015) study was to examine 206 Chinese Concept-Based Instruction the microgenetic development of the participants over the course of the enrichment program. Through analyzing the participants’ performance on a translation task, a cartoon description task, card-playing activities, and an ICALL translation task, together with verbalization data, the researcher found marked improvement by the participants in their conceptual knowledge and performance abilities with regard to the targeted concept. Recommendations for Practice For CSL practitioners who are interested in applying CBI in their instructional practices, we recommend engaging learners in various mediational means of object regulation, other regulation, and self-regulation in order to optimize instructional effects on learner development. As discussed earlier, the SCOBA is the key in object regulation in CBI. It can be a powerful cognitive tool for learners to capture the meaning underlying Chinese. As interest in the CBI approach to CSL grows, more SCOBAs of linguistic concepts will be made available to CSL practitioners. In the meantime, with good knowledge of CBI and compatible linguistic theories as well as theories of second language development, teachers are encouraged to develop SCOBAs to serve their own instructional purposes. In addition to providing readymade SCOBAs, teachers should engage students in designing their own SCOBAs that would reflect individual understanding of the concepts. To promote other regulation in a CBI approach, teachers should consider incorporating mediation in the presentation of SCOBAs, teacher-led discussions, and follow-up communicative activities. In teacher-led discussions, teachers should provide mediation attuned to learner ability and in accordance with how they respond to various kinds of implicit and explicit mediation to engage students in both their group zone of proximal development (ZPD)1 and individual ZPDs. Various forms of pair and group work should be used where students can benefit from each other’s expertise in completing a language task. As the final stage of learning, self-regulation aims at internalization of new knowledge which can be facilitated by verbalization of concepts. Instructors should create rich opportunities for students to verbalize their learning process and document their language development. They can ask students to recreate their own versions of SCOBAs, recount their understanding of the target concept, or compare their understanding of the concept with each other. Future Directions A CBI approach to teaching CSL is fairly new. Although a growing number of studies have been carried out in the past few years, there is plenty of room for future research. We suggest a few promising directions to push forward this line of research from aspects of research design, scope of topics, and CBI materials development. An appropriate study design is important in assessing the effectiveness of CBI. A number of issues should be considered for designing an empirical study to test CBI. An issue that does not receive much attention is not related to the CBI itself but to other types of instructional treatment. CBI is often compared to traditional types of instruction. It is necessary to first ask what “traditional instruction” is. It seems that “traditional instruction” is rather vague in the sense that there is not yet a clear or unified definition. Does “traditional instruction” simply refer to teaching that uses a rule-of-thumb approach to teach a target language feature, or does “traditional instruction” refer to textbook instruction? 207 Jie Zhang and Xian Zhang SCOBAs need to be concept-based, visually appealing, and easy to use in instructional contexts. Pictures and animation, for example, are good directions for future SCOBA designs. Ideally, ICALL technology can be used to present or construct SCOBAs so that students can benefit from more hands-on and interactive experiences in learning. In addition to the already-addressed topics, a wide array of topics that are well known for their complexity and difficulty for CSL learners is worthy of research using CBI. One area that may yield promising results is unique grammar structures in Chinese (e.g., ba-structure, also see Ai, 2015). Since these language features are new to CSL learners, CBI has much potential in assisting acquisition as it is designed to offer accurate, systematic, and coherent mediation and practice for language development. Another area that may need further exploration is related to teaching hanzi, the Chinese written characters. Different from English which uses an alphabetic system of writing, Chinese uses a logographic system. Learning Chinese characters has proven to be a challenging task for L2 learners (Ke, 2012). We hope to see future CBI materials developed for teachers and students that systematically cover well-known challenging topics of CSL to facilitate learners’ conceptual understanding and CSL development. Note 1 Interested readers are referred to the Chapter 3 on the zone of proximal development in this volume. References Ai, H. (2015). Promoting second language development with concept-based language instruction and intelligent computer-assisted language learning (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). (2011). Foreign language enrollment in K-12 public schools: Are students ready for a global society? Retrieved from :www.actfl. org/sites/default/files/pdfs/ReportSummary2011.pdf Chou, C., Han, Z., Jiang, N., Liu, L., Sun, C., Xiao-Desai, Y., Yuan, B., & Zhang, B. Roundtable on “Reflections on empirical studies in teaching Chinese as a second language,” The 2nd CLTA International Symposium on Chinese Language Teaching and Learning (CLTA-S2), College Park, MD, April 3, 2016. Gal’perin, P. Ya. (1989). Organization of mental activity and the effectiveness of learning. Soviet Psychology, 27, 45–65. Goldberg, D., Looney, D., & Lusin, N. (2015). Enrollments in languages other than English in United States institutions of higher education, Fall 2013. Retrieved from https://apps.mla.org/pdf/2013_ enrollment_survey.pdf Institute of Language Teaching and Research. (1986). Modern Chinese frequency dictionary. Beijing: Beijing Language Institute Press. Kao, Y. (2014). Vygotsky’s theory of instruction and assessment: The implications on foreign language education (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Karpov, Y. V. (2003). Vygotsky’s doctrine of scientific concepts: Its role for contemporary education. In A. Kozulin, B. Gindis, V. S. Ageyev & S. Miller (Eds.), Vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context (pp. 39–64). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ke, C. (2012). Research in second language acquisition of Chinese: Where we are, where we are going. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, 47(3), 43–113. Lai, W. (2012). Concept-based foreign language pedagogy: Teaching the Chinese temporal system (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 208 Chinese Concept-Based Instruction Lantolf, J. P. (2011). Integrating sociocultural theory and cognitive linguistics in the second language classroom. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (Vol. 2, pp. 303–318). New York: Routledge. Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (2014). Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative in L2 education. New York and London: Routledge. Lantolf, J. P., & Thorne, S. L. (2006). Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Li, S., & Wang, J. (2016). Chinese government policies and initiatives on the international popularization of Chinese: An economics of language perspective. In J. Ruan, J. Zhang, & C. B. Leung (Eds.), Chinese language education in the United States (pp. 29–46). Switzerland: Springer. Liu, S., & Liu, S. (Eds.). (1990). 世界汉语教学概况 [An overview of Chinese instruction in the world]. Beijing: International Culture Publishing House. Modern Language Association (MLA). (2006). MLA Fall 2006 language enrollment survey: Chinese. Retrieved from :https://apps.mla.org/pdf/enrollment/chinese_2006.pdf Pienemann, M. (1989). Is language teachable? Psycholinguistic experiments and hypotheses. Applied Linguistics, 1, 52–79. Pienemann, M., Di Biase, B., Kawaguchi, S., & Hakansson, G. (2005). Processability, typological distance and L1 transfer. In M. Pienemann (Ed.), Cross-linguistic aspect of processability theory (pp. 85–115). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Robelen, E. W. (2010, October 5). Chinese aid boosts Mandarin-language instruction. U.S. Education Week. Retrieved from :www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/10/06/06chinese_ep.h30.html Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 4. The history of the development of higher mental functions. New York: Plenum Press. Wang, W., & Ruan, J. (2016). Historical overview of Chinese language education for speakers of other languages in China and the United States. In J. Ruan, J. Zhang, & C. B. Leung (Eds.), Chinese language education in the United States (pp. 1–28). Switzerland: Springer. Xiao-Desai, Y. (2016). CLTA-S2 Round Table. Retrieved from: https://prezi.com/rzllkpibdxos/cltas2-round-table/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy Yao, D., & Zhang, G. (2010). 美国汉语教学历史回顾与现状 [History and current status of Chinese instruction in the U.S.]. Retrieved from https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bit stream/10125/23236/1/Chineselanguage.pdf Yuan, C. F., & Huang, C. N. (1998). Chinese morphemes and compounds: a corpus study. Applications of Languages and Writing Systems, 3, 7–12. Zhang, J. (2015). A corpus-based cognitive semantic analysis of Chinese compound verbs and its pedagogical implications. Research on Folklore, Classics and Chinese Characters, 15, 211–219. Zhang, J. (2016). Understanding Chinese as a foreign language from the perspective of second language acquisition. In J. Ruan, J. Zhang, & C. B. Leung (Eds.), Chinese language education in the United States (pp. 63–82). Switzerland: Springer. Zhang, J. (in progress). Concept-based language instruction. Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research (CALPER). U.S. Department of Education Title VI Grant, 2014–2018. Zhang, X. (2014). The Teachability hypothesis and concept-based instruction: Topicalization in Chinese as a second language (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Zhang, X., & Lantolf, J. P. (2015). Natural or artificial: Is the route of L2 development teachable? Language Learning, 65, 152–180. Zhang, X. P. (2009). 世界汉语教育史 [International Chinese education]. Beijing: Business Publishing House. Zhu, Z. (2010). A historical perspective of teaching Chinese as a Second Language. In J. Chen, C. Wang, & J. Cai (Eds.), Teaching and learning Chinese: Issues and perspectives (pp. 33–69). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. 209 Jie Zhang and Xian Zhang Further Reading Gal’perin, P. Y. (1989). Organization of mental activity and the effectiveness of learning. Soviet Psychology, 27, 45–65. Gal’perin proposed the schema for the orienting basis of action as a way to present scientific knowledge, also known as the object of study. Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (2014). Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative in L2 education. New York and London: Routledge. A comprehensive theoretical and empirical account of concept-based instruction and its applications in second language teaching. Ruan, J., Zhang, J., & Leung, C. B. (Eds.). (2016). Chinese language education in the United States. Switzerland: Springer. Introduces readers to a cross-disciplinary analysis at changes in Chinese language education over time in China and the United States, including the philosophical, political, and sociocultural influences that led to these changes. Zhang, X., & Lantolf, J. P. (2015). Natural or artificial: Is the route of L2 development teachable? Language Learning, 65, 152–180. Reports on a rigorous experimental study that applies concept-based instruction to teaching Chinese topicalization and that challenges the claims of Pienemann’s teachability hypothesis. 210 14 Concept-Based Pragmatics Instruction Principles and Applications Rémi A. van Compernolle Introduction Second language (L2) instructional pragmatics has been a fruitful area of applied linguistics scholarship since the 1990s. Drawing on models of communicative competence (e.g., Canale & Swain, 1980; Bachman, 1990), L2 instructional pragmatics research has explored the extent to which learning environments can be intentionally organized to facilitate, on the one hand, the acquisition of pragmalinguistic conventions (e.g., request strategies) and, on the other, the development of sociopragmatic knowledge (e.g., which request strategy is appropriate in context). Pragmalinguistics refers to the patterns of language used to accomplish pragmatic goals, whereas sociopragmatics refers to the sociological factors and cultural meanings that are linked to the choice of available pragmalinguistic options (Leech, 1983; Thomas, 1983). Two decades of research has revealed that while pragmalinguistics may be acquired through more implicit instructional arrangements, explicit approaches to teaching appear to be necessary for learners to link form to sociopragmatics (Taguchi, 2015). As van Compernolle, Gomez-Laich, and Weber (2016) have put it, “at the risk of oversimplifying the issue, forms are easy to pick up, but sociopragmatic meanings are difficult to deduce without someone making the patterns visible to learners” (p. 343). This chapter presents an overview of recent work on concept-based pragmatics instruction (CBPI), which has been proposed as an approach to systematically and explicitly teaching sociopragmatics and pragmalinguistics as mediated action (van Compernolle, 2014). Drawing on Vygotsky’s (1986) distinction between everyday and scientific concepts, and the subsequent educational work of Gal’perin (1989, 1992) and Davydov (2004), CBPI centers on the teaching of holistic pragmatic categories of meaning as a way to guide learners to an understanding of the semiotic and social-indexical nature of language (Silverstein, 2003), which in turn may mediate their use of pragmalinguistic forms as they engage in communicative activity. The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows. In the next section, I outline the basic principles and components of CBPI, as originally presented in van Compernolle 211 Rémi A. van Compernolle (2014). I then overview three exemplar applications of the framework: two classroom studies, one in elementary French (van Compernolle & Henery, 2014) and the other in elementary Spanish (van Compernolle et al., 2016), and an extension to French study abroad (Henery, 2014). I then turn to work in progress that brings the CBPI framework to technology-mediated environments before offering some concluding comments and suggestions for future research. Principles of CBPI Conceptual Mediation and Categories of Meaning The point of departure for CBPI as originally introduced in van Compernolle (2012, 2014) is that it is insufficient to teach learners rules of thumb for appropriateness, politeness, formality, and so on (e.g., describing the indirect strategy of saying Would you mind . . . as the appropriate way to make a polite request, as opposed to such phrases as I’d like you to . . . or Please + IMPERATIVE) if our goal in providing pragmatics instruction is to support learners in developing their capacity to navigate and negotiate social meaning as sociolinguistic agents (van Compernolle & Williams, 2012). This is so for three main reasons. First, rules of thumb are unsystematic and, therefore, confusing. Second, rules of thumb do little to support the learner’s agency development since they are to be uncritically applied in appropriate contexts. Third, rules of thumb focus on “how-to-say-what-to-whom-when” (Bardovi-Harlig, 2013, p. 68) but not on the meaning potential, which is variable across contexts of communication, of the various choices of “how-to-say-what” in relation to the “whom” and the “when.” CBPI proposes to refocus pragmatics instruction on categories of meaning. In this way, meaning is given central importance. The role of linguistic form is secondary: forms serve to illustrate how the categories of meaning can be enacted in communicative activity. In line with other work in L2 concept-based instruction (e.g., Negueruela, 2003; Lantolf & Poehner, 2014), the rationale for the approach derives from Gal’perin’s (1989, 1992) extension of Vygotsky’s (1986) work on concept formation, specifically the distinction between everyday concepts and scientific, or academic, concepts (for discussion, see Lantolf & Poehner, this volume). The important difference between the two is their degree of systematicity and recontextualizability. Everyday concepts are formed through empirical experiences and so they tend to be somewhat piecemeal and recontextualizable to a limited range of similar contexts. The rule of thumb “In French, use informal tu with people your own age” is an example of an everyday concept in pragmatics instruction. The problem with this rule is that it does not apply across contexts with all age groups: in France, at least, an adult in his or her 40s would be unlikely to address a service employee (e.g., a cashier) who is also in his or her 40s using tu because it would violate sociopragmatic norms of social distance (i.e., vous is preferred as a means of maintaining distance and respect), whereas reciprocal tu would be perfectly acceptable in the same situation if the interlocutors were both in their early 20s (see van Compernolle, 2015a). A CBPI approach abandons requiring learners to memorize long lists of “dos” and “don’ts” for appropriate tu/vous use and instead approaches the matter through presentation of the academic concept of social distance, with its two categories of meaning, close and distant. This conceptual explanation provides students with a systematic way of understanding pragmatic choices and their effect(s) on social relationship qualities that is highly recontextualizable: tu can create closeness, while vous can create distance gives learners a simple, yet systematic, way of conceptualizing the 212 Concept-Based Pragmatics Instruction second-person pronoun system in French because it pushes them to think in terms of when closeness as opposed to distance might be preferable. Indexicality and Metapragmatics The basis for the CBPI framework is Silverstein’s (2003) notion of orders of indexicality. Simply put, Silverstein argues that any feature of discourse may index meaning at multiple levels, or orders (see van Compernolle, 2014). First-order indexicality involves the most immediately observable meanings of any bit of language. The observation that the morpheme s can mark the plural in English is an example (e.g., one cup vs. two cups). Second-order indexicality centers on the local interpretation of social meaning. For instance, [+ s] as in he’s got two cups marks such things as educated, standard English, whereas [− s], along with copula omission in the verb phrase, as in he got two cup might signal membership in the African American Vernacular English (AAVE) speech community (Wolfram, 2004) or, alternatively, one’s status as a nonnative speaker of English. Third-order indexicality in turn entails supralocal meaning, or ideology, surrounding the discourse feature in question. Standard language ideologies (Milroy, 2007) assigning the perception of intelligence or educational achievement to those who use [+ s] variants and a lack of intelligence or education to those who use [− s] variants are examples. It is important to note, of course, that indexical meanings are variable across time, space, speakers, communities, and so on. Accordingly, different communities and their members will necessarily interpret the second-order and third-order meanings differently (Johnstone & Kiesling, 2008). For instance, [− s] can have a certain covert prestige within AAVE communities since it marks in-group status. Knowledge of these meanings and how they vary across time, space, speakers, and communities, is what constitutes the fabric of metapragmatics. The term metapragmatics centers on the cultural meaning of language use. As Silverstein (2001) writes: One dimension of the “meaning” of every speech form is pragmatic, exactly like any social action. From a semiotic point of view, all such meanings can be described as rules linking certain culturally-constituted features of the speech situation with certain forms of speech. To give those rules, or talk about them, is to engage in “meta-pragmatic” discourse. (pp. 382–383) Understanding the meaning potential of linguistic forms is important for L2 learners because it gives them access to the languaculture (Agar, 1994) they are appropriating. In other words, metapragmatic knowledge is about much more than memorizing rules for appropriate social behavior (i.e., which forms are “right vs. wrong” in different contexts) because it entails an understanding of the ways in which speech forms can index different meanings in different contexts when speaking with different people. Following from these ideas, CBPI centers around the concept of mediated action (van Compernolle, 2014). Social action, including meaning construction, is mediated by the choice of pragmalinguistic resources in communication. The choice of one pragmalinguistic resource over other available options is in turn mediated by one’s knowledge of the metapragmatics of the L2 (i.e., sociopragmatic knowledge). The sociopragmatic domain— that is, meaning—is central to this understanding of pragmatics, which is why holistic sociopragmatic concepts constitute the central component of the CBPI framework. 213 Rémi A. van Compernolle Explanation, Materialization, Verbalization, Problem-Solving, and Communication In van Compernolle (2014), CBPI is described as involving five basic learning tasks (see Negueruela, 2003 and Lantolf & Poehner, 2014 for concept-based instruction in general). First, high-quality explanations of relevant concepts are provided, centered on indexicality and metapragmatics as mediated action. Second, the relevant concepts are materialized in the form of pedagogical diagrams. Third, learners are prompted to verbalize (i.e., explain in their own words) their understanding of the concepts and how they work. Fourth, learners perform problem-solving tasks in which they have to explain how the concepts apply to communicative situations and which forms are relevant. Fifth, learners engage in communicative tasks in which they put their conceptual knowledge into practice. Examples will be presented below. Applications of CBPI The van Compernolle (2012, 2014) Study The original CBPI study, reported first in my doctoral work (van Compernolle, 2012) and later expanded in a book-length study (van Compernolle, 2014), involved eight intermediateto-advanced level U.S. university learners of French. The learners met with a tutor for an enrichment program outside of their normal class. The enrichment program involved weekly one-on-one lessons over the course of six weeks and focused on social indexicality (Silverstein, 2003) in French, using three variable features of discourse to illustrate how social meaning is indexed in communication: 1) the second-person pronouns tu and vous, 2) the first-person plural pronouns nous and on,1 and 3) the presence vs. absence of ne in negation.2 Teaching centered around three principal concepts: self-presentation, social distance, and power. A 36-page course book, which contained concept explanations, examples, pedagogical diagrams (Figures 14.1–3), and think-aloud questions, was provided to students. Table 14.1 outlines the design of the study, including relevant data sources. Note that Figure 14.1 Diagram for self-presentation 214 Figure 14.2 Diagram for social distance Figure 14.3 Diagram for power Table 14.1 Study Design (van Compernolle, 2012, 2014) Session/week Tasks 1 (Preenrichment) •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• 2 3 4 5 6 (Postenrichment) Language awareness interviews (LAI) Unassisted appropriateness judgment tasks (AJT) Unassisted strategic interaction scenarios (SIS) Monologic and dialogic verbalized reflections on concepts Assisted AJT Dynamic SISs (D-SIS) Monologic and dialogic verbalized reflections on concepts Assisted AJT Dynamic SISs (D-SIS) Language awareness interviews (LAI) Unassisted appropriateness judgment tasks (AJT) Unassisted strategic interaction scenarios (SIS) Rémi A. van Compernolle sessions 2–5 constituted the enrichment program proper, while the first and last sessions provided preenrichment and postenrichment data in order to document changes in metapragmatic knowledge and performance abilities. Language awareness interviews (LAIs) (sessions 1 and 6) were modeled after Kinginger’s (2008) on French study abroad and aimed simply to explore learners’ conceptions of pragmatics, including their awareness of the meaning, significance, variation, etc. in the use of the three illustrative features of discourse of the study (i.e., tu/vous, on/nous, and +/− ne in negation). Appropriateness judgment tasks (AJTs) prompted learners to select appropriate pragmatic forms in a series of social-interactive contexts and to verbalize a justification for their choices. In sessions 1 and 6, AJTs were unassisted, meaning that the tutor simply prompted learners to explain their choices, whereas during the enrichment program (sessions 2 and 4), AJTs were assisted, meaning that the tutor provided support to the learners, primarily in terms of using the concepts to guide their choice of pragmatic forms. Strategic interaction scenarios (SISs) were adapted from Di Pietro (1987): the tasks involved a language planning stage, a spoken performance of a scenario with the tutor, and then a debriefing to assess the performance. During sessions 1 and 6, no assistance was provided, but during sessions 3 and 5, the tutor intervened during the performance stage to assist learners when they encountered difficulty in carrying out their plan of action (e.g., faltered in their use of one of the pragmatic forms they intended to use). Verbalized reflections (sessions 2 and 4) focused on reading through and reflecting on the course book contents, first in private (monologic verbalized reflection) and then in collaboration with the tutor (dialogic verbalized reflection) so that learners could receive feedback, clarifications, and so on, about their understandings of the concepts. Findings from the study are reported in detail in van Compernolle (2014), so I will not repeat them here. It suffices to say that participation in the enrichment program assisted learners in orienting to pragmatics as a system of meaning-making as opposed to rules for proper social behavior, and at the same time their controlled use of pragmatic variants (i.e., tu/vous, on/nous and +/− ne) in spontaneous spoken French improved significantly. A caveat to these two general findings is that development did not look the same for all learners. In other words, because CBPI focuses on helping learners to understand the metapragmatics of the L2 in terms of meaning potential through the internalization of the concepts under study, it is the use of the concepts, and not the specific choice of forms, that is important. This means that no two learners are expected to develop the same, or even similar, orientations to pragmatics because internalization is not synonymous with acquisition of a ready-made tool; rather, it entails making the tool one’s own through inward and outward growth (Frawley, 1997; Kozulin, 2003; Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Wertsch, 1998; Zinchenko, 2002). One of the most important foci of the study was the way in which the tutor guided concept internalization through interaction. Indeed, the internalization of psychological tools in Vygotsky’s (1978) theory assumes the presence of mediating agents (e.g., parents, teachers) who direct and guide the learner through the process of coming to understand the meaning and significance of the tools to be internalized (Kozulin, 2003; Wertsch, 2007). This occurs largely through communicative interaction in which mediating agents can co-construct a learner’s zone of proximal development, seen as mediation to support learner internalization of psychological tools (van Compernolle, 2015b).3 Interaction around CBPI materials, where a teacher pushes learners to orient to, and then use appropriately, the concepts as tools for solving communicative problems (especially when they do not yet view the concepts as more valuable than their existing contradictory rules of thumb) is a central part of the pedagogy. Excerpt 1 offers an example, taken from an assisted AJT. 216 Concept-Based Pragmatics Instruction Excerpt 1 50 Nikki: 51 Tutor: 52 Nikki: 53 Tutor: 54 55 56 Nikki: 57 58 59 Tutor: 60 Nikki: 61 Tutor: 62 Nikki: 63 64 Tutor: 65 Nikki: 66 67 68 69 70 Tutor: yeah. so I would use + tu? you would use tu? ++ to show, (2.0) uhh, ((laughs)) (4.0) uh think about this specifically. ((pointing to diagram 4)) (2.0) the power thing. (3.5) I would use ++ wait. + ugh. + like I don’t necessarily want to show that I have power over her. but like +++ I w- + I’d use vous. okay, cuz +++ I don’t ++ want to +++ cuz mhm, cuz I don’t want a close relationship with this person. so I’m like distancing myself from her. okay, but + and I don’t want to show that I have power, over the person, but ++ so I wanna (3.5) use ++ I think we should use vous with each other. + like to show that like ++ it’s an equal relationship. but distance equal? distant equal.= =ah. (van Compernolle & Kinginger, 2013, p. 297) These data were originally presented in van Compernolle and Kinginger’s (2013) microgenetic analysis of concept formation. Prior to this exchange, the student, Nikki, had been struggling to reconcile her desire to communicate social closeness to a near-age-peer store clerk through the use of tu and the potential for this choice to be interpreted as an extension of power, if the clerk were in turn obligated to use vous with a customer. Note how the tutor explicitly directs Nikki’s attention to the power diagram (lines 53–54), which prompted her to change her mind (line 58), but also to synthesize the concepts of social distance and power as “distant equal” (line 69). The argument presented by van Compernolle and Kinginger was that under the tutor’s guidance, Nikki came to realize that by using vous and receiving vous in return, she could avoid an explicit power hierarchy. The van Compernolle (2012, 2014) work laid the groundwork for extensions of CBPI into three domains of language learning with potentially broader impacts than one-on-one tutoring contexts: the classroom, study abroad, and technology-enhanced learning. In what follows, I will provide overviews of the studies carried out in these domains and discuss points of convergence with the broader literature on instructional pragmatics in suggesting future lines of inquiry. Classroom Studies Van Compernolle and Henery (2014) adapted the CBPI framework for use in a secondsemester US university-level French course involving 13 students. The authors made several modifications to the framework in order to integrate CBPI into the existing course syllabus and to make tasks appropriate for a lower-level proficiency group. First of all, 217 Rémi A. van Compernolle Table 14.2 Adaptations of the CBPI Framework for the Classroom Original task Adaptation Rationale LAI Written responses to language awareness survey Monologic written reflections submitted as homework; teacher-led dialogic instructional conversation in following class meeting (15 min) Monologic written responses submitted as homework; teacher-led dialogic instructional conversation in following class meeting (15 min) Performed in small groups (2–3 students) via text-based Google Chat (synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC)) Not feasible to interview all 13 students in class Not possible to devote more than 15 minutes at a time to discussion in class Verbalized reflection AJT SIS Not possible to devote more than 15 minutes at a time to discussion in class Not possible to perform all scenarios within allotted class time; CMC preferred since sustained oral interaction was beyond students’ ability only tu and vous were used as illustrative pragmatic forms because it was the most salient in discourse of the three features included in van Compernolle (2014) and there was a general perception that including too many forms would prove to be too much to cover in the limited amount of class time that could be set aside for CBPI tasks. Other adaptations are outlined in Table 14.2. The study yielded several interesting results. The first was that it was feasible to implement CBPI into an existing course with positive outcomes in terms of pragmatic development but also in terms of avoiding any perceived negative consequence to the institutional objectives for the course (e.g., grammar and vocabulary learning). Although this finding was not discussed in depth by van Compernolle and Henery (2014), it is worth emphasizing since there is often a concern among language teachers that new, alternative, or complementary pedagogies will take time away from, and therefore be detrimental to, their existing instructional objectives. Therefore, the finding that one can include CBPI and at the same time meet previously defined goals is significant in itself. It should also be noted that the content of the tasks (e.g., SIS scenarios) were adapted to match the themes, vocabulary, grammar, etc. that were being taught at the time. For instance, during a unit focused on food, scenarios centered around eating at a restaurant and planning a dinner party were included. In terms of developmental outcomes, van Compernolle and Henery (2014) found that learners improved the systematicity of their explicit sociopragmatic knowledge in relation to tu/vous choice. This was based on analysis of preenrichment and postenrichment written language awareness surveys. Using a multifaceted coding scheme, they showed the increase in the centrality of the three main concepts—self-presentation, social distance, and power— in explaining the pragmatics of tu/vous use, greater recontextualizability of this knowledge, greater focus on meaning as opposed to rules, and increased learner agency in terms of seeing pragmatics as a system of choices with consequences. The authors also reported important changes in how learners made tu/vous choices on AJTs (i.e., agentive and conceptually driven explanations during the postenrichment phase of the study) and improvements 218 Concept-Based Pragmatics Instruction in controlled tu/vous in the SISs. In discussing the results of the study, the authors, however, emphasized that the outcomes did not simply result from input from the instruction (e.g., good explanations) but on the forms of mediation provided by the instructor as she interacted with her students during the teacher-led instructional conversations carried out at several points during the semester. Recall from Table 14.2 that instructional conversations were the adaptation of dialogic verbalized reflections and assisted AJTs used in the study. Indeed, in a related article (van Compernolle & Henery, 2015), the authors traced the teacher’s developing competence in doing CBPI, which included learning how to interact with learners to guide them toward using the concepts appropriately to solve communicative problems. A second classroom study was carried out by van Compernolle, Gomez-Laich, and Weber (2016) with the goal of extending CBPI to the teaching Spanish sociopragmatics in a firstsemester (i.e., true beginner) course. Nineteen students enrolled in two different sections of a Spanish 1 course participated. The study followed van Compernolle and Henery’s (2014) approach with some modifications to the organization of the instruction. Although the same three principle concepts—self-presentation, social distance, and power—were focused on in relation to second-person address (i.e., Spanish tú vs. usted), the authors divided the enrichment program into two parts. In the first, only self-presentation was introduced. In the second, social distance and power were added. This was done because of a perceived “boredom” or “repetitiveness” informally reported by learners in the van Compernolle and Henery study of French, where all three concepts were introduced at once and repeatedly discussed over the course of several weeks. In addition, van Compernolle et al. developed new AJTs. A first AJT included very straightforward situations, whereas a follow up AJT introduced ambiguity. This was done since ambiguous situations in van Compernolle (2014) and van Compernolle and Henery (2014) appeared to foster more complex and critical thinking about the concepts, whereas less ambiguous situations helped learners understand at a basic level how to apply the concepts. Thus, van Compernolle et al. used straightforward AJTs to show how the concept under study worked and then followed up with more ambiguous situations in order to push learners further. This was done twice, first for self-presentation and again when social distance and power were introduced. Other modifications to the design of the enrichment program included a flowchart depicting how the three concepts should be used together (Figure 14.4) and the use of written discourse completion tasks (W-DCTs) as opposed to SISs. The flowchart was added because students in the van Compernolle and Henery (2014) study had informally reported experiencing difficulty using the three concepts together, so the flowchart aimed to make their relationship explicit. W-DCTs were used for collecting performance data since students in the class were true beginners and therefore were not capable of engaging in extended spoken or typed interaction. The findings generally corroborated those reported in van Compernolle (2014) and van Compernolle and Henery (2014). Learners’ conceptual understanding of sociopragmatics improved dramatically on language awareness surveys and AJT responses.4 However, an interesting finding was a mismatch between intended use and actual use of tú/usted forms in the W-DCTs. The task asked learners to produce a speech act (e.g., a request) in a variety of situations and then to explain the language they chose to use. During the postenrichment task, 10.5% of speech acts did not include the pronoun/verb form that the learner intended to use (there were no such occurrences in the preenrichment data). Van Compernolle et al. explained the finding in relation to the greater linguistic demands of the postenrichment task. 219 Rémi A. van Compernolle Figure 14.4 Flowchart from van Compernolle et al. (2016) The apparent increase in inaccurate use of second person forms is related to the increasing diversity of verbs (lexicon) and tenses (morphosyntax) that the students were learning in class. In other words, during preenrichment, possible responses were quite limited to forms in which tú and usted were transparent (e.g., tags such as ¿y tú? ‘and you?’). By contrast, a much wider range of verbal constructions in which no overt pronoun was required was possible during postenrichment, meaning that students not only had to think about tú and usted but also correct verb endings for several tenses. There were, therefore, mismatches between learners’ sociopragmatic knowledge at a conceptual level and their ability to put this knowledge to use through the use of relevant linguistic constituents. (p. 357) The authors therefore recommended that additional form-focused instruction might be a necessary complement to CBPI so that learners forge a stronger connection between their abstract, conceptual knowledge and the particular linguistic resources to be used during communication. The studies summarized above provide evidence that CBPI is feasible in a classroom setting. However, there remain numerous opportunities for further elaboration that also dovetail with the broader L2 instructional pragmatics literature. Some, as already outlined by van Compernolle and Henery (2014) and van Compernolle et al. (2016), simply involve expanding the range of pragmatic features taught through CBPI, including speech acts such as requesting, apologizing, and so on, as well as larger discourse and textual features like cohesion and genre in different modes of communication (e.g., speech and writing). 220 Concept-Based Pragmatics Instruction Taguchi (2015) provides some additional guidance for classroom-based pragmatics instruction in general that can be applied to CBPI, two of which I believe deserve special attention in future work: 1. 2. Engaging learners in increased opportunities to use target pragmalinguistic resources in real-life-like communication, with the possibility of providing feedback and fostering conscious reflection on their performances. Studies such as Belz and Vyatkina (2008) offer models for doing this in the classroom, using learner transcripts of text-based computer-mediated communication to engage learners in teacher-led language analysis that raises learners’ awareness of their use of pragmatic features. Such an approach could expand on van Compernolle and Henery’s (2014) use of online strategic interaction scenarios: rather than simply performing them, the transcripts could be brought into class for analysis and discussion. Creating opportunities for cross-cultural metapragmatic reflection and comparison. Taguchi (2015) links this idea with reflecting on L1 vs. LX sociocultural norms. In CBPI, a related but broader goal is first to raise learners’ awareness of how pragmatic concepts such as social distance work in their L1 and what the concepts mean in relation to their culture, and then, as a second step, learners must be guided to an understanding of the relevance of the concepts for the L2 culture. Indeed, previous CBPI research has documented such comparisons as a crucial aspect of the approach (see especially van Compernolle, 2014), but it has not yet been included as a formal dimension of the pedagogy through tasks specifically aimed at generating crosscultural comparisons. Study Abroad In response to calls for better preparing language learners as they embark on study-abroad sojourns (Kinginger, 2011), Henery (2014) designed a CBPI enrichment program for U.S. learners of French studying abroad in France. The goal of the study was to enhance learners’ understanding and use of the “real” French they were encountering on a day-to-day basis, which differed dramatically in comparison to the French they had been taught in the United States and were continuing to study in their French-as-a-foreign-language courses in France. Students were recruited from a French university that hosted a semester-long studyabroad program. In total, 16 U.S. students agreed to participate in pre- and post-LAIs, SISs, and biweekly language journals (i.e., writing about and reflecting on salient language-related experiences) over the course of 11 weeks. Half of the participants agreed to meet with the researcher for additional “expert mediation” (EM) sessions during which they discussed their journal entries in relation to CBPI materials adapted from van Compernolle (2014). The remaining eight students did not participate in the enrichment program and therefore received no additional pedagogical support during their sojourn in France. Henery (2014) reported that the students who participated in the EM sessions ended up writing more journal entries, discussed more numerous and a wider range of pragmatic issues they observed (e.g., vocabulary, grammar, pronouns), and demonstrated a more systematic understanding of the meanings of their observations compared to the students who did not participate in the CBPI enrichment program. In other words, the EM sessions in which CBPI materials were discussed appeared to lead learners to be more aware of how 221 Rémi A. van Compernolle language was being used around them and what variation in pragmatic practices could mean in terms of social indexicality. Similarly, pre- and post-LAI data revealed important quantitative as well as qualitative changes among the EM students (i.e., increased observations and more systematic understanding of meaning), while the students who did not participate in CBPI provided nearly identical responses to the pre- and post-LAIs. Finally, a comparison of pre- and post-SIS performances revealed that EM students made gains in terms of language planning (i.e., identifying appropriate pragmatic practices) and pragmatic performance (i.e., using appropriate pragmatic practices in speech) to a greater degree than the students who did not meet with the researcher for EM sessions. Overall, Henery’s (2014) study shows that providing pedagogical support to learners during study abroad can have positive effects on their pragmatic development. In particular, Henery’s work suggests that CBPI could be a useful approach for raising learners’ awareness of the ways in which social meaning is created between people in communication. This is because, rather than focusing a priori on pragmatic forms or speech acts, CBPI compels learners to focus on the metapragmatics of social relationship qualities first (i.e., who the speakers are, what their relationship might be, and what they are doing together) and only after that to attend to the forms of speech being used. Missing, of course, from Henery’s (2014) study is evidence that CBPI facilitated learners’ communicative development in real-life contexts. This gap is addressed to some extent in an ongoing study by Fernandez (in preparation). The study uses Halliday’s (1993) concept of a “typified situation” to guide pedagogy. American students in Italy were given pedagogical diagrams that illustrated how service encounters in restaurants—conceptualized as a typified situation—unfold as well as examples of language for that can be used for appropriate interactional functions in this genre of social interaction. Fernandez (personal communication, April 19, 2017) reports that students tended to use the diagrams as they had been provided to them at first, but as their studyabroad sojourn continued, they began to modify and personalize the model diagrams to suit their communicative needs and in response to a widening range of interactive experiences in different contexts. However, the evidence for development is based mostly on students’ journal entries rather than performance in real-life spoken interactions, so it remains unknown how, if at all, their day-to-day spoken interactions in Italy actually changed. This work points to numerous directions for future research. As observed by van Compernolle (2014), recommendations in the broader study-abroad literature (e.g., Kinginger, 2008, 2011; Roberts, Byram, Barro, Jordan, & Street, 2001) for training students to engage “in ethnographic techniques of dispassionate observation” (Kinginger, 2008, p. 111) during pre–study-abroad meetings could be usefully expanded to include CBPI (see also Kinginger, 2013). This is to say that CBPI can provide an interpretive framework that students can take into the real world as a means of making sense of what happens around them and of the interactions they engage in as they navigate a context and culture in which they are relative newcomers or novices. Although Henery (2014) and Fernandez (in preparation) showed conceptual development and understanding, more work is needed documenting communicative development in real-life situations. Relatively surreptitious recordings of authentic interactions between learners and host community members have provided interesting data in study-abroad scholarship (e.g., Shively, 2016). Such methods (e.g., having learners record themselves interacting in the target-language community) could provide much needed cross-verification data for supporting claims of pragmatic development. 222 Concept-Based Pragmatics Instruction Technology-Mediated Environments One experimental study (van Compernolle, under review) has investigated the feasibility of CBPI in a technology-enhanced environment. The study also compared the effectiveness of CBPI to more traditional rule-based pragmatics instruction. The study was motivated by an interest in making CBPI scalable beyond a single classroom and also deliverable to students who may not have opportunities in class to learn sociopragmatics (e.g., lack of time in the classroom or teacher expertise). Van Compernolle (under review) therefore created an Internet-based experiment that involved learning the sociopragmatics of an artificial language, “Ravenese,” in relation to sentence-final particles modeled on European T/V systems (i.e., wo = formal/distant singular like French vous; ye = informal/intimate singular like French tu; na = plural). An artificial language was used in order to minimize the influence of previous language learning. There were 103 participants who completed the study. The experiment began with a problem-solving task. Participants were told that every sentence in Ravenese ended with one of three final particles: wo, ye, or na. They were then asked to read eight examples of the use of wo, ye, and na with brief descriptions of the setting and interlocutors involved and to try to deduce any rules for the use of the words. An AJT was then presented to participants, asking them to choose which sentence-final particle would be appropriate for each of the five situations and to explain their choices. They were also asked to describe their understanding in general of wo, ye, and na. Participants were then randomly sorted into rule-based (n = 55) and concept-based (n = 47) groups where they watched a video tutorial on the sociopragmatics of wo, ye, and na. The tutorials were each about three minutes long. The CBPI tutorial used materials and explanations adapted from van Compernolle (2014), focusing on the concepts of social distance and power. The rule-based tutorial adapted explanations of T/V systems from French and Spanish textbooks. Following the tutorial, a posttest was administered, which included a second AJT. Participants also completed a transfer task in which they were asked to explain shifts in and/or nonreciprocal use of the sentence-final particles in a series of social-interactive situations (e.g., a man using the familiar/intimate ye with a woman he is romantically interested in but receiving wo in return would signal a rejection of the man’s advance or that the woman is not interested). About half of the participants in each group also agreed to participate in a delayed posttest two weeks later involving an AJT and a second transfer task in which they explained shifts/nonreciprocal use. The findings revealed that both tutorials led to improvements in selecting the appropriate sentence-final particles in the AJTs at posttest and delayed posttest. There was no statistical difference between the groups, meaning that neither instructional approach was more efficacious than the other in promoting the learning of forms. However, a qualitative analysis of explanations of AJT situations as well as transfer tasks revealed that the rule-based tutorial had no effect on participants’ understanding of the sentence-final particles, whereas participants in the concept-based group incorporated new conceptual vocabulary and new ways of understanding the ways in which wo, ye, and na index relationship qualities. Van Compernolle (under review) explains the results by suggesting, as van Compernolle et al. (2016) argued, that pragmatic forms are rather easy to learn but the real work of development entails coming to understand the meaning and significance of those forms, which is difficult to do without explicit, systematic guidance in the form of scientific concepts, a view that aligns with Vygotsky’s (1986) maxim that sign-meaning develops (Wertsch, 2007). In other words, while rule-based instruction may 223 Rémi A. van Compernolle help learners acquire forms and learn in which contexts they can be used, CBPI appears to foster the development of the sign-meaning relationship more efficiently. Technology-mediated environments are certainly promising for the future of CBPI in a number of ways that are linked to the broader scholarship on technology-enhanced pragmatics learning and instruction. As Taguchi and Sykes (2013) have reminded us, technology plays a role both in researching pragmatics and its development as well as in intentionally creating educational opportunities. Both roles are relevant to CBPI. Different technologies may enable more efficient, novel, and/or simply different kinds of data that can be used to track learner development in ways that are not possible in face-to-face or pen-and-paper contexts. At the same time, integrating technologies deliberately into CBPI learning activities may expand the kinds of learning opportunities students have access to. For example, text-based chat, while used previous in van Compernolle and Henery’s (2014) study for mediating communication between students, could be extended to include opportunities for learners to interact with nonlearners (e.g., native speakers), thereby allowing for examination of concept-mediated communication contexts with authentic social consequences (see Belz & Kinginger, 2002). Likewise, since many communication technologies result in textual artifacts (e.g., transcripts), it is possible to construct and use a learner corpus (e.g., Belz & Vyatkina, 2008) that enables learners to analyze and reflect on their own language use, a potentially useful extension of the CBPI framework. To be sure, computer-based and/or mobile applications could also be designed as a means of instruction, as done in the van Compernolle (under review) study. A tutorial-style intervention is only one option, of course; a myriad of other possibilities for introducing pragmatic concepts and fostering internalization exist, including virtual worlds or synthetic immersive environments (e.g., Sykes, 2012) that allow learners to develop meta-awareness of pragmatics as well as their abilities to deploy appropriate pragmatic resources. Conclusion This chapter has offered an overview of recent work on concept-based approaches to the teaching of L2 pragmatics. I hope to have made it clear that the CBPI framework outlined in van Compernolle (2014) is not only effective, but also—and more importantly for our day-to-day activities as language teachers—adaptable to the classroom as well as to technology-enhanced environments that might complement classroom teaching. While adaptability is a good thing, it is important not to lose sight of the basic premise of CBPI: learners need to understand the meaning potential of pragmatic actions, or the metapragmatics, of the L2 they are appropriating. I say this because in numerous public and private conversations, I have been asked how I might propose to teach a particular speech act, such as a request, through concept-based instruction. My response is typically, “I wouldn’t.” This is not meant to imply that learning requests or any other kind of speech act is not possible in CBPI but rather, as emphasized in van Compernolle (2014), that CBPI reverses the traditional pedagogical concern of how to teach particular forms or speech acts (i.e., pragmalinguistics) in relation to appropriate contexts (i.e., sociopragmatics) by focusing on how to teach sociopragmatics (i.e., categories of meaning) in relation to pragmalinguistics. This is to say that the pedagogical objective is to promote internalization of such concepts as indexicality, self-presentation, social distance, and power as psychological tools that mediate learners’ use of language. This means that pragmalinguistics is not itself the primary focus of instruction but it is instead the means by which sociopragmatics can be taught. Therefore, we can reimagine the question, 224 Concept-Based Pragmatics Instruction “How do I teach requests through CBPI?” as “How can I use requests to teach indexicality, self-presentation, social distance, and power?” In addition to the recommendations provided in the preceding sections, one way of imagining future work on CBPI is to address the yet-to-be-explored idea that by teaching sociopragmatic concepts first with a few salient forms (e.g., European tu/vous systems) to illustrate one way in which they work in communication, further instruction can simply expand on the range of relevant pragmatic practices that co-occur and co-vary as part of “a functional sociolinguistic system” (van Compernolle, 2014, p. 57). In essence, CBPI would initially focus almost exclusively on the concepts described in this chapter, and once the internalization process is well under way, learners could be introduced to additional pragmalinguistic forms, speech acts, etc. with the goal of exploring through a quasi-investigation (Davydov, 2004) how the concepts apply to the new discourse features. In this sense, immediate pedagogical concerns (e.g., teaching forms, exploring their use in authentic discourse) would be concept driven, meaning that sociopragmatic concepts would motivate form-focused instruction. Consequently, sociopragmatic concepts would still be explicitly linked to teaching, but they would not be the central focus of teaching activity. Indeed, this shift from concept-based to concept-driven pragmatics instruction might be one way of organizing curricula and shifting from a focus on concepts to a focus on language/communicative practices, as proposed by Negueruela (2008). Additional research into different contexts of learning is warranted. This might include an expansion of work in classrooms, study-abroad contexts, and technology-enhanced learning environments, as mentioned above, but also in relation to learner populations. Thus far, CBPI research has focused on relatively privileged college students in the United States. We might do well to expand the scope of this work to include recent immigrant or refugee populations who need assistance in learning the pragmatics of their new community as they search for employment opportunities, for example. Indeed, there are numerous avenues for future work to follow, all of which have the potential to add much-needed insight into the process of concept formation and pragmatic development in L2. Notes 1 Nous and on are both used for first-person plural reference. Nous is the standard form, presented in textbooks. However, on, which is formally a third-person singular indefinite pronoun, is used most frequently for first-person plural references in everyday spoken French. 2 Verbal negation in French has two competing constructions. Formal, standard negation involves the preverbal particle ne and a postverbal negative adjective or adverb (e.g., je ne veux pas y aller ‘I don’t want to go there’). In everyday spoken French, however, ne is typically dropped, leaving the postverbal negative word as the sole negator (e.g., je veux pas y aller ‘I don’t want to go’). 3 Van Compernolle (2015b), drawing on the methodological apparatus of conversation analysis (CA), has documented the ways in which internalization in concept-based instruction, in addition to other pedagogical contexts, is mediated in the moment-to-moment sequencing of talk-for-action (and see van Compernolle, 2016 for an articulation of “CA-for-SCT,” a microdiscourse analytic approach to understanding mediation and internalization of psychological tools in interaction). In parallel, Poehner and Infante (2015) have adopted the term “mediated development” as a pedagogical framework for guiding learners’ internalization of symbolic tools and using them to regulate use of the target language. While an in-depth discussion of the two lines of inquiry is beyond the scope of this chapter, I want to acknowledge that there is a key point of convergence between them; namely, internalization occurs in interaction as a mediator directs and guides a learner toward the appropriate use of relevant tools, namely language forms, concepts, and other sign systems. However, the 225 Rémi A. van Compernolle point of departure for van Compernolle’s work on interaction is the examination of how people organize themselves to accomplish goals in the moment-to-moment unfolding of talk, including in naturalistic classroom discourse but also in more specialized pedagogical arrangements, such as concept-based instruction, whereas Poehner and Infante start with the engineering of artificial development (i.e., pedagogical contexts) such as concept-based instruction. 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(under review). Learning the sociopragmatics of an artificial language: Comparing rule-based and concept-based instruction. van Compernolle, R. A., Gomez-Laich, M. P., & Weber, A. (2016). Teaching L2 Spanish sociopragmatics through concepts: A classroom-based study. Modern Language Journal, 100(1), 341–361. van Compernolle, R. A., & Henery, A. (2014). Instructed concept appropriation and L2 pragmatic development in the classroom. Language Learning, 64, 549–578. 227 Rémi A. van Compernolle van Compernolle, R. A., & Henery, A. (2015). Learning to do concept-based pragmatics instruction: Teacher development and L2 pedagogical content knowledge. Language Teaching Research, 19, 351–372. van Compernolle, R. A., & Kinginger, C. (2013). Promoting metapragmatic development through assessment in the zone of proximal development. In R. A. van Compernolle & L. Williams (Eds.), Sociocultural theory and second language pedagogy [Special issue]. Language Teaching Research, 17(3), 282–302. van Compernolle, R. A., & Williams, L. (2012). Reconceptualizing sociolinguistic competence as mediated action: Identity, meaning-making, agency. Modern Language Journal, 96(2), 234–250. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Wertsch, J. (1998). Mind as action. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Wertsch, J. (2007). Mediation. In H. Daniels, M. Cole, & J. Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 178–192). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wolfram, W. (2004). The grammar of urban African American Vernacular English. In B. Kortman & E. W. Schneider (Eds.), Handbook of varieties of English, Vol. 2: Morphology and syntax (pp. 111–132). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Zinchenko, V. P. (2002). From classical to organic psychology. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 39, 32–77. Further Reading Agar, M. (1994). Culture shock: Understanding the culture of conversation. New York: Morrow. This book questions key assumptions about the relationship between language and culture. The author argues for a unification of the two, and he introduces the concept of languaculture to highlight the inseparability of linguistic and cultural dimensions of human life. Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (2014). Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative in L2 education. New York: Routledge. This book provides an in-depth discussion of Vygotsky’s approach to the study of psychology in relation to the dialectics of theory and practice, or praxis, and implications for designing and doing research in L2 educational environments. Silverstein, M. (2003). Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and Communication, 23, 193–229. This article sketches out a multidimensional theory of meaning centered on the concept of indexicality. The author shows how linguistic signs carry potential meanings at multiple scales, and how these meanings may be activated or not in various contexts. van Compernolle, R. A. (2014). Sociocultural theory and L2 instructional pragmatics. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. This book outlines the theoretical bases of concept-based pragmatics instruction and illustrates its implementation in an extracurricular enrichment program for learners of French involving one-on-one tutoring sessions. 228 15 Mediated Development Promoting Learner Internalization of L2 Concepts Through CognitiveProcess Focused Activities Paolo Infante Introduction Vygotsky believed that instructional practices have the power to develop the cognitive and affective potential of every person and improve the quality of life for the individual and society (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014). The central theme that runs through Vygotskian sociocultural theory (SCT) is the notion of mediation (Wertsch, 2007). Vygotsky (1978) posited that mediation, the process through which both dialogic and symbolic resources are employed in collaborative activity, could qualitatively transform psychological processes, enabling individuals to gain control, or regulation, over their thinking and actions. Both forms of mediation, through interaction with others and with symbolic resources, have become the focus of a growing body of second language (L2) SCT work initiated, respectively, by Poehner (2008) and Negueruela (2003). As Lantolf and Thorne (2006) explain, Poehner’s study employed the framework of dynamic assessment (DA) to examine processes of dialogic mediation as a teacher, or mediator, worked cooperatively with learners to engage in tasks beyond learners’ independent capabilities. Negueruela (2003), in turn, brought into focus the quality of symbolic resources as mediating artifacts to support learner development. Employing an approach to concept-based teaching referred to as systemic theoretical instruction (STI), Negueruela documented the potential for L2 learning materials to be structured around abstract conceptual knowledge that is first presented to learners through models and images. Through a series of activities in which learners invoke these resources, or tools, as they make decisions regarding their own language use and reflect on their interpretation of the language they encounter, they move toward less reliance on the presence of the material representations of the concepts and come to employ their meanings on the internal plane of psychological functioning. Although studies of L2 STI have yielded impressive results (for examples and discussion, see Lantolf & Poehner, 2014), they have generally left unexplored the dialogic processes through which learners come to perceive concepts and related materials as psychological tools. Against this backdrop, Poehner and Infante (2015, 2016) have proposed an orientation to L2 instruction that emphasizes the interrelation of mediation through dialogic interaction 229 Paolo Infante and through the availability of symbolic artifacts. They refer to this approach as mediated development (MD). Poehner and Infante characterize MD as an interactional framework in which mediator–learner joint functioning is intentionally structured to provoke new ways of thinking and acting with L2 concepts. In addition to the work of Vygotsky and his colleagues, MD is also informed by the research of Reuven Feuerstein (Feuerstein, Feuerstein, & Falik, 2010; Feuerstein, Rand, & Rynders, 1988), whose model of mediated learning experience closely aligns with a Vygotskian approach to mediating learner development in educational settings (Kozulin, 1998). While Feuerstein’s work has not directly addressed L2 development but has focused on general cognitive abilities, its emphasis on mediator– learner interaction and use of specially designed materials to foster learner development of new ways of thinking makes it relevant to SCT pedagogy. Indeed, Poehner and Infante (2015) propose that it may be appropriate to situate MD at the crossroads of DA and conceptbased instructional approaches such as STI, given that 1) MD maintains a commitment to introducing learners to conceptual knowledge of language that they can draw upon as tools to regulate their use of the L2, and 2) it emphasizes the importance of mediator–learner coconstruction of zone of proximal development (ZPD) activity. As Poehner and Infante (2015) explain, the ZPD as a process of joint functioning posits a dialectical relationship between between the activities of teaching and assessing. According to this view, either pole of the dialectic can be foregrounded at particular times or for particular purposes, but this does not erase the presence of the other. In DA, dialogic mediation is organized around prompts, cues and leading questions that are graduated according to an implicit–explicit scale and made available to learners as needed for the purpose of diagnosing their emerging understanding and abilities (Poehner, 2008). Thus, mediation in DA is imbued with an instructional quality, but the process foregrounds the assessment pole of the dialectic. In MD, however, mediator–learner interaction is oriented toward generating new ways of thinking about language and new resources for communication through the appropriation of symbolic tools, and the dialogic nature of the interaction requires that diagnosis is ever-present as mediators must continually monitor learner needs and responsiveness. This chapter examines the potential of MD as a new line of inquiry in L2 SCT research. Particular attention is devoted to the manner in which activities associated with conceptbased instruction can be implemented in a manner that targets specific cognitive processes and that occurs in an interactional space constructed by mediator–learner cooperation. The activities structured around cognitive processes used within the larger study (Infante, 2016) find their origins in research on cognitive education conducted by Feuerstein (Feuerstein & Hoffman, 1995) and the subsequent reformulation and application of that program in math education (Kinard & Kozulin, 2008). Both programs sought to explore general intellectual abilities and academic readiness among learners of diverse cognitive, affective, and cultural profiles. I provide examples of interaction between a mediator and a university-level ESL learner taken from the larger L2 MD study (Infante, 2016). While the feature of language that was the focus of that research was the English tense–aspect system and the pedagogic tasks primarily concerned learner writing, it is the learner’s cognitive processes during the program that I wish to draw attention to. Specifically, the examples discussed highlight three cognitive-process focused activities—labeling-visualizing, encoding-decoding (materializing-verbalizing), and comparing. While this is by no means an exhaustive inventory of the psychological processes that may be brought into focus during an L2 MD program, it is representative of how such a program might support the goal of Vygotskian pedagogies of guiding learners to new ways of thinking and, ultimately, acting in the world. 230 Mediated Development The Nature of Symbolic Tools Vygotsky sought to understand “the essence” and genesis of human consciousness and psychological development by documenting how learners come to employ symbolic tools presented to them in the real-world setting of the classroom (Vygotsky, 1978). Symbolic tools are active, dynamic and functional resources for the development of psychological abilities because they represent organized bodies of “scientific” knowledge that are interconnected and systematic in nature and that may be used to realize socially meaningful activity (Kinard & Kozulin, 2008). In this regard, it is helpful to recall the distinction Vygotsky (1987) drew between scientific (academic, theoretical) and everyday (spontaneous, practical) concepts. Everyday concepts are formed in the course of an individual’s direct experience with their environment, and represent experientially rich, yet unsystematic and frequently unconscious, forms of understanding. Conversely, scientific concepts are systematic and hierarchically organized and are typically appropriated during schooling. A scientific concept, according to Vygotsky (1987), takes into account “the unification and generalization of the distinct concrete elements of experience. It supposes isolation and abstraction of separate elements, the ability to view these isolated, abstract elements independently of the concrete and empirical connections in which they are given” (p. 187). Vygotsky continues to expand upon this point by stating that thinking through scientific concepts engenders a qualitatively different form of cognition that enables learners to “perceive and interpret reality” through the integrated and interconnected relationship (what Vygotsky referred to as “re-synthesis”) of these separate, abstract critical attributes. Vygotsky (1987) believed that both forms of conceptual understanding of the world are fundamental to learning: everyday concepts serve as a foundation for the development of scientific concepts, and scientific concepts allow individuals to consciously reflect upon and restructure their spontaneous knowledge so that thinking is less reliant on their direct experiences. Becoming aware of the critical attributes (i.e., essential features) of a concept along with their interrelations is fundamental to concept appropriation and application (Negueruela, 2003). As a result, a structural analysis of the critical attributes of a scientific concept is an important step in rendering a symbolic tool for classroom teaching and learning. According to Kozulin (1998), a symbolic tool that materially represents the critical attributes of a scientific concept and their interrelationships is a powerful mediator that leads development because the tool is recontextualizable, such that it has the potential to yield a number of concrete representations; generalizable, such that it can explain concrete instances; and theoretical, because it is based on a scientific analysis of a given phenomenon rather than its surface-level features. Of course, the presence of high-quality learning materials does not guarantee that learners will employ them successfully in the absence of sound mediation. Therefore, educational programs should not assume that conceptual understanding of domain-specific features emerges through rote learning (e.g., traditional classrooms) or spontaneously (e.g., discovery learning settings) (Karpov, 2014). As Kozulin (2003) aptly notes, a common misconception among many teachers is that “the meaning embedded in these [pedagogical] materials is sufficiently transparent to students and that the situation therefore does not warrant intensive mediation” (p. 23). Consequently, cognitive development cannot be understood independently of the teaching and learning process that supports new forms of symbolic activity. Cognitive education programs, some influenced by Vygotsky’s scholarship (e.g., STI; Gal’perin, 1992) and others emerging independently (e.g., instrumental enrichment; Feuerstein, Feuerstein, 231 Paolo Infante & Falik, 2010), have sought to address these issues in teaching and learning by considering the critical role of symbolic and dialogic forms of mediation in learner psychological development. The chapter now turns to two cognitive education programs that informed the development of MD: STI, as an exemplar of Vygotskian concept-based instruction; and instrumental enrichment, which will be discussed in the context of Feuerstein’s mediated learning experience. Mediation and Cognitive Education Systemic Theoretical Instruction STI employs Vygotsky’s analysis of scientific concepts and their utility in reconceiving school curricula as symbolic tools to promote abstract cognition. In Gal’perin’s (1992) formulation, the initial stages of the STI framework introduce learners to the scientific concepts under study in their material (i.e., physical objects that can be manipulated) and/ or materialized (i.e., graphic representations that may be expressed through diagrams, drawings, pictures, etc.) formats. These symbolic tools are available during instructional activities so that learners can refer to them and employ them as they complete tasks and work through difficulties. As learners become more familiar with the symbolic tool and less dependent on the materializations, they are encouraged to verbalize their thinking to the mediator during task performance (what Haenen, 2001, refers to as communicated thinking). Haenen (2001) continues that, in the concluding phase of STI, the qualitative nature of verbalizations changes as learners no longer require external verbal mediation to work through domain-specific problems but can seemingly plan, execute, and evaluate their performance on the intramental plane, which Haenen terms dialogic thinking. Vygotsky (1997) viewed this transition as an important milestone in learner concept formation and codified the movement from reliance on external forms of support (the social, material plane) to self-regulated performance (the psychological plane) in his genetic law of cultural development: “every function in the cultural development of the child appears on the stage twice, in two planes, first, the social, then the psychological, first between people as an intermental category, then within the child as an intermental category” (p. 106, original emphasis). Lantolf and Poehner (2014) note that while there has been empirical research in L2 studies associated with verbalization (communicated and dialogic thinking), what has been less well documented are interactional features that support concept internalization within an STI program. An exception is van Compernolle’s (2012) dissertation on an STI program designed to promote the understanding and use of French pragmatics among university L2 learners. Poehner and Infante (2015) recognize it as a starting point for MD research because van Compernolle featured instances of mediator–learner interaction that focused more on promoting learner L2 development than on ascertaining whether particular abilities were emerging; that is, the interactions foregrounded the instructional rather than assessment pole of the ZPD teaching–assessment dialectic. In MD, this focus on provoking the development of new ways of thinking is pursued through mediator–learner engagement in activities designed around symbolic tools and involving a process that includes explanation of the concepts and the meanings carried by the tools; modeling tool use during activity; and joint planning and reflection. Much of this is inspired by Feuerstein’s model of mediated learning 232 Mediated Development experience (MLE), to which I now turn. Mediated Learning Experience Like Vygotsky, Feuerstein understands psychological development as dependent on the capacity of humans to dynamically adapt to context through the creation and use mediation (Kozulin, 1998). Feuerstein’s research has sought to explain the reasons for differential cognitive development among learners of divergent intellectual, affective, and cultural profiles (Feuerstein, Rand, & Rynders, 1988). Feuerstein argued that intellectual, affective, and cultural differences play a distal role in a learner’s capacity to develop higher-order thinking skills requisite for academic success. Instead, he ascribes learners’ qualitatively different educational performance to the quality of mediated learning experiences that learners receive from caretakers, community members, and teachers (Feuerstein, Rand, & Rynders, 1988). From his extensive multi-decade work, Feuerstein assembled a set of characteristics that describe and define MLE interactions, of which three—intentionality, transcendence, and mediation of meaning—are essential to all high-quality mediator–learner interactions. Although a complete list of MLE characteristics is beyond the scope of this chapter (interested readers are referred to Feuerstein, Falik, & Feuerstein, 2015, for a recent discussion), a short description of the essential features is in order. Intentionality signifies a mediator’s focus on attuning levels and forms of support to a learner’s current abilities; transcendence indicates extending learner performance beyond immediate structured tasks so that learners can apply their conceptual understanding to new situations or contexts; and mediation of meaning concerns the mediator’s capacity to invest cultural and historical significance in an artifact that would not otherwise be gained if learners were left to their own devices (Feuerstein, Feuerstein, & Falik, 2010). Feuerstein made MLE the cornerstone of his cognitive intervention program, instrumental enrichment (IE), that targets the development of cognitive processes deemed necessary for schooling among struggling learners (Feuerstein, Hoffman, Jensen, & Rand, 1985). Activities in IE are structured around content-independent symbolic tools that graphically represent a multitude of tasks co-accomplished with a mediator. Feuerstein and his associates justify the content-independent nature of the symbolic tools as nurturing general cognitive processes that can be used across academic content areas. Important for the present discussion is that IE instruments are designed with specific cognitive tasks in mind. These include, but are not limited to, the following: encoding and decoding, comparing, classifying, hypothesizing, and using models and formulae (Kinard & Kozulin, 2008). According to Feuerstein, Hoffman, Jensen, and Rand (1985), mediator–learner interaction is meant to “produce reflective, insightful processes in the learner and encourage divergent thinking from the content-free material to other situations and areas of interest” (p. 63). Therefore, IE activities in conjunction with the provision of high-quality MLE provoke new cognitive processes that provide struggling learners with the intellectual means to participate in academic activities. Kinard and Kozulin (2008) illustrate the potential use of MLE with content-specific symbolic tools for both subject matter and L2 instruction. The authors supported the development of mathematical thinking among elementary school learners through the use of specially designed pedagogical materials while mediator and learners engaged in collaborative activities. These collaborative activities served to foster learner “mental acts” or cognitive processes (e.g., comparison, encoding-decoding, labeling-visualizing) so as to 233 Paolo Infante support learner ability to describe with awareness and intention the meaning of symbolic tools through their critical attributes (Kinard & Kozulin, 2008, p. 9). Moreover, the authors reported that learner appropriation of content-specific symbolic tools significantly benefited their capacity to solve math problems by creating “a pathway between general cognitive functions that tap into the learners’ everyday spontaneous concepts and the ‘scientific’ concepts of mathematics” (p. 89). Kinard and Kozulin’s (2008) use of cognitive functions to enhance learner appropriation of domain-related symbolic tools holds great promise for integrating MD within an L2 STI program. In particular, during L2 STI activities, mediator–learner interaction can focus on modeling, discussing, practicing, and reflecting on specific cognitive processes that elucidate the meaning of the symbolic tool through its critical attributes and yield learner L2 development. Kagan (1966) views cognitive processes as “dynamic events that act on the cognitive units [concepts], much like catalysts act on basic compounds in chemical solution” (p. 98; cf. Klausmeier & Frayer, 1970, p. 2). The analogy used by Kagan vividly captures the role that cognitive processes play in promoting learner capacity to think with and through a concept. The idea that cognitive processes directly influence L2 development speaks to the view that “language is not ‘walled off’ from the rest of cognition” and that “the same cognitive processes governing language use and learning are essentially the same for those involved in all other types of knowledge processing” (Littlemore, 2009, pp. 1–2). This represents a marked shift away from traditional L2 classroom practices that rely on the “sheer memorization” of grammar rules (Langacker, 2008, p. 73). MD’s focus on meaningful activities that develop conceptual knowledge through cognitive processes speaks to its commitment to help learners grasp the underlying meanings of forms and to engender new ways of thinking about L2 features that contribute to their use. Mediated Development in L2 Education The remainder of this chapter illustrates possibilities for promoting learner L2 development through a Vygotskian concept-based program that leverages insights from both Feuerstein’s MLE and Kinard and Kozulin’s extension of that framework to mathematics education. The examples I present are selected from an initial exploration of MD with L2 learners (Infante, 2016), and as such should be viewed as a point of departure for a potential new line of L2 SCT research. To clarify how MD may productively integrate mediator–learner dialogic interaction into a concept-based program for the purpose of guiding learners toward recognition of how symbolic materials may serve as tools and supporting their subsequent attempts to think with the tools, I provide examples of activities organized around specific cognitive processes: labeling-visualizing, materializing (encoding-decoding), and comparing. The selected examples involve a mediator’s (M) interactions with one participant in the study, Alex (a pseudonym). Alex (A) was an adult male student from Saudi Arabia enrolled in a high-intermediate writing course at a large research university Intensive English Program. Alex was selected to be the focal participant in this chapter because of his overall engagement with the L2 STI study. As will be discussed at the conclusion of this chapter, the cognitive processes discussed here may not be appropriate mediational targets in all L2 Vygotskian concept-based programs, or they may be supplemented by a focus on additional processes. Be that as it may, these processes offered a useful set of focal points for mediator–learner efforts to come to understand the English tense–aspect system and to control it during L2 writing activities. 234 Mediated Development E5 time Present Perfect Progressive time Speech time Speech time John has been attending college for 18 months. Figure 15.1 Present perfect progressive (E5) representation Labeling-Visualizing To avoid instructional practices that required learners to memorize rules, the study sought to promote learner capacity to mentally conceptualize L2 features. Kinard and Kozulin (2008) state that labeling a symbolic tool with its critical attributes engenders a corresponding mental picture. In this way, learners were introduced to a set of concept-based pedagogical materials that focused on promoting their understanding of the English tense–aspect system from a recalled point perspective. The materials were informed by cognitive linguistics research (e.g., Fauconnier, 1999; Langacker 2008; Radden & Dirven, 2007) and were comprised of a set of critical attributes that were either present or absent in each of the five tense–aspect markers featured in this study: past simple (E1); past progressive (E2); past perfect simple (E3); present perfect simple (E4); and present perfect progressive (E5). Consult Infante (2016) for a more in-depth description of the learning materials. The critical attributes of the present perfect progressive (E5) image (see Figure 15.1) begin with the initial green vertical line, which denotes the beginning of the action. The blue timeline indicates the portion of the action that is completed and the focus of the speaker’s utterance which endures until speech time. The presence of the inner frame emphasizes a particular moment of a situation (i.e., the blue timeline) and is a symbol linked to the progressive aspect. The dotted red time line refers to the portion of an action or event that is out of the speaker’s focus, because it projects into the future and thus signifies what may or may not take place. The speaker or writer’s perspective of an exemplar sentence is reinforced pictorially with the use of color icons of John attending college representing the in-focus segment of the speaker/writer’s perspective, whereas the faded icons capture the possibility of John attending college beyond speech time (i.e., the out-of-focus portion of the speaker’s/ writer’s perspective). The cognitive action of labeling-visualizing has a close affinity to Gal’perin’s notion of the material–ideal dialectic, in which “the transformation of the material into the ideal implies that the material has to be transposed to and transformed into semiotic means (language, diagrams, etc.) and models of mental activity” (Haenen, 1996, p. 110). Therefore, the labels applied to the imagistic features of the tool represent the functions that the features hold, and, as a result, learners who develop mastery with the meanings of said imagistic features become increasingly capable to discern and identify the tense–aspect markers that they wish to convey. If the critical attributes and their concomitant meanings are poorly 235 Paolo Infante mediated to learners, the tool’s instrumental function could be severely limited (Kozulin, 2003). The internalization of abstract (scientific) representations can be promoted through mapping the meaning of verbal exemplars onto the accompanying images of tense–aspect markers. Excerpt 1 showcases an example of mediator–learner interaction organized around the process of labeling a pictorial representation of the present perfect progressive (E5) (see Figure 15.1) with its internal elements. The excerpt occurred in Alex’s first session of the L2 STI program and represents the first instance in which Alex labeled the internal elements of the E5 representation with the meaning of the sentence exemplar, John has been attending college for eighteen months (see Appendix 15.1 for transcription conventions). Excerpt 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 A: “John has been attending college for eighteen months” ((finishes reading from E5 slide)) so uh the green boundary here ((uses pencil to point to the green vertical line)) shows when he started to uh (1) attending the college it’s uh (.) eighteen month ago >months ago< and uh the (2) oh ((flips through initial pages of the pedagogical materials)) (it looks like) M: sorry about that ((turns pages to slide with definitions of internal elements)) A: yeah and uh the the outer frame here ((points to what is actually the inner frame in E5 image)) is emphasizing the (.) it's emphasizing the (1) the attending M: mm hmm A: and until the speech time and we don’t and we didn’t know if he continue or not and that shows by dotted red line ((points pencil to red dotted timeline in E5 image)) M: nice and so great and so the inner frame here ((right index finger and thumb trace inner frame of E5 image)) this is the inner frame here ((right index finger and thumb trace inner frame of E5 image)) and so our focus is on the attending Upon reading the exemplar sentence, Alex started the process of mapping the meaning of the sentence onto the accompanying E5 visual representation. Alex identified the green vertical line, and explained that the boundary signifies the beginning of John’s college experience, which commenced 18 months prior to speech time. In line 7, Alex encountered difficulty with labeling the next critical attribute of the E5 image, so he turned to the pedagogical materials in search of the slide that contained the glossary of important terms to aid him in the labeling process. In response, the mediator aided Alex in locating the pertinent slide that would help him in the construction of his explanation (lines 9–10). Alex’s move is noteworthy because, even at this early stage, he viewed the materials as a resource to consult in times of difficulty. Feuerstein, Rand, and Rynders (1988) note that learner awareness of the functionality of pedagogical materials is an important step toward building learner capacity 236 Mediated Development to self-regulate and avoid impulsivity. With the glossary of terms before him, Alex continued with the labeling process. In lines 11–12, Alex misidentified the image of the inner frame with the term “outer frame,” but he accurately attributed the correct meaning to the misidentified symbol (lines 13–14: “it’s emphasizing the attending”), which shows that Alex was still gaining a grasp of the terms and their accompanying visuals. Rather than choosing to correct Alex, the mediator elected to return to the mislabeled feature following Alex’s explanation. In lines 16–19, Alex mapped the meaning of the exemplar sentence on to the final critical attributes, the blue and red timelines. It is noteworthy that Alex did not refer to the blue timeline by name but stated that the emphasized action (John attending college) continues “until speech time” (lines 16), a clear signal that he understood the symbol’s function. He concluded his explanation by accurately articulating that the dotted red timeline refers to the portion of the action that may continue beyond speech time. In the mediator’s concluding move, he congratulated Alex for taking ownership of the labeling process and directed Alex’s attention to the mislabeled critical attribute. Altogether, the labeling process served multiple purposes, as it contributed to Alex’s understanding in the following ways: (i) the event frames are systematic and generalizable across different tense–aspect markers; (ii) meanings of sentences can be conveyed through verbal and imagistic (materialized) means; and (iii) abstract representations of tense–aspect markers can extend beyond sentence exemplars and aid in the identification of appropriate meanings in authentic writing tasks. Encoding-Decoding (Materializing) Kinard and Kozulin (2008) posit that learners can further develop their conceptual understanding through activities that promote the cognitive process of encoding-decoding. Within the L2 STI study Infante (2016), encoding required learners to depict or materialize the meanings of English tense–aspect markers and then proceed to verbalize (or decode) the meanings of the materializations through their respective critical attributes. In this way, the materialization activity provided learners an opportunity to gain a further appreciation of the recontextualizable (transferable) and generative nature of the pedagogical materials. As opposed to factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge offers a theoretical understanding of objects and phenomena and, as such, is a psychological tool that can be used to think and solve problems (Karpov, 2014). During the materialization activity, Alex was provided with colored pencils (i.e., green, blue, red, and black) to illustrate the critical attributes (and corresponding images that came to mind) that would symbolically represent the meaning of the sentence exemplars. The encoding or materializing activity constituted a significant transition from (co-)labeling Figure 15.2 Alex’s representation of E5 sentence exemplar 237 Paolo Infante symbolic representations to having learners draw their own materialization based on model sentences. An additional pedagogical motive for the materializing activity is for mediator and learner to co-analyze the illustration to determine areas of difficulty that would inhibit movement toward learner thinking-with-tool ability. Figure 15.2 represents Alex’s first time drawing a representation of a present perfect progressive sentence, in this case the sentence exemplar was Alex has been studying law at Harvard. Alex experienced difficulty with creating a materialization of the exemplar without the aid of the pedagogical materials, as he initially struggled with what colored pencils to use (“it’s the red green grey (1) I don't remember that/ the colors”). The mediator provided Alex with the information that the initial boundary is represented by the green colored pencil. When we compare the image that Alex drew (Figure 15.2) and the E5 event frame (Figure 15.1), there are differences in the materialization. It is unclear to the mediator the extent to which Alex understands the meaning conveyed by each of the internal elements in his materialization of the present perfect progressive. Therefore, verbalizing the meaning of the critical attributes in his drawing (i.e., decoding) marks an important subsequent step in his ability to view the abstract representation as recontextualizable to different concrete situations. As Kozulin (1998) notes, scientific concepts are powerful in that they can explain a number of empirical outcomes and, in turn, empirical data that learners encounter in their everyday life can be explained through scientific concepts. We now turn to Excerpt (2), in which the mediator asked Alex to decode the meaning and function of the internal elements of his drawing. Excerpt 2 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 M: and then we ha:ve ((points to blue horizontal line)) the blue line A: mm hmm M: and what does that represent? A: uh::m (1) it’s mean continuing (.) studying from thefrom the beginning of the action until speech time ((moves pencil along blue horizontal line, from beginning of green vertical line to end of frame)) It is clear from this brief excerpt that Alex incorporated significant features of the pedagogical materials to decode his E5 representation. Notably, he indicated that the blue timeline represents the action of studying, from its starting point (i.e., the green boundary) that extends to the present (speech) time. Through the verbalization process, the mediator noted a salient mismatch between Alex’s location of speech time in his materialization (encoding) and his verbalization (decoding). The mismatch between one’s material thinking and verbalization has been the subject of a number of studies that have sought to identify how material thinking, notably gesture, reveals information about learner reasoning and problem solving not present in learner accompanying speech (for discussion of such work and its connection to L2 learning, see Lantolf, 2010). The two mediums of representing the present perfect progressive, one verbal and the other material, offered the mediator insight into challenges Alex was experiencing and might continue to encounter over the course of the study. In addition to aiding the mediator in identifying areas of learner difficulty—a diagnostic function of ZPD 238 Mediated Development activity—the material activity allowed Alex a moment of reflection and heightened awareness of the discrepancy between what he was thinking and what he said. In order to address the issue, the mediator prompted Alex to consider the function of the blue timeline and its relationship with speech time. Excerpt 3 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 M: what does the blue line represent? here ((moves finger from beginning of green vertical line to end of frame)) (.) from the green boundary until the end of the frame? A: uh it’s means the time he he studying for a while so (it’s repeating) ((index finger moves in circle to indicate repetition)) uh::m ((index fingers of both hands move in circular motion around one another)) something continue to happen (.) duration M: yeah so it means that it happened right? (.) and that would definitely be the case right? so it’s like we had started at some point in the past ((finger points to green vertical line)) which as you said (.) it’s indefinite A: mm hmm M: you know and it continues to ((finger traces to edge of event frame)) A: speech time M: speech time right? so where is speech time here? ((points to Alex’s materialization)) A: it’s here ((points to red vertical line located well to left of event frame)) M: is that speech time? A: this is the:: present (.) yes M: so the present is actually indicated- let's actually review this for a moment ((pulls in learning materials)) the present is actually indicated ((turns pages)) uh:m °let’s look at the° (9) ((finds E5 slide)) so if you look at that again ((points finger to end of E5 frame on slide and the word speech time indicated on event frame)) then we can focus on where the speech time would be A: yeah↑ I remember now ((laugh)) M: oh no that’s fine ((laugh)) yeah so here then the speech time would be where? A: at the end yeah here ((pencil points to end of frame in Alex’s image)) M: at the end of the frame A: yeah M: right 239 Paolo Infante 73 A: at the end of the frame The mediator initiated the exchange by prompting Alex to verbalize the meaning he attached to the blue timeline, from its beginning to its end point. As noted earlier, the blue timeline refers to the completed portion of the action that in this case is emphasized thanks to the presence of the restricted viewing (inner) frame. In lines 37–40, Alex seemed to attribute the meaning of repetition to the notion of emphasis and alluded that the blue timeline is somehow connected to present time (line 41: “something to continue to happen”). The mediator’s response inserted key ideas that were absent in Alex’s verbalization to enhance the precision of Alex’s explanation. Specifically, the blue timeline indicates the completed portion of the action that has an unclear (line 46: “indefinite”) start time based on the information provided in the exemplar. Having mapped the meaning of the exemplar onto the green boundary, the mediator prompted Alex to identify the location of speech time in Alex’s materialization (line 51: “so where is speech time here?”). The mediator’s move served to highlight the discrepancy between Alex’s verbal location of speech time and his materialization (see Figure 15.2). In response, Alex noted that speech time is indicated by the red vertical line to the right of the event frame (lines 53–54). Rather than explicitly correct Alex, the mediator opted to recast Alex’s selection in the form of a question to offer him an opportunity to reconsider his answer (line 55: “is that speech time?”). Alex remained committed to his initial choice, and therefore, in his ensuing turn, the mediator pulled in the pedagogical materials to address the discrepancy. The mediator located the slide devoted to the present perfect progressive and pointed to the edge of the E5 image in Figure 15.1 so as to isolate the location of speech time (lines 62–63: “we can focus on where speech time would be”). With rising intonation, Alex acknowledged his error (line 65) and was then prompted by the mediator to locate speech time in his materialization. This move served to ensure that Alex had registered the discrepancy between his materialization and the mediator-generated event frame. With pencil in hand, Alex explained that speech time is located at the edge of the event frame. The mediator’s focus on encouraging Alex to use precise terms to explain the meaning of his materialization fits within the tradition of MLE (Feuerstein, Falik, & Feuerstein, 2015) and influenced the conceptualization of the MD interactional framework (Infante, 2016). As evidenced in the above excerpts, the encoding-decoding (materializing-verbalizing) activity served to identify potential issues with Alex’s conceptualization of the present perfect progressive. When Alex’s source of difficulty was located, the mediator offered guided support through questions and prompts that gave Alex the opportunity to reconsider his placement of speech time in his illustration. The mediator then drew in the learning materials and highlighted the critical attributes (blue timeline, speech time) that yielded an accurate representation of the present perfect progressive visual. These mediational moves contributed to Alex noticing the discrepancy concerning speech time between his illustration and that within the pedagogical materials. Comparing The capacity to juxtapose how shifts in grammatical tense and aspect may generate different construals of an event (e.g., past simple vs. past perfect simple) was the focus of comparison activities. Kinard and Kozulin (2008) define the cognitive process of comparing as “looking for similarities or differences between two or more objects, occurrences, or situations” (p. 86). Within the context of this study, the process of comparison entailed a sophisticated level of knowledge and learner development, particularly when one takes 240 Mediated Development E3 Past Perfect Simple Anterior to past— Past Perfect Past—Past Tense E3 E1 time Figure 15.3 Past perfect simple (E3) and past simple (E1) comparison activity into account how learners come to appreciate the various construals available to them imagistically and how said construals can represent a particular event through different morphological markings. When learners are asked to compare, they are forced to perceive attributes that would have gone previously unnoticed. As Feuerstein and Hoffman (1995) note, “the act of comparison itself determines the nature of the perception—the sharpness of the elements that are perceived and the precision with which they are registered” (p. 4). The cognitive process of comparison serves as a fundamental building block to help “organize and integrate separate and distinct bits of information into coordinated and meaningful systems of thought” (Feuerstein & Hoffman, 1995, p. 2). Mediation aimed at developing comparative thinking with concepts contributes to learners’ understanding of their meaning potentials and learners’ ability to use concepts flexibly during application. It is the position of this chapter that learners’ flexible and creative use of language can be enhanced through structuring activities that embed opportunities for learners’ comparative thinking. Figure 15.3 explores the relationship between the past perfect simple (E3) and the past simple (E1). The notion of tense is visually represented in the pedagogical materials as large rectangular boxes that are referred to as mental spaces (Fauconnier, 1999; Radden & Dirven, 2007). The E3 frame is situated in the anterior-to-past mental space, and therefore the speaker or writer views the event occurring prior to a previous E1 event. Imagistically, the critical attributes (i.e., outer frame, boundaries, and blue timeline) of E3 are identical to the internal elements of the E1 frame; however, the differences between E3 and E1 lie in the fact that the E3 frame occurs in an “earlier” past and serves a scene-setting (backgrounding) function. Within a narrative sequence, E3 is a completed event (noted by its green vertical boundaries) that occurs in the anterior-to-past mental space and offers background information of an earlier more distant time (Reinhart, 1984). Conversely, the past simple (E1) events function as the foreground and push the main story line forward (Reinhart, 1984). With Figure 15.3 before them, the mediator and Alex engage in a comparison activity in which the meaning and the function of E3 is understood in relation to E1. Just prior to the exchange below, Alex read aloud the description The past perfect refers to an “earlier past” and is used in conjunction with the past simple to show a sequence of events in a narrative. 241 Paolo Infante Excerpt 4 74 M: okay uh so let’s just try to connect (.) this uhm 75 ((points to the description)) (1) idea to what you see 76 here in the images ((RH index finger points to past 77 perfect and past mental space images)) 78 (1) so how do you make sense of connecting this 79 description (.) to the image? 80 A: uh its mean uh two images here ((RH index finger 81 points to past perfect mental space and then past 82 mental space)) 83 its two actions 84 b ut the first action started ((points to initial green boundary of E3 frame)) 86 and finished ((points to end green boundary of E3 87 frame)) 88 before the second action started ((points to initial 89 green boundary of E1 frame)) 90 and finished ((points to end green boundary of E1 91 frame)) 92 and uh °also the speaker° (4) and I think that’s it 93 M: great 94 yeah and that’s really- a very simple thing with the 95 past perfect in the sense of the sequence of events 96 yeah and so let’s read the short description here 97 ((points to the pedagogical materials)) 98 A: ((reads from pedagogical materials)) the past perfect 99 is used to background events ((stops reading from 100 materials)) 101 (1) ok↑ ((continues reading from STI materials)) 102 while the past simple is used foreground event in a 103 narrative ((stops reading from materials)) 104 (1) wo↑w this is new information= 105 M: = great 106 and so when we talk about background and foreground a nd we just talked about it now with the simple past and 107 108 the past progressive and their relationship 109 and we saw that imagistically here ((points to slide 110 6 of pedagogical materials)) 111 >in the images< 112 and so a similar situation happens here with the past 113 perfect and the simple past ((points to Figure 15.3)) 114 and so it allows us to background particular events 115 and foreground others 116 A: so it’s always uh- (.) 117 the past perfect is background always? 118 M: exactly 242 Mediated Development The mediator began by prompting Alex to map the meaning of the description onto the accompanying Figure 15.3 image. In response, Alex noted that the E3 and E1 event frames represent two separate actions that are similar in that they are bounded events (i.e., both events possess beginning and end boundaries) but differ in that E3 occurred prior to E1, marking their temporal relationship through transition words (i.e., first, second). What is important to note is Alex’s careful attention to detail and his precision with mapping the meaning of the accompanying verbal description onto their respective critical attributes (lines 83–91). Praising Alex for his independent performance, the mediator prompted him to resume reading aloud the final paragraph of the E3 frame description: the past perfect is used to background events, while the past simple is used to foreground events in a narrative. While reading the description, Alex voiced his surprise that tense marks grounding (background/ foreground), and this knowledge indicated “new information” (line 104) for him that he had not encountered in his previous L2 education. His admission that these details represented “new” information sheds light on Alex’s conceptual understanding prior to the study, especially with regard to the intentional use of tense and aspect to creatively play with narrative scene setting through backgrounding and foregrounding events. In his ensuing turn (lines 105–115), the mediator opted to make explicit connections and summarize what had been introduced to Alex thus far regarding the grounding functions of grammatical aspect and tense. The mediator started by shifting Alex’s attention to the teaching materials that presented the foreground and background distinction between the past simple (E1) and past progressive (E2), respectively. In this way, the mediator guided Alex to form connections between their current and previous discussions to understand the English tense–aspect system. The significance of this move is that it addresses a common problem in L2 grammar instruction, namely that learners perceive topics as discrete “chunks” of information that are disconnected from broader concepts or principles (Hinkel, 2002). Actively working to connect new phenomena with prior learning is an essential feature of MD, and it entails a flexibility in thinking that allows for extension to new problems. The excerpt concludes with Alex asking the mediator to corroborate whether the E3 marking functions to background events in all cases (lines 115–116), which the mediator confirmed. Directly following Excerpt 4, mediator–learner interaction segued into a structured activity in which Alex applied the notion of background and foreground to a series of E1–E3 sentence exemplars. Specifically, the mediator asked Alex to read the exemplars aloud and identify the clauses that functioned as background (E3) or foreground (E1) in sentences such as The train had left the station before I arrived. Alex performed the activity without difficulty, marking clauses containing past perfect simple verbs as background and residing in the past perfect mental space, while identifying those clauses with past simple verbs as foreground and situating them in the past tense mental space. Altogether, the meanings and functions of E3 and E1 events served to aid Alex in consciously manipulating these tense– aspect markers in his narrative writing. Further Development of MD in L2 Education The research reported in this chapter provides a possible way forward for embedding MD into L2 STI pedagogy and research. As previously noted, an instructional aim of the larger study (Infante, 2016) was to break with participants’ previous learning experiences that required them to solely focus on cognitive processes like remembering and recalling isolated definitions and terms, resulting in what Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) call “inert” knowledge. Anderson and Krathwohl state that the inertness of factual knowledge is due 243 Paolo Infante to its relatively low level of abstraction that limits learner ability to approach new problems with a systematic, organized representation of disciplinary knowledge in mind to guide learner task performance. This perspective aligns well with Vygotskian-based SCT research (e.g., Negueruela, 2003; Lantolf & Poehner, 2014) that maintains pedagogical materials be premised on conceptual knowledge that can deepen learner understanding of subject-matter content, while aiding learners when they attempt to transfer said knowledge to new problems. Because learner appropriation of STI materials does not emerge spontaneously, independent of proper mediation (Kozulin, 1998), it is the position of this chapter that researchers and practitioners should consider the role of MD organized around cognitive-process focused activities that can foster the flexible understanding and use of L2 concepts. In the context of this chapter, the processes of labeling-visualizing, comparing, and encoding-decoding directed mediator–learner efforts toward a set of critical attributes to come to understand and employ the English tense–aspect system during L2 writing activities. Of course, the cognitive processes featured in this study may not be fitting mediational targets in all L2 STI programs, and therefore researchers can determine general and discipline-related cognitive processes that can be selected from existing frameworks, such as IE (Feuerstein, Hoffman, Jensen, & Rand, 1985), rigorous mathematical thinking (Kinard & Kozulin, 2008), and Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). In the same way that Feuerstein’s work has informed the development of L2 DA research, it has spurred current work in L2 MD. The interactional frameworks represent two different poles of ZPD activity, in which MD provokes learner conceptual development through the use of new symbolic tools, and DA seeks to diagnose and promote learner understanding and self-regulation of language items during communicative activity. Additional empirical research is needed to determine the relationship between these dialectically related foci, and the ways in which MD may function in tandem with DA to create a coherent approach to L2 education. A possible way in which DA and MD can function together in a classroom setting is to employ DA to diagnose learner emergent abilities with a set of related L2 features. The results would then inform how learner groups are formed and how instructional programs premised on STI/MD would subsequently target individual groups according to their ZPDs to support their L2 development. This could be a potential path to determine how DA and MD complement each other within an STI program. These prospective areas of MD research provide an exciting path forward to conceptualize a comprehensive SCT pedagogy that supports L2 development. Appendix 15.1 Transcription conventions are as follows: M D ((comments)) ? ↑ [ ] (.) (#) 244 Mediator Alex t ranscriber’s comments, includes non-verbal behavior rising intonation, a question denotes marked rising shift inintonation truncated speech, self-correction overlapping talk by two speakers a pause of less than one second length of pauses in seconds Mediated Development °yes° = __ > < quieter than normal talk, whisper latched speech, no gap between two turns speech expressed with emphasis talk speeds up References Anderson, L. W. & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Fauconnier, G. (1999). Mental spaces, language modalities, and conceptual integration. In M. Tomasello (Ed.), The new psychology of language (pp. 258–280). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Feuerstein, R., Falik, L. H., & Feuerstein, R. S. (2015). Changing minds and brains—The legacy of Reuven Feuerstein: Higher thinking and cognition through mediated learning. New York: Teachers College Press. Feuerstein, R., Feuerstein, R. S., & Falik, L. H. (2010). Beyond smarter: Mediated learning and the brain’s capacity for change. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Feuerstein R, & Hoffman M. (1995). Instrumental enrichment teacher’s manuals. Jerusalem: ICELP Press and Skylight. Feuerstein, R., Jensen, M., Hoffman, M., & Rand, Y. (1985). Instrumental enrichment, an intervention program for structural cognitive modifiability: Theory and practice. In J. Segal, S. Chipman, & R. Glaser (Eds.), Thinking and learning skills: Vol. I. Relating instruction to research (pp. 43–82). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Feuerstein, R., Rand, Y., & Rynders, J. E. (1988). Don’t accept me as I am: Helping retarded performers excel. New York, NY: Plenum. Gal’perin, P. Ya. (1992). Stage-by-stage formation as a method of psychological investigation. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 30, 60–80 Haenen, J. (1996). Piotr Gal’perin: Psychologist in Vygotsky’s footsteps. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Haenen, J. (2001). Outlining the teaching–learning process: Piotr Gal’perin’s contribution. Learning and Instruction, 11, 157–170. Hinkel, E. (2002). Grammar teaching in writing classes: Tenses and cohesion. In E. Hinkel & S. Fotos (Eds.), New perspectives on grammar teaching in second language classrooms (pp. 181–198). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Infante, P. (2016). Mediated Development: Promoting L2 conceptual development through interpsychological activity (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University. University Park, PA. Kagan, J. (1966). A developmental approach to conceptual growth. In H. J. Klausmeier & C. W. Harris (Eds.), Analyses of concept learning (pp. 97–115). New York: Academic Press. Karpov, A. (2014). Vygotsky for educators. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kinard, Sr., J. T. & Kozulin, A. (2008). Rigorous mathematical thinking. Conceptual formation in the mathematics classroom. New York: Cambridge University Press Klausmeier, H. J., & Frayer, D. A. (1970). Cognitive operations in concept learning. Madison, WI: Research and Development Center for Learning and Re-education. Kozulin, A. (1998). Psychological tools: A sociocultural approach to education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kozulin, A. (2003). Psychological tools and mediated learning. In A. Kozulin, B. Gindis, V. S. Ageyev, & S. M. Miller (Eds.), Vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context (pp. 15–38). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Langacker, R. W. (2008). Cognitive grammar and language instruction. In P. Robinson, N. Ellis (Eds.) Handbook of cognitive linguistics and second language acquisition (pp. 66–88). New York: 245 Paolo Infante Routledge. Lantolf, J. P. (2010). Minding your hands: The function of gesture in L2 learning. In B. Batstone (Ed.), Sociocognitive perspectives on language use and language learning (pp. 130–146). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (2014). Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative in L2 education. New York: Routledge. Lantolf, J. P., & Thorne, S. L. (2006). Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Littlemore, J. (2009). Applying cognitive linguistics to second language learning and teaching. Houndsmills, UK: Palgrave. Negueruela, E. (2003). A sociocultural approach to the teaching and learning of second languages: Systematic-theoretical instruction and L2 development. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Poehner, M. E. (2008). Dynamic Assessment: A Vygotskian approach to understanding and promoting second language development. Berlin: Springer. Poehner, M. E. & Infante, P. (2015). Mediated development as inter-psychological activity for L2 education. Language and Sociocultural Theory, 2, 161–183. Poehner, M. E. & Infante, P. (2016). Mediated development: A Vygotskian approach to transforming learner L2 abilities. TESOL Quarterly, 51(2), 331–357. doi:10.1002/tesq.308 Radden, G., & Dirven, R. (2007). Cognitive English grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Reinhart, T. (1984). Principles of gestalt perception in the temporal organization of narrative texts. Linguistics, 22(6), 779–809. van Compernolle, R. A. (2012). Developing sociopragmatic capacity in a second language through concept-based instruction (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of general psychology (R. W. Rieber & A. S. Carton, Eds.). New York: Plenum. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). The genesis of higher mental functions. In R. W. Reiber (Ed.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 4: The history of the development of higher mental functions (pp. 97–120). New York: Plenum. Wertsch, J. V. (2007). Mediation. In H. Daniels, M. Cole, & J. V. Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 178–192). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Further Reading Feuerstein, R., Feuerstein, R. S., & Falik, L. H. (2010). Beyond smarter: Mediated learning and the brain’s capacity for change. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Reuven Feuerstein and his associates present a comprehensive and concise summary of the tenets associated with mediated learning experience and cognitive modifiability that closely align with Vygotsky’s notion of mediation in educational settings. Kinard, Sr., J. T. & Kozulin, A. (2008). Rigorous mathematical thinking. Conceptual formation in the mathematics classroom. New York: Cambridge University Press. The authors present a model for mathematics education—rigorous mathematical thinking (RMT)— that is founded upon Vygotsky’s theory of psychological tools and Feuerstein’s concept of mediated learning experience. RMT deeply informed the creation of the L2 MD interactional framework. Kozulin, A. (1998). Psychological tools: A sociocultural approach to education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. The author explores the immense potential for educational reform that can be realized through unifying Vygotsky’s notion of scientific concepts and Feuerstein’s work in cognitive education. 246 Part IV Dynamic Assessment 16 Probing and Provoking L2 Development The Object of Mediation in Dynamic Assessment and Mediated Development Matthew E. Poehner Introduction Dynamic assessment (DA) refers to the administration of an assessment in which the conventional approach of observing learners as they independently complete tasks is abandoned and the assessor, or mediator, intervenes when learners experience difficulties, offering prompts, models, feedback, leading questions, and other forms of support. Such intervention is generally disallowed in formal assessments and even some approaches to classroom assessment on the grounds that it introduces measurement error by obfuscating the target of the procedure: learner knowledge and abilities. This objection is reasonable in so far as mainstream research in psychology and conventional practices in educational measurement conceive of abilities as discrete entities or traits that exist in the heads of individuals. On this view, assessment procedures are traditionally tasked with eliciting behaviors theorized to require use of the ability in question; the observed behavior, or test performance, is then interpreted as indicating the presence or strength of the ability being measured (Cronbach, 1990). DA, however, follows directly from Vygotsky’s (1998, p. 200) insight that exclusive focus on learner independent functioning “not only does not cover the whole picture of development, but very frequently encompasses only an insignificant part of it.” Vygotsky’s claim is based on his overall theoretical approach to understanding human consciousness, which as Lantolf, Poehner, and Swain (this volume) explain, is grounded in a philosophy of dialectical materialism. This orientation to science allowed Vygotsky to conceive his object of study in terms that revealed fundamental relations between phenomena usually regarded in isolation from, even in opposition to, one another. For Vygotsky, dualisms such as natural and cultural, internal and external, cognitive and emotive, past and future, and many others can be apprehended only when approached relationally, that is, by including their relations with other phenomena as definitive of what they are, what they have been, and what they may become. As Vygotsky (1978, p. 61) put it, his dialectical materialist psychology allowed him “to distinguish between the analysis of an object and of a process.” An aspect of Vygotsky’s work where his commitment to dialectical materialism is particularly evident is in his discussions of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) 249 Matthew E. Poehner (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978, 1987, 1998). Briefly, the ZPD refers to activity in which we stretch beyond our current capabilities by drawing upon resources external to us, including other individuals. These objects and individuals become part of our psychological activity and mediate our functioning. This does not deny that individuals are capable of acting alone. The point is that even during independent functioning we are still mediated, but in such instances we rely upon abilities that have already developed. In this way, we mediate ourselves, a phenomenon Vygotsky described as self-regulation. Vygotsky (1978) underscored the distinction between functioning that occurs independently and that invokes only abilities that have already developed versus functioning that is possible through cooperation with others, terming them intrapsychological and interpsychological respectively. Vygotsky (1998) recognized the significance of the ZPD for education as twofold. With regard to teaching, he argued unequivocally, “the only good kind of instruction is that which marches ahead of development and leads it; it must be aimed not so much at the ripe as at the ripening functions” (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 188, italics added). It is in this context that Vygotsky frequently employed the term obuchenie, which may be rendered in English as teaching–learning activity. Obuchenie brings to the fore not merely imparting factual or procedural knowledge to learners, although of course this is important; rather, it is teaching–learning activity that intervenes in and guides, or as Vygotsky sometimes described it, “provokes” learner development (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978, p. 61). Of course, determining which abilities have currently begun to ripen requires an assessment that is not limited to learner independent functioning but that allows for cooperation with learners during the procedure. Through such probing activity, it is possible to identify psychological functions that will be most responsive to instructional intervention. It is from this perspective that Vygotsky critiqued conventional assessments. Focusing exclusively on intrapsychological functioning, assessments may only hope to reveal development that has already occurred, that is, a learner’s past. Assessment that engages with individuals interpsychologically brings to light abilities that are still emerging, or put simply, their potential future development. Vygotsky stated this succinctly in describing the ZPD as activity wherein “the past and the present are fused and the present is seen in the light of history” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 64). It is this present-fused-with-the-past that brings out an individual’s history and provides the basis upon which s/he and a mediator can cooperatively construct a future. Vygotsky thus challenges us to understand teaching to promote learner development and assessment to diagnose it as processes that exist in dialectic relation to one another. Specifically, teaching to provoke development is predicated upon a diagnosis that reveals emerging abilities and requires continued monitoring of individual responsiveness during activity in which mediation is made available. Assessment that probes learner development goes beyond observation of independent functioning to include the provision of mediation in order to gauge learner responsiveness. Put simply, ZPD activity reveals that teaching necessarily contains assessment within it just as assessment contains teaching. For particular purposes one may choose to foreground either teaching or assessing, but it is important not to lose sight of the whole that they form together. L2 scholars are increasingly turning to DA as a framework for ZPD activity that emphasizes teacher–learner cooperation intended to diagnose learner development. Recently, Poehner and Infante (2015) have proposed mediated development (MD) as a complementary framework for cooperative interaction that shifts primary focus from diagnosis to guiding learners toward new ways of thinking about and functioning through the L2. This chapter is concerned with how we may understand the focus of mediation during ZPD activity undertaken with L2 learners. While this might seem to be a basic question, 250 Probing and Provoking L2 Development it is not entirely straightforward. As interest in DA among L2 scholars has grown, it has been brought into contact with various approaches to assessment that are concerned more with student progress than with assigning scores or ratings. Terms such as formative assessment, assessment for learning, and learning-oriented assessment, among others, have been used either as points of comparison or as synonymous with DA (e.g., Fulcher, 2010; Leung, 2007). Others have recognized in the process of mediation similarities to research framed under the term scaffolding, leading to the impression that DA is a Vygotsky-inspired approach to helping learners successfully complete difficult tasks. Despite efforts since the earliest discussions of DA in the L2 field to disambiguate it from both learning-focused forms of assessment and instructional assistance to learners (see Lantolf & Poehner, 2004; Poehner & Lantolf, 2005), some conceptual confusion persists. Rather than a point-bypoint contrast between ZPD activity and other initiatives in L2 assessment and teaching that emphasis interaction, this chapter is concerned with what Lantolf and Poehner (2004) first argued is the defining characteristic of DA: its focus on learner development. Given the range of assessment contexts and purposes that have marked uses of L2 DA as well as the appearance of MD as a complementary framework foregrounding instruction, explicit discussion of precisely what we intend to mediate during ZPD activity is imperative. If we share Vygotsky’s vision of education as a special form of developmental activity then we are compelled to grapple with the question, “What abilities are we seeking to diagnose and promote through our educational activity?” This chapter examines the L2 DA research to date in order to make explicit how a focus on learner development may be maintained as the framework is brought into a range of assessment contexts. Discussion includes the ways in which researchers have approached learner development while operating in contexts shaped by existing instructional materials, proficiency standards, school curricula, and other factors. Use of DA alongside other Vygotskian forms of pedagogy, including MD, is highlighted as especially important for researchers to consider in future work. Background Examining the DA research outside the L2 domain reveals at least two trends that are directly relevant to the present discussion: efforts to define the construct or knowledge that is targeted by procedures, and whether or how DA functions not only to reveal the abilities in question but also to promote their development. With regard to the focus of mediation in DA, studies concerned with performance in specific academic areas have frequently relied upon existing research to identify abilities their procedures seek to diagnose and potentially support. For instance, Kletzein and Bednar (1990) carried out DA with at-risk secondary school learners struggling to read academic texts. Drawing on research into behaviors of successful and unsuccessful L1 readers, and in particular their use of comprehension strategies, the authors focused their procedure on diagnosing which strategies at-risk learners were using and whether they were employing the strategies effectively. Engaging learners in a think-aloud protocol during DA, Kletzein and Bednar were able to ascertain for each individual which strategies were either absent or not used properly. Subsequent intervention sessions included explicit instruction in the use of those strategies. Similarly, Ferrara (1987) generated a DA procedure for use with kindergarten learners intended to determine their mathematical thinking, which she defined according to their ability to follow basic principles of counting (forward and backward from a given number) and to generate a set when given a number. The author noted that this articulation of mathematical thinking reflected both available models from research as well as the kindergarten curriculum. Ferrara’s DA 251 Matthew E. Poehner procedure is an example of the graduated prompt approach, a framework also advanced in the work of Campione and Brown (e.g., Brown & Ferrara, 1985; Campione et al., 1984), that integrates mediation in the form of hints or prompts that are arranged hierarchically from implicit to explicit and offered one at a time when learners experience difficulties. In Ferrara’s (1987) study, a set of eight prompts was designed in total, and where the mediator began depended upon the nature of the child’s error. The prompts targeted both learner knowledge of math (numbers, sets) but also their use of that knowledge in basic procedures (counting and constructing sets) and included numerical representations of word problems, offering additional numbers in a set, giving examples of similar problems, and ultimately revealing and explaining the solution. In line with the graduated prompt format, Ferrara’s (1987) procedure also investigated children’s success in transferring gains made during DA to more complex problems. While Ferrara’s study included transfer as a dimension of the abilities themselves (in this case, mathematical thinking), in other publications on the graduated prompt approach, terms such as indices of learning and transfer efficiency are found in discussions of what DA reveals. That is, a subtle shift is discernible from efforts to understand learner abilities in specific domains such as reading or mathematics, to considering whether a more general feature of learning or thinking may be discerned according to learner responsiveness during DA. For example, Campione et al. (1984, p. 80) describe their use of DA to understand “the relation between learning and transfer processes and global measures of ability.” They continue that their interest was “to distinguish experimentally groups of children experiencing differing degrees of academic success” (Compione et al., 1984). Interestingly, Campione et al. report that individuals may be differentiated according to their capacity to benefit from mediation during DA as well as their success in transferring to new problem types. The authors describe one study in which basic pattern completion tasks were dynamically administered to populations of “regular” and special needs young children. While the former group generally required fewer prompts during the initial assessment, learners in the latter group succeeded, following intervention, at reaching performance levels indistinguishable from their peers. However, differences reemerged when transfer performance was considered, as learners with special needs required more prompting to complete difficult problems. The authors also reported studies in which individuals who either required few prompts on an initial assessment or who made the greatest gains on post-tests nonetheless performed less well than their peers on transfer assessments. Such findings in the general DA research literature led Kozulin (2011) to argue for greater precision from DA practitioners in specifying what abilities their procedures reveal. Addressing the considerable DA research concerned with general cognitive abilities, Kozulin observes that such work frequently makes use of standardized testing instruments designed to measure pattern recognition, analogical reasoning, and memory. However, according to Kozulin, findings are not discussed in relation to these abilities themselves but rather with reference to the concepts of learning potential or cognitive modifiability, two terms that many authors use interchangeably. Kozulin’s review of DA research suggests two dimensions of abilities to which these terms may be applied. Specifically, Kozulin (2011) argues that learning potential may be taken to indicate the speed with which individuals acquire new knowledge while cognitive modifiability captures changes to thinking and problem solving that are brought about by learning. According to this view, some individuals may learn new principles, for instance, relatively quickly and might therefore be considered “fast learners” while others (“good thinkers”) may be capable of considerable flexibility and creativity in their thinking as they apply new principles to increasingly 252 Probing and Provoking L2 Development complex problems. Pointing to research such as that of Campione et al. (1984), Kozulin notes that individuals might prove to be “fast learners” but not “good thinkers” or viceversa (or both or neither), and that such information can lead to very different specific intervention plans for supporting individuals’ development. This latter point brings us to the question of whether or to what extent DA seeks both to diagnose and promote learner abilities. Sternberg and Grigorenko (2002, p. 30) argue that not all uses of DA are directly concerned with supporting learner development but are rather interested in ascertaining how an individual might benefit from mediation “if an opportunity is provided.” According to this view, DA is a one-off procedure that provides an insight into perhaps learning potential or cognitive modifiability, and as such it is of value for research purposes and may also prove relevant to psychologists, educators, and other assessment stakeholders seeking to make decisions about learners (e.g., placement in a program, identification of special needs, allocation of resources). Given the only indirect connection between such DA procedures and instructional intervention, Sternberg and Grigorenko (2002) suggest that a more apt term might be dynamic testing, thus reserving dynamic assessment for procedures that are conducted in conjunction with instruction or enrichment programs. Although this terminology has generally not been adopted by DA practitioners, concerns over the relation between DA and teaching have been raised by others. Speaking of the use of DA in school settings, Haywood and Lidz (2007) lament what they see as a frequent breakdown between reporting the results of DA and any subsequent instruction in the classroom, an issue they ascribe to the division of responsibility for the assessment, which generally rests with school psychologists, and for meeting the needs of learners on a daily basis. Looking to cognitive intervention programs that generally exist outside of mainstream schools, Tzuriel (2011) describes a robust literature documenting a range of initiatives, mostly for young learners and those with special needs, that employ DA as part of an initial diagnosis of individuals’ needs as well as a means for determining their progress over time. This work underscores the point argued by Poehner (2008) in the L2 field that while changes in learner abilities might be brought about through a single interaction, there is certainly no guarantee that this will occur. The value of a single L2 DA session is often more in terms of what it reveals about emerging abilities, that is, as an assessment. Guiding learners toward new ways of functioning through the target language generally requires sustained effort, that is, an instructional program that includes DA as part of a broader educational undertaking. As explained in what follows, the L2 DA literature includes examples emphasizing it as a diagnostic procedure as well as those that link it to instruction, including instructional programs informed by SCT. Critical Issues and Current Research In the general language testing and assessment field, Bachman and Palmer (2010) observe that assessments may be designed according to a particular theory or model of L2 abilities but that they are often tied to a syllabus or curriculum and therefore only indirectly informed by a view of language. This point is certainly true of L2 DA research to date. While the preceding discussion has clarified that Vygotsky articulated a coherent view for how education may guide learner development, and efforts by L2 researchers to realize these ideas in practice have been noted, DA has been undertaken in other contexts as well. Negueruela (2008) submits that instructional approaches such as Vygotskian concept-based teaching and DA may function in tandem to provide, respectively, a content or object of mediation, and a framework for continually monitoring learner progress and difficulties as they 253 Matthew E. Poehner internalize new concepts. Negueruela’s point is well taken, and indeed, the work of MD, discussed later in this chapter, offers one approach to further elaborating the coherence of concept-based teaching and DA as Vygotskian developmental pedagogy. Nonetheless, it is possible to discern at least two other contexts in which L2 DA has been pursued: through collaboration with classroom teachers in which DA principles are situated within the existing curricular model of language, and in formal assessments where either a particular feature of language is targeted or an ability that is operationalized according to insights from research. Applications of L2 DA in each of these contexts are discussed in what follows, and particular attention is given to how a focus on development is maintained. It should be noted that for each context the L2 DA studies discussed are not intended as a comprehensive list but rather as representative of such work. Classroom-Based DA: L2 Abilities Refracted Through a Syllabus Prism The context in which perhaps the most L2 DA research has been carried out is classrooms, where researchers have partnered with teachers to determine how principles of mediation might advance instructional goals by helping teachers to interact with learners in a manner that is more sensitive to their emerging abilities. The relative ease with which researchers have implemented DA in L2 classrooms is not surprising given that the dialectical relation between teaching and assessing in DA seems particularly well-suited to situations in which assessment is intended to support teaching and learning rather than to inform high-stakes decisions (e.g., admitting students into a program of study, granting professional licensure or certification, allowing individuals to migrate, etc.). It may be for this reason that connections between DA and formative assessment or assessment for learning have been extensively discussed by L2 researchers, as noted earlier. Table 16.1 summarizes some of the studies reporting how researchers and teachers have employed DA in L2 classrooms. It is worth noting that in each of these studies, the aim was not to re-envision the existing language curriculum but rather to help teachers render their support to learners more Table 16.1 Examples of DA in L2 Classrooms Researchers Language(s) & Focus Detail Poehner (2009) Spanish (beginning primary school); substantive–modifier accord Siekmann & Charles (2011) Yugtun (adult heritage speakers); interrogatives, optatives, subordinatives Davin & Donato (2013) Learners of Spanish (beginning primary school) during peer group work Teachers of EFL (Colombia) and Spanish (USA) Japanese (university advanced composition); passive voice, potential, causative, and causative-passive Teacher oral prompting during in-class exercises, one student at a time Introduction of charts as external tools to accompany chapter tests (grammar-translation); teacher prompting thinking with charts Learner appropriation of DA interactions during peer group work (functioning as mediators) Transformation of classroom discourse practices Process writing with one-to-one teacher DA, small-group DA peer revision, and whole class review of difficulties Davin & Herazo (2015) Poehner (to appear) 254 Probing and Provoking L2 Development development-focused than it might be otherwise. The way in which language—and by extension language development—was conceptualized in these studies was shaped by the curriculum that was in place. In the classrooms where the studies in Table 16.1 occurred, instruction was decidedly form-focused, following a traditional, rule-based explanation of morpho-syntactic features of language presented one at a time and practiced by learners, often through exercises requiring mechanical manipulation of forms with little attention to meaning. For instance, in Siekmann and Charles’ (2011) use of DA with heritage learners of Yugtun, an indigenous Alaskan language, the formation of interrogative constructions in that language was presented through rules that were subsequently synthesized in a flow chart that learners referenced as they completed sets of workbook activities to practice transforming indicative constructions into questions. Poehner’s (2009) study with a primary school teacher of Spanish focused on substantive–modifier accord in that language. This topic was reduced to the directive that learners needed to memorize whether nouns were assigned masculine or feminine gender and then practice making the relevant morphological changes to common adjectives according to nouns’ gender and whether they were in the singular or plural. In these and the other studies in Table 16.1, practice exercises were situated within the curriculum as advancing a broader goal of communication and indeed were in some cases followed by opportunities for more open-ended classroom interaction. That said, the rule-based model of language driving the curriculum meant that learner language use was interpreted according to whether or not the relevant rule was followed, that is, as correct or incorrect regardless of communicative intent or context. The consequence for mediation of this approach to language teaching was that the goal of interaction in these DA studies was to determine the degree of external support required for learners to detect an error in their language production and to correct it. This was interpreted as indicating their relative proximity to performance in which they independently control the rules in order to produce correct language forms. Figure 16.1, adapted from the implicit-to-explicit prompting approach followed by the teacher in Poehner (2009), reveals a commitment to following a specific morpho-syntactic rule in order to arrive at a necessary form. Although the approach to mediation in Figure 16.1 follows a clear focus on form, it would be a mistake to interpret this to mean that the use of DA here was concerned only with the task at hand and not with learner development. Were the goal of interaction to simply ensure that learners arrive at the correct answer, then the entire mediating process could be replaced by explicit corrective feedback at the first appearance of a learner error. That approach would be a more efficient route to successful completion of tasks, a point argued by Erlam, Ellis, and Batstone (2013). Unfortunately, immediate explicit correction also robs teachers and learners of the opportunity to determine whether less implicit forms of support would have been sufficient for learners to gain control over their use of language, and thus demonstrates that learner 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Teacher pauses when learner produces error Teacher repeats learner entire response with questioning intonation Teacher repeats only the part of the learner response containing the error Teacher asks the learner whether there is anything wrong with his/her response Teacher points out the incorrect word Teacher offers the learner a choice between alternating forms (e.g., rojo o rojas?) Teacher identifies the correct answer Teacher explains why the answer is correct, referencing relevant rules Figure 16.1 Example of inventory of mediating prompts (adapted from Poehner, 2009) 255 Matthew E. Poehner ability to control a particular feature of the new language is ripening. This form of diagnosis is central to DA (see Lantolf, Kurtz, & Kisselev, 2016). Moreover, insistence upon explanations of correct forms, rather than simply noting that they are correct, underscores that the aim of DA interactions is not to help learners succeed at a given task but to position them for success in the future. Thus, what is being developed in these L2 DA studies in which a grammar-focused curriculum is followed may be understood as learner autonomy in manipulating particular language forms according to rule-based explanations of language use. While L2 SCT researchers have argued in favor of concept-based explanations of language (see, for instance, chapters by García and van Compernolle in this volume), curricula that present grammar rules nonetheless help learners to move beyond either inductively inferring norms and regularities of language use or simply guessing which forms to use in a given situation. Instruction, and consequently mediation during DA, orients them to learner knowledge of grammar rules as well as the capacity to follow those rules in order to select particular forms. Developing this knowledge and ability allows learners to use the language more intentionally in other situations. DA and Formal L2 Assessment Contexts: L2 Abilities Approached as Constructs Despite the preponderance of DA studies that relied on researcher–teacher partnerships, DA need not be tied to classroom settings. Diagnosing development according to learner responsiveness to mediation can certainly be integrated with existing assessment instruments and procedures, including proficiency interviews as well as standardized tests. What distinguishes DA from conventional assessments, of course, is the administration procedure, which in the case of DA rests upon external forms of mediation that are made available to learners when mediation they have already internalized (i.e., their actual abilities) proves inadequate for them to successfully complete assessment tasks. Bearing in mind that SCT is rooted in dialectical thought and that reality is conceived such that “things” contain within themselves their history of change as well as the seeds for their continued transformation, one can appreciate that, in DA, abilities themselves are regarded not as fixed, discrete traits of individuals but as malleable (or modifiable), dynamic processes. Table 16.2 summarizes studies that report DA procedures undertaken in formal L2 assessment contexts. While DA maintains a commitment to dialectics, and therefore understands teaching and assessing as two poles of a necessary relation, the dynamic of this relation may shift with one feature of the activity moving to the background so that greater attention may be paid to the other. Just as the uses of DA in instructional settings discussed earlier tended to emphasize the importance of mediation for provoking learner development, the studies in Table 16.2 generally reveal a greater concern with probing learners’ emerging understanding and control of the L2. To be sure, a process of mediation, particularly when it is aligned with the ZPD, may stimulate development during the course of an interaction, and this is certainly in evidence in DA research. Nonetheless, the procedure is not regarded as failed if this does not occur, because the primary aim of DA in these studies is to diagnose learner abilities and areas of difficulty according to their responsiveness during the activity, regardless of whether this immediately leads individuals to more independent functioning. The foregrounding of assessment in these studies is further evidenced by the fact that at least some of them do not tie DA to an ongoing intervention procedure but rather employ it as a “one-off” indicator of learner abilities (e.g., Poehner, Zhang, & Lu, 2015). An additional point that is worth considering is that DA in formal testing situations does not require the use of a particular kind of instrument or task. That is, DA can be conducted 256 Probing and Provoking L2 Development Table 16.2 Examples of DA in Formal L2 Assessment Contexts Researchers Administration Language(s) & Focus Detail Ableeva & Lantolf (2011) Examiner–Examinee; listen two times; recall (independent, then prompting) Computerized; multiple choice; narrowing search space & hints provided Computerized; fill-in, sentence builder; automated metalinguistic feedback Examiner–Examinee; elicited imitation task French; listening comprehension Pausal unit analysis (# idea units in speech recalled) Chinese, French, Russian; reading & listening comprehension English (FL); wh-question formation & affix word derivations Items targeting subconstructs (lexical, phonological, discourselevel grammar) Parallel items in each task; increasing explicitness as needed French; adverb & negation placement, compound tenses English (FL); oral proficiency interviews Recall meaning in L1; reconstruct grammar utterance Poehner, Zhang, & Lu (2015) Leontjev (2016) Poehner & van Compernolle (2016) Levi (to appear) Examiner–Examinee (one-on-one & small group) 3-stage (pre-interventionpost) design; rubric as tool with tasks ranging from traditional paper-and-pencil tests comprised of discrete items to open-ended performance tasks that integrate multiple communicative modalities. For instance, Ableeva and Lantolf’s (2011) DA of listening comprehension engaged learners in an open recall task after listening to an authentic aural text in the target language (i.e., they were asked to simply state everything they could remember hearing). The listening passage and recall task could easily have been conducted in a non-dynamic manner to assess listening abilities. In fact, the researchers did precisely this in order to determine a baseline of individual learners for purposes of subsequent analysis and tracing learner development. The dynamic administration involved the same recall task and a parallel aural text. Similarly, Leontjev (2016) employed traditional sentence-builder activities in his computerized DA of young learners’ grammatical competence in English as a foreign language. For the purpose of his study, Leontjev selected wh-question formation and affix word derivation as focal structures because they are ones Estonian learners of English must demonstrate control over as they move from primary to secondary school. The sentence-builder tasks require learners to select and modify forms from a menu of options in order to produce a grammatically correct sentence. According to Leontjev, this sort of task is commonly used in Estonian schools and is therefore familiar to learners; what is likely unfamiliar is the inclusion of mediation in the assessment procedure. In the DA exam, feedback is automatically generated by the program and offered to learners when they produce an error. Initial feedback is in the form of an implicit prompt, similar to that in Poehner (2009), as discussed earlier. Following this, a parallel item is presented, and if the learner again answers incorrectly a more explicit form of mediation is offered, and so on. Including mediation in assessment procedures undoubtedly requires additional planning and effort in interpreting results. One can legitimately question whether such investment is worthwhile or if one might simply predict a learner’s emerging abilities solely on the basis 257 Matthew E. Poehner of their independent performance during a non-dynamic assessment. DA proponents have generally maintained that, while independent performance may reveal the product of past development, potential future development can only be understood through interpsychological functioning in which learners contribute to activities that are beyond their current independent capabilities (see Lantolf & Poehner, 2004). This view aligns with Vygotsky’s (1987) depiction of development as not following the sort of smooth, linear trajectory that would be necessary for one to easily predict future abilities on the basis of present performance. Poehner, Zhang, and Lu’s (2015) study of computerized DA of Chinese listening and reading comprehension provides empirical support for this view. Unlike Leontjev’s (2016) computerized DA project that presented learners with a new, parallel item after an incorrect response, the comprehension tests described by Poehner, Zhang, and Lu employed multiple-choice questions accompanying either aural or written texts. Items are presented one at a time, and, if a learner answers correctly on the first attempt, s/he is given the possibility to see an explanation as to why the answer is correct, thus allowing for a learning opportunity in the event that a learner simply guessed. If a learner answers incorrectly, an implicit prompt is provided and the learner may re-attempt the question. Learners are allowed as many as four attempts to answer each question, with the prompts becoming increasingly explicit with each failed attempt until ultimately the correct response is revealed and an explanation offered. Poehner, Zhang, and Lu (2015) report learner performance on the tests through a series of scores intended to capture various dimensions of their abilities in the L2. Particularly relevant to the present discussion is their distinction between actual and mediated scores (see also Poehner & Lantolf, 2013). The former are determined by learner independent performance on the test, understood as whether an individual’s initial response to a test item is correct or incorrect. By assigning either full credit or no credit to initial responses (i.e., responses before any mediating prompts are offered), the actual score is essentially what an individual would receive in a non-dynamic administration of the test. The mediated score is calculated to reflect how many mediating prompts a learner required for each item, such that fewer points are earned for each prompt accessed. The authors explain that the computerized program displays actual and mediated score totals for the test as a whole as well as for subsections of the tests targeting particular constructs (e.g., lexical knowledge). Initial uses of the Chinese listening and reading tests reported by Poehner, Zhang, and Lu (2015) reveal that as Vygotsky theorized, individuals with very similar independent performance (i.e., the same actual score) can respond very differently to mediation, earning quite different mediated scores. How assessment stakeholders may choose to act on this information is another matter. For instance, were such a procedure employed to inform decisions to place learners at an appropriate level in a language program, it would be important to consider whether the decision should be based primarily on actual or mediated scores. One could argue that if the latter reflects emerging abilities and this is taken as the proper focus of instruction aimed at promoting learner development, then it is most beneficial for students to be placed according to their responsiveness to mediation. This argument was proposed by Antón (2009), who carried out a small-scale study involving learners entering a university L2 Spanish program. It is also a question that may be explored empirically in future research by following learners after they have taken a DA exam and as they continue their language studies. Regardless of the outcome, the issue is representative of the kinds of questions that emerge when the focus of mediation shifts to a diagnosis of learner development for the purpose of informing assessment decisions. 258 Probing and Provoking L2 Development DA and a Vygotskian L2 Curriculum: Symbolic Tools for Regulating Functioning (in and Through the L2) To this point, DA carried out as part of an existing L2 curriculum and as a one-off assessment of learner abilities have both been discussed. DA has also been undertaken as part of a broader effort to organize an L2 curriculum and framework for teaching and assessing according to Vygotskian principles. As mentioned, L2 researchers have designed conceptbased teaching programs, generally grouped under the term systemic-theoretical instruction (STI), in order to offer learners a coherent, meaning-based presentation of language. According to this view, more traditional curricula that attempt to codify norms of language use as grammar rules obscure and even distort the resources available in language for meaning-making. Advocates of STI argue instead for linguistic concepts as a more accurate presentation of language and one that enables learners to interpret and convey meanings well beyond specific contexts of use. In this way, abstract concepts may be appropriated by learners as symbolic tools with which they may regulate their functioning in and through the target language. Full discussion of L2 STI research is beyond the scope of this chapter, and interested readers are referred to entries in Part III of this handbook. The importance of work that integrates DA within such programs is that it represents a particularly powerful approach to realizing Vygotsky’s vision of obuchenie (see Lantolf & Poehner, 2014; Negueruela, 2008). Given that the focus of such work is on learner internalization of conceptual knowledge of language, the role of DA has been to shed light on the extent of learners’ emerging conceptual understandings and use of that knowledge in their comprehension and use of the L2. Table 16.3 summarizes three of the studies in this small but growing area of research. Table 16.3 Examples of DA in L2 Vygotskian Education Programs Researchers Administration Language(s) & Focus Detail Poehner (2008) DA and non-DA at start and conclusion of instructional intervention program comprised of weekly one-toone sessions Interactive one-to-one sessions throughout intervention program to reveal learners’ emerging abilities and continue to promote them Learner production of written text and independent revision followed by co-revision with mediator during one-to-one sessions to track and promote learner abilities during mediated development program French; past tense, oral narration Watching video clips & retelling narrative French; sociopragmatics of forms of address Role playing situations ESL; tense–aspect system, academic writing Joint revision of writing Specialized materials (verbal explanations + basic diagrams to represent concepts) as “tools” Range of traditional and specialized materials to promote internalization of conceptual knowledge Elaborate set of specialized visual representations of concepts van Compernolle (2012) Infante (2016) 259 Matthew E. Poehner Each of these studies pertains to what Lantolf and Poehner (2014) describe as the Vygotskian tradition of developmental experimental studies. They invoke theoretical principles for the purpose of evaluating the theory with regard to its capacity to promote learner development. The studies in Table 16.3 were carried out in clinical contexts involving small numbers of participants who engaged in one-on-one interactions with a teacher/researcher, or mediator. Sessions were generally spread across several weeks, with initial and final sessions involving DA to evaluate learner understanding of relevant concepts and use of that knowledge to regulate language performance. Intervening sessions included a range of activities to allow learners practice employing the concepts. For example, in Poehner’s (2008) intervention aimed at learner understanding of the passé composé–imparfait distinction in French (i.e., present perfective versus imperfective), learners were shown brief clips from popular American films and were then prompted to construct an oral narrative in the L2 in which they recounted events and included details concerning character motivations and dialogue, and thus using both the passé composé and imparfait to situate and emphasize actions and states of being in the story. For his part, van Compernolle (2012) made use of role-play scenarios in which learners of L2 French were assigned a part to play and had to make pragmatic choices appropriate to their character and how s/he wished to relate to others. This included particular attention to the level of formality in forms of address (tu/vous, on/nous, ne . . . pas/pas in French). Both the Poehner and van Compernolle studies emphasized selection of language forms according to their appropriateness for the meanings that learners intended, with evaluation of appropriateness requiring conceptual understanding of features of language (verbal aspect in the case of Poehner and forms of address in van Compernolle’s project) rather than a simplified, prescriptive grammar rule. Infante’s (2016) work opens a new direction for SCT research by carefully documenting the interactional processes through which learners come to understand linguistic concepts and their representation through specialized materials as well as how learners begin to think with these new symbolic tools. As mentioned, mediated development (MD) was proposed by Poehner and Infante (2015) as an interactional framework rooted in the ZPD that differs from DA in that emphasis is given to the teaching rather than assessing side of the dialectic relation. While DA employs mediation, usually through dialogic interaction, in order to diagnose abilities that have begun to emerge, in MD mediation is intended to guide learners toward new ways of thinking and functioning. Infante’s (2016) research showcases how dialogic interaction and representations of concepts in instructional materials create together a special environment for realizing obuchenie. In this way, the work connects previous research in DA, which has emphasized mediator–learner cooperative interaction for the purpose of diagnosis, with STI research intended to introduce new ways of thinking about language. The shift in mediational focus in MD that foregrounds teaching rather than assessing led Infante (2016) to identify psychological actions helpful in promoting learner efforts to think with/through linguistic concepts. This included explicitly modeling for the learner how the concept, including visual representations of the concept, could be employed as a resource during communicative activities. Following this modeling of tool use, learners were engaged in activities that required them to employ visual representations of the concept and to label its internal elements, identifying how specific features held meanings important for its use as a tool. A later activity required learners to visualize the representation while working through a language activity, using language and gesture to illustrate how they were calling upon it as they made choices about their own language use. Finally, learners were invited to create their own materialized representation of the concept and to explain how it served as a detailed and accurate depiction that could be used as a tool. 260 Probing and Provoking L2 Development In addition to elaborating these psychological actions, Infante (2016) further examined mediating behaviors that were not specific to the conceptual focus of the program but that he argued pertain to MD more broadly and perhaps to ZPD activity in general. Inspired by the research of Feuerstein on DA and cognitive intervention with immigrant populations and learners with special needs (see Feuerstein, Feuerstein, & Falik, 2010), Infante explored the importance of mediating the following: learner feelings of competence (i.e., that they have relevant knowledge and that they are capable of being successful); learner regulation and control of behavior, which implies avoiding impulsivity and guessing in favor of employing available mediation to reason through problems; and sharing behavior, as this includes understanding that responsibility for success rests with both the mediator and learner and that success ultimately depends upon contribution as well as acceptance of support. As Infante (2016) explains, these targets of mediation are important not only for engaging in MD or DA but may also extend to self-regulated functioning. This is certainly a matter worth investigating and that could have implications for Vygotskian pedagogical interventions. Future Directions This chapter has identified different purposes for which DA has been pursued with L2 learners and the contexts in which this work has been undertaken. The aim in doing so is not to argue that DA is better suited to particular contexts or that it is more worthwhile when implemented for certain purposes over others. Rather, the point is that DA offers a framework for thinking about assessing and its relation to teaching and how together these may be leveraged for understanding and supporting learner development. The fact that much L2 DA research has been connected to instructional settings does not signal that it is similar to formative assessment if the implication of that identification is that DA has no place in more formal approaches to testing. Moreover, the central role of mediation in DA should not be interpreted to mean that the framework erases any distinction between assessing and teaching. To reiterate, the relation between assessing and teaching is not one of identity but rather is dialectical. The argument behind DA and indeed Vygotsky’s characterization of the ZPD’s relevance to education is that assessing and teaching are not discrete, separated undertakings. Instead, they are processes that contain one another. What binds them together is the essential role of mediation in probing the extent to which understandings and abilities have begun to emerge and in provoking learners to stretch beyond their current capabilities and to develop new understandings. In short, assessing and teaching as features of ZPD activity share, by definition, a development orientation. While it was mentioned at the start of this chapter that L2 DA researchers have generally sought to distinguish their conception of mediation and their commitment to learner development from how the concept of scaffolding has sometimes been applied, some insights from scaffolding research may prove important for future DA research. One of these is the question of whether the sequencing of topics in a language curriculum might provide a form of scaffolding. This idea was raised by Walqui (2006), who pointed out that in some academic disciplines there is a progression of study in which each topic positions learners to make connections with subsequent ones. Of course, many L2 textbooks introduce features of grammar widely held to be “simpler” before moving on to more “advanced” or sophisticated features of a language. Walqui’s point, however, concerns how teachers might work with learners in order to maintain a broader view of the entire curriculum and to realize important connections across topics (see also Walqui & van Lier, 2010). This position resonates with Vygotskian concept-based programs that regard each academic discipline as cohering 261 Matthew E. Poehner around a set of central concepts. As L2 STI programs expand to include a greater number of linguistic concepts, it may be possible to organize an entire L2 curriculum according to conceptual knowledge. Within such a program, mediation in DA and MD might be aimed not simply at learner understanding of a particular concept but at their flexibility in using that concept to orient to another topic in the curriculum. An additional point raised in scaffolding research that may be relevant for future DA studies concerns the role of learners functioning as “peer mediators.” Donato’s (1994) study of peer scaffolding documented the interactional processes of learners of L2 French as they pooled their resources to accomplish together what none was able to do independently. A peer mediator certainly would not have the expert knowledge of language or the sensitivity to the dynamics of development as certain teachers might. It is therefore difficult to imagine designing a program in which peer mediators take the place of a teacher. Nonetheless, Donato’s (1994) study is an important example of how learner cooperation may drive development. Particularly if learners are provided guidance regarding how they might mediate others rather than simply offering correction, it may be possible to develop programs in which peer mediation serves as a valuable complement to teacher-led DA and MD (for an example of peer mediation outside the L2 field, see Tzuriel, 2001). Shifting how learners think about their interactions with peers points to an area for future research first suggested by Poehner and Davin (2013): the possibility that engaging in DA might have consequences for how teachers and learners conceive of language development and the role of classroom interaction. Those authors followed a primary school teacher of L2 Spanish as she employed an implicit-to-explicit mediation scale to diagnose her students’ control over features of target language grammar during classroom oral activities. The study was a follow-up to the one reported by Poehner (2009), and it included a series of interviews with the teacher in which she reflected on her understanding of DA and her experience implementing it with her learners. Poehner and Davin (2013) explain that the teacher’s interest in DA was to better align assessment with her teaching practice and to trace changes in learner understanding of grammar points over time. In this way, the study was not intended to prompt a rethinking of the language curriculum. Moreover, the researchers’ purpose in interviewing the teacher was to investigate her perceptions of the challenges and advantages of DA. What emerged from the teacher’s reflections, however, was that the interactional process in DA that saw her learners verbalizing reasons behind their linguistic choices compelled the teacher to move away from tasks requiring only simple correct-or-incorrect grammar forms and to instead begin to use more open-ended tasks. She explained that allowing learners to construct their own responses had been an instructional objective but was one that she often did not pursue because she believed learners were not capable of meeting it on their own. Through DA, the teacher realized that learners were able to achieve much more through interaction and, more important, that the quality of such interaction helped move learners toward independent functioning. In effect, the teacher’s experience with DA impacted her choice of learning tasks in the classroom and the goals that she began to pursue with her students. Following Poehner and Davin (2013), future DA research might include prompted teacher-and-learner reflection as a target of mediation for promoting their thinking about language, goals of language study, and the value of teacher–learner and learner–learner interaction. Finally, Poehner and Swain (2016) draw attention to emotion as another dimension of self-regulation and indeed co-regulation in ZPD activity that has generally been neglected by researchers concerned more with the cognitive side of psychological functioning. The authors follow recent research into Vygotsky’s writings concerning the cognitive and emotive as a dialectical unity, and in particular his analysis of the integrity of individuals 262 Probing and Provoking L2 Development and environments (see Mok, 2015). Poehner and Swain (2016) report close analysis of mediator–learner dialoging during L2 MD during which they observe mediating moves that either address learner efforts to think conceptually but do so in a manner that encourages the learner and provides alternatives to frustration or that is directly aimed at her emotional responses during the activity. Like Infante (2016), they identify targets of mediation, including learner feelings of competence and the importance of planning and sharing during demanding tasks, that mediators may need to attend to as they guide learners toward more self-regulated functioning. As Poehner and Swain (2016) observe, if one follows Vygotsky’s view of dialectical unity of thinking and emotion, it becomes all the more important to consider how both must be addressed during ZPD activity as critical moments emerge in which learners assume responsibility for tasks, push their understanding of relevant concepts, and experiment with new linguistic forms. References Ableeva, R. & Lantolf, J. P. (2011). Mediated dialogue and the microgenesis of second language listening comprehension. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 18(2), 133–149. Antón, M. (2009). Dynamic assessment of advanced second language learners. Foreign Language Annals, 42(3), 576–598. Bachman, L. F., & Palmer, A. S. (2010). Language assessment practice: Developing language assessments and justifying their use in the real world. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brown, A., & Ferrara R. A. (1985). Diagnosing zones of proximal development. In J. V. Wertsch (Ed.), Culture, Communication and Cognition: Vygotskian Perspectives (pp. 275–305). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campione, J. C., Brown, A. L., Ferrera, R. A., & Bryant, N. R. (1984). The zone of proximal development: Implications for individual differences and learning. In B. Rogoff & J. V. Wertsch (Eds.), Children’s learning in the “zone of proximal development” (pp. 77–91). San Francisco: Jossy-Bass. Cronbach, L. J. (1990). Essentials of psychological testing. (5th ed.). New York: HarperCollins. Davin, K. J., & Donato, R. (2013). Student collaboration and teacher-directed classroom dynamic assessment: A complementary pairing. Foreign Language Annals, 46(1), 5–22. Davin, K. J., & Herazo, J. D. (2015). Transforming classroom discourse through dynamic assessment. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Applied Linguistics. Toronto, Canada. Donato, R. (1994). Collective scaffolding in second language learning. In J. P. Lantolf & G. Appel (Eds.), Vygotskian approaches to second language research (pp. 33–56). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Erlam, R., Ellis, R., & Batstone, R. (2013). Oral corrective feedback on L2 writing: Two approaches compared. System, 41, 257–268. Ferrara, R. A. (1987). Learning mathematics in the zone of proximal development: The importance of flexible use of knowledge (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Illinois, ChampaignUrbana, Champaign, IL. Feuerstein, R., Feuerstein, R. S., & Falik, L. H. (2010). Beyond smarter: Mediated learning and the brain’s capacity for change. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. Fulcher, G. (2010). Practical language teaching. London: Hodder Education. Haywood, H. C., & Lidz, C. S. (2007). Dynamic assessment in practice. Clinical and educational applications. New York: Cambridge University Press. Infante, P. (2016). Mediated development: Promoting L2 conceptual development through inter psychological activity (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Kletzein, S. B., & Bednar, M. R. (1990). Dynamic assessment for at-risk readers. Journal of Reading, 33(7), 528–533. 263 Matthew E. Poehner Kozulin, A. (2011). Learning potential and cognitive modifiability. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 18(2), 169–181. Lantolf, J. P., Kurtz, L., & Kisselev, O. (2016). Understanding the revolutionary character of L2 development in the ZPD: Why levels of mediation matter. Language and Sociocultural Theory, 3(2), 153–171. Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (2004). Dynamic assessment: Bringing the past into the future. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 49–74. Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (2014). Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative in L2 education. New York: Routledge. Leung. C. (2007). Dynamic assessment: Assessment for and as teaching? Language Assessment Quarterly, 4, 257–278. Leontjev, D. (2016). Icandoit: The impact of computerized adaptive corrective feedback on L2 English learners. University of Jyväskylä. Jyväskylä, Finland. Levi, T. (to appear). Developing L2 oral language proficiency using concept-based dynamic assessment within a large-scale testing context. Language and Sociocultural Theory. Mok, N. (2015). Toward an understanding of perezhivanie for sociocultural SLA research. Language and Sociocultural Theory, 2, 139–159. Negueruela, E. (2008). Revolutionary pedagogies: Learning that leads (to) second language development. In J. P. Lantolf & M. E. Poehner (Eds.), Sociocultural theory and the teaching of second languages (pp. 189–227). London: Equinox. Poehner, M. E. (2008). Dynamic assessment: A Vygotskian approach to understanding and promoting L2 development. Berlin: Springer Verlag. Poehner, M. E. (2009). Group dynamic assessment: Mediation for the L2 classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 43(3), 471–491. Poehner, M. E. (to appear). A casebook of dynamic assessment in foreign language education. Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Poehner, M. E., & Davin, K. (2013). Learning to teach “reactively” through dynamic assessment. Annual Meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Dallas, TX. March. Poehner, M. E., & Infante, P. (2015). Mediated development as inter-psychological activity for L2 education. Language and Sociocultural Theory, 2, 161–183. Poehner, M.E., & Lantolf, J. P. (2005). Dynamic assessment in the language classroom. Language Teaching Research, 9(3), 1–33. Poehner, M. E., & Lantolf, J. P. (2013). Bringing the ZPD into the equation: Capturing L2 development during computerized dynamic assessment. Language Teaching Research, 17(3), 323–342. Poehner, M. E., & Swain, M. (2016). L2 development as cognitive-emotive process. Language and Sociocultural Theory, 3(2), 219–241. Poehner, M. E., & van Compernolle, R. A. (2016). From L2 dynamic assessment to learner receptivity: Consider time as a dimension in classroom assessment validation. Annual Meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Orlando, FLA. April. Poehner, M. E., Zhang, J., & Lu, X. (2015). Computerized dynamic assessment (C-DA): Diagnosing L2 development according to learner responsiveness to mediation. Language Testing, 32(3), 337–357. Siekmann, S., & Charles, W. (2011). Upingakuneng (when they are ready): Dynamic assessment in a third semester Yugtun class. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 18 (2), 151–168. Sternberg, R. J., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2002). Dynamic testing. The nature and measurement of learning potential. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tzuriel, D. (2001). Dynamic assessment of young children. New York: Plenum. Tzuriel, D. (2011). Revealing the effects of cognitive education programmes through dynamic assessment. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 18(2),113–131. 264 Probing and Provoking L2 Development van Compernolle, R. A. (2012). Developing sociopragmatic capacity in a second language through concept-based instruction (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. A. Kozulin (Ed.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of general psychology (R. W. Rieber & A. S. Carton, Eds.). New York: Plenum. Vygotsky, L. S. (1998). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 5: Child psychology (R. W. Rieber, ed.). New York: Plenum. Walqui, A. (2006). Scaffolding instruction for English language learners: A conceptual framework. The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 9(2), 159–80. Walqui, A., & van Lier, L. (2010). Scaffolding the academic success of adolescent English language learners: A pedagogy of promise. New York: WestEd. Further Reading Feuerstein, R., Falik, L., Rand, Y., & Feuerstein, R.S. (2003). Dynamic assessment of cognitive modifiability. Jerusalem: ICELP Press. A revised and updated introduction to Feuerstein’s theory of structural cognitive modifiability and its use as a basis for dynamic assessment procedures and instrumental enrichment intervention programs. Haywood, H. C., & Lidz, C. S. (2007). Dynamic assessment in practice. Clinical and educational applications. New York: Cambridge University Press. An overview of dynamic assessment procedures and the populations, abilities, and contexts that have been the focus of DA research. Poehner, M. E. (2008). Dynamic Assessment: A Vygotskian approach to understanding and promoting second language development. Berlin: Springer Publishing. The first book-length treatment of L2 dynamic assessment that includes an extensive discussion of the theoretical origins of DA in Vygotsky’s writings. Poehner, M. E. & Rea-Dickins, P. (Eds.). (2013). Addressing issues of access and fairness in education through dynamic assessment. London: Routledge. A collection of studies examining uses of L2 dynamic assessment at a variety of levels and in a range of instructional contexts. Focus is on the principle of access to mediation and fairness in education. 265 17 Understanding Learner L2 Development Through Reciprocity Rumia Ableeva Introduction Since its introduction to the L2 field in Poehner’s (2005) research with U.S. university learners of French, dynamic assessment (DA) has been examined in a range of instructional contexts and with a variety of different languages and different learner populations. While this body of research has given considerable attention to the quality of mediation employed and how it is made available to learners during procedures, relatively few studies to my knowledge have explored in detail the range of learner responsiveness to mediation, despite evidence of its value as an indicator of development (Lidz, 1991; Van der Aalsvoort & Lidz, 2002; Poehner, 2008; Poehner & Ableeva, 2011). While a focus on mediation is certainly central to the diagnosis of learner development that is possible through DA, it is only part of the picture. Understanding learner responsiveness, also frequently referred to as reciprocity in DA research, is an integral feature of mediational processes. Understanding mediation and reciprocity together allows for a more contextualized, holistic view of learner abilities and their development. Lidz (1991) first introduced the term learner reciprocity, which she defined as “the level of receptivity of the child to the mediational intentions of the adult” (p. 110). For Lidz, reciprocity highlights a learner’s openness to mediation provided by the teacher/assessor, or mediator, as well as the learner’s willingness to cooperate during their interaction. In the context of L2 DA research, Poehner (2008) argued that reciprocity allows researchers an expanded view of the range of learner behaviors that allow insights into development. He explains, “[l]earner reciprocity includes not only how learners respond to mediation that has been offered, but also their requests for additional support or specific kinds of support as well as their refusal to accept mediation” (Poehner, 2008, p. 40). The goal of the present chapter is to build upon the few studies of learner reciprocity that have been conducted to date for the purpose of illustrating the importance of this feature of DA for interpreting learner L2 development and to lay a foundation for future research in this area. Indeed, if one accepts Vygotsky’s (1978) analysis of the importance of mediation for developmental processes and for understanding functioning on both internal and external psychological planes, then changes to the forms of mediation learners require over time and shifts in how they contribute to activity and respond to mediation become essential for understanding their abilities. 266 Reciprocity in Learner L2 Development: In addition, this chapter considers the implications of Vygotsky’s claim concerning the conflictual nature of development that inevitably witnesses not only progression but also regression as naturally occurring characteristics of development in the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Vygotsky (1978, 1997) argued that intellectual development involves both progressive and regressive moves and even if a move is regressive, it still can contribute to general movement forward. In other words, development is a process that is always pushing individuals forward (progression) even if at times it needs to step backward (regression) (Lantolf, personal communication, spring 2009). In this regard, Chaiklin (2003) reminds us that “Vygotsky never assumed that learning related to the zone of proximal development is always enjoyable” (p. 43). This can be attributed to the fact that the ZPD itself is comprised of unstable maturing functions. Therefore, the ZPD, in itself, is not a prescription for a smooth, even, and inevitable process of development. In relation to the DA framework, this means that development as well as assessment and instruction as ZPD activity can be quite challenging and labor-intensive for both mediator and learner. It also means that the task of the researcher to carefully document and interpret learner emerging psychological functions is a demanding one, requiring attention to contributions from mediators and learners, the relation among their moves, and how these shift across sessions or even over the course of an interaction. I argue that the concept of learner reciprocity is crucial to such an analysis. To illustrate how learner development may be interpreted through reciprocity during DA, the chapter presents selected findings from a two-month DA study conducted among intermediate L2 university learners of French (Ableeva, 2010). In this study, the learners were asked to listen to and to recall independently, in English, a series of increasingly complex authentic French video texts in which native speakers of the target language addressed various topics related to French and American eating habits. Text comprehension was determined by counting the total number of idea units recalled as compared to the total number contained in the original text. In the case of poor independent recall, the students interacted cooperatively with a mediator, who helped them whenever they encountered problems recalling specific portions of the text. Learner reciprocity emerged as an essential prism through which the interactions could be interpreted, highlighting the specific nature of learner difficulties. At the same time, attention to learner reciprocating behaviors allowed the mediator to support learners and to cooperatively overcome comprehension problems (for more details see Ableeva, 2010). Before considering examples from that project, however, the chapter briefly reviews the SCT- and DA-based research to date that has examined learner reciprocity. Particular attention is given to research within the L2 field (Poehner, 2005, 2008; Poehner & Ableeva, 2011). Included here are some of the categories of learner reciprocating moves that have been proposed and that go beyond simply labeling learner responses as correct or incorrect. Examples are provided of reciprocating behaviors in DA, including the proposal that they may be classified as regressive or progressive (Ableeva, 2010), as mentioned. The discussion then turns to the investigation of learner reciprocity as a window into L2 French learners’ developing listening comprehension. Finally, implications for practice and future directions for research into learner reciprocity are proposed. Research on Mediation and Learner Reciprocity Mediation enjoys a privileged status in DA research as a defining characteristic of procedures and as essential to understanding and promoting learner development. Analyzing 267 Rumia Ableeva Vygotskian, Piagetian, and Feuersteinian views on mediation, Haywood and Lidz (2007) nicely summarize the importance of mediation and social interactions for human development: there are large individual differences in the need for mediation [. . .], nobody is so intelligent that he or she does not require any mediation to achieve adequate cognitive development. [. . .] Tarzan to the contrary notwithstanding, human beings do not seem to be able to develop cognitively in social isolation! (p. 25) Haywood and Lidz maintain, however, that not all social environments are equal in terms of the quality of mediation that they make available. They emphasize the forms of mediation that characterize formal teaching and learning situations as being especially valuable to promoting psychological functioning. Lantolf and Thorne (2006, p. 356) similarly recognize the potential of mediation in educational settings, although they caution that “it cannot be offered in a haphazard, hit-or-miss fashion.” Following Vygotsky, they insist that mediation should account for individuals’ actual level of development (evidenced by their current independent functioning) as well as being continuously adjusted in order to align with learners’ changing needs and capabilities. At the level of practice, Haywood and Lidz (2007) observe that assessors and teachers often find mediation to be the most challenging aspect of DA to implement with learners. DA proponents, including those in the L2 field, have responded with principles, examples, and recommendations for how mediation may be integrated with assessment procedure. Inventories of mediating moves or behaviors during ZPD activity include the Rating scale of mediation (Lidz, 1991), the Regulatory scale of implicit to explicit tutor’s help (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994), and the Typology of mediator’s mediational moves (Poehner, 2005). It should be noted that these inventories, while extremely helpful to both researchers seeking to understand DA and practitioners interested in implementing it, remained focused exclusively on describing and analyzing mediator efforts during DA. Van Der Aalsvoort and Lidz (2002) and Poehner (2005) were among the first to devise additional inventories to capture learner moves in DA. Van Der Aalsvoort and Lidz (2002) proposed the Response to mediation rating scale that captures eight dimensions of learners’ response to mediation during DA. These include learner self-regulation of attention and impulses, the affective quality of their interaction with the mediator, their use of the mediator as a resource, their reaction to challenge, and their modifiability in response to the interaction. As should be clear, some of these reciprocating behaviors would appear to overlap with a relatively straightforward observation of their responsiveness to mediation (i.e., whether learners manifested improved performance) while other behaviors concerned aspects of engagement in activity that could emerge as foci of mediation in themselves (e.g., helping learners to regulate their attention and impulses or to maintain a goal orientation even when faced with difficult challenges). Part of the value of the scale, then, was raising sensitivity to the complexity of learner engagement in DA interactions. Van Der Aalsvoort and Lidz’s scale served to some extent as a basis for Poehner (2005, 2008) to develop an inventory describing learner moves in L2 DA. Building on the work of Van Der Aalsvoort and Lidz (2002), Poehner (2005) argued that in studying mediator– learner interactions attention should be given not only to the quality of the mediator’s help but also to the learner’s response to mediation. With this in mind, Poehner devised a menu of learners’ reciprocating moves. In the context of Poehner’s study, the learners’ moves 268 Reciprocity in Learner L2 Development: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Unresponsive Repeats mediator Responds incorrectly Requests additional assistance Incorporates feedback Overcomes problem Offers explanation Uses mediator as a resource Rejects mediator’s assistance Figure 17.1 Learner reciprocity typology, Poehner (2005, p. 183) reflected the development of their ability to use perfect–imperfect aspects as they constructed oral narratives in L2 French. The analysis of learners’ moves in response to the mediation allowed Poehner (2005, p. 183) to create the learner reciprocity typology in which the moves were “arranged according to extent to which each move represents the learners’ ability to take on responsibility for their performance.” The learner’s reciprocating moves from Poehner (2005) are reproduced in Figure 17.1. Poehner (2005) argues that these moves cannot be interpreted as an easy hierarchy, i.e., that the move 9 (Rejects mediator’s assistance) is not more developmentally advanced than the move 4 (Requests for additional assistance) necessarily, but that they must be understood in relation to the context in which they occur. In his further work on responsiveness to mediation during DA, Poehner (2008) distills some of the more interesting examples of learner reciprocity from the 2005 project. In addition to nine moves outlined in the Learner reciprocity typology (see Figure 17.2), Poehner proposed three new forms of reciprocity that also shed light on learner development: negotiating mediation, creating opportunities to develop, and seeking mediator approval. Poehner (2008) points out that: the dialogic nature of this dance [learner-mediator interactions] means that one does not script mediation beforehand and indeed that it is difficult to imagine a complete inventory of possible mediating and reciprocating acts, since these are always emergent. (p. 53) Poehner and Ableeva (2011) discuss one more reciprocating move: imitation. They showcase the importance of imitation from a Vygotskian perspective as a particular form of reciprocity that also provides information about learner development. Vygotsky (1978) discusses imitation as a process that has an important effect on development. In Vygotsky’s view, imitation is not “a mindless copying activity, but an intentional, complex, and potentially transformative process” (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006, p. 176). Poehner and Ableeva (2011) argued that the learners’ ability to imitate consciously allows them to internalize mediator–learner interactions and to develop beyond their current abilities. The authors note that from a DA perspective, imitation should be understood as much more than simple repetition and that “learner imitative acts suggest involvement and attempts to direct the process of development” (Poehner & Ableeva, 2011, p. 15). In the next section, the discussion turns to an in-depth investigation of learner engagement in DA during listening comprehension tasks in L2 French. The examples are drawn from Ableeva (2010), the same project that provided the examples of learner imitation described by Poehner and Ableeva (2011). The discussion that follows goes well beyond learner imitation. In fact, the goal of the analysis in this paper is to document some of the ways in which learners engage in DA when the immediate focus of mediator–learner 269 Rumia Ableeva attention is assessment as well as when it shifts more toward the instructional end of the teaching-assessing dialectic. Indeed, it should be remembered that as ZPD activity, DA pursues diagnosis of learner development by including an instructional component in which learner independent functioning is replaced by a process of mediator–learner joint functioning. As will be explained, for researchers and practitioners alike, it is important to understand that during such activity the mediator’s intent to diagnose learner emerging understandings or to offer pedagogical explanations shapes to some degree the reciprocating possibilities for learners. Thus, it is argued that reciprocating moves can be further grouped into two interrelated categories. The first category is comprised of moves that reflect the specifics of listening development within the ZPD. The second category contains moves indicative of learner responsiveness to the instructional quality of mediation during DA (i.e., changes in learner functioning in response to mediation). Learners’ Reciprocating Moves in the ZPD: Insights Into Their Listening Development Vygotsky argued that intellectual development “certainly includes not just evolutionary but also revolutionary changes, regressions, gaps, zigzags, and conflicts” (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 221). Learner reciprocating behaviors in the L2 DA of listening comprehension project (Ableeva, 2010) resonated strongly with this observation, evidencing at times progression (i.e., a move toward greater control over features of language) and at other times regression. This finding should not be surprising when one remembers the ZPD, by definition, consists of maturing and, therefore, unstable functions. Be that as it may, progression and regression offer a helpful contrast for analyzing learner reciprocity during DA. In brief, Lantolf and Aljaafreh (1995) consider regression to be “not only a normal property of the genesis of mental systems, it is also an ordinary feature of the operation of those systems” (p. 631). Put another way, regression reflects the dialectical and dynamic processes at work in any development, including L2 development. From the perspective of SCT, the development of an individual inevitably passes through multiple regressions; however, it is not possible “for a normal (e.g., non-brain damaged or non-psychotic) individual to return to a previous developmental stage” (Lantolf & Aljaafreh, 1995, p. 621). In other words, the sociocultural view insists that even though an individual’s development may include apparent “backsliding,” there is an overall “forward” trajectory to development (Van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991; Lantolf & Aljaafreh, 1995). Thus, given my understanding of Vygotskian theory, it is appropriate to propose the terms progression and regression to comprehend the unfolding drama of L2 development (for a similar argument, see Zebroski, 1994). Figure 17.2 summarizes the inventory of learners’ regressive and progressive reciprocating moves related to the development of L2 listening ability. The moves were identified through careful analysis of mediator-learner DA interactions. Regressive Moves Progressive Moves 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Unresponsive Provides negative response Makes a wrong choice Does not decipher a pattern or a word Does not overcome problem Responsive Provides positive response Makes a correct choice Deciphers a pattern or a word correctly Overcomes problem Figure 17.2 Learner regressive and progressive reciprocating moves within the ZPD 270 Reciprocity in Learner L2 Development: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Requests a replay Uses mediator as an evaluator Uses mediator as a resource Imitates mediator Incorporates feedback Accepts mediator’s assistance Rejects mediator’s assistance (very rare occurrence) Figure 17.3 L earner reciprocating moves related to the effects of DA-based instruction within the ZPD In relation to the second category of learner reciprocity, reflecting the effects of instruction during DA interactions, it should be noted that learners’ participation in this type of dialogue encourages them to ask questions and to seek the mediators’ assistance or feedback whenever they encounter a problem while performing the assessment task. Thus, Figure 17.3 highlights the identified reciprocating moves that mirror learners’ self-initiated efforts to seek mediation in order to improve their listening performance. The next section focuses on the reciprocating moves related to listening development that were exhibited by the learners as they moved through the ZPD toward control over the listening tasks. Learners’ moves that occurred in response to DA-based instruction are beyond the scope of this chapter. Interested readers are referred to Ableeva (2010) and Poehner and Ableeva (2011) for further details. Learners’ Reciprocating Moves: Microgenesis of Listening Ability This section presents selected findings from a two-month study that explored the effects of DA on the development of L2 listening ability in intermediate university students learning French. The study involved seven participants and included three stages: the pretest, the enrichment program (EP) and the post-test. The pretest stage involved three sessions: nondynamic assessment (NDA1), dynamic assessment (DA1) and transfer assessment (TA1). The post-test stages involved non-dynamic assessment (NDA2), dynamic assessments (DA2) and transfer assessments (TA2, TA3, and TA4). During the pretest- and post-test assessment sessions, the learners were asked to listen to eight increasingly complex authentic texts in French and to produce an oral recall in their L1, i.e., English. All DA and TA sessions normally were comprised of two phases, i.e., (1) independent performance (IP) and (2) mediated performance (MP), except for NDA1 and NDA2, which included only the first phase. This first phase proceeded nondynamically, with participants listening to the text twice and recalling it independently. During the second phase, carried out dynamically, participants listened to the same text as many times as they needed and were offered mediation geared to the problems exhibited by the learners. The subsections below provide short excerpts and protocols selected from the mediated portions of DA and TA sessions of the study. What follows should not be taken as an exhaustive account of the only ways in which learner reciprocating behaviors might appear during L2 DA. Rather, these have been selected as examples of how learners in this particular study signaled challenges they were experiencing as well as abilities that were in the process of forming during joint activity with a mediator. The examples are also discussed in relation to Vygotsky’s comments concerning progressive and regressive dimensions of development in order to underscore the dynamic process of development in 271 Rumia Ableeva mediator–learner cooperation as learners respond to task difficulties and negotiate various forms of mediation. All learners have been assigned pseudonyms. Translations of French utterances are provided in brackets, transcriber comments in parentheses, and analytical remarks are given in braces. Responsive vs. Unresponsive In the context of the present study, the Responsive move is understood as the learners’ attempt to respond and to generate any kind of response, acceptable or unacceptable, to mediation intended to improve their text comprehension. The Unresponsive move is seen as the learners’ inability to provide any correct or incorrect response to mediation, by remaining silent. It should be noted that there might be many reasons behind the learners’ option for not responding at all to mediational moves. Poehner (2005, p. 183) observed exactly the same phenomenon in his study. He noted, “[w]ithout subsequent verbalization or attempt to identify or overcome an error, any immediate effect of the mediator’s move cannot be known.” Thus, on the basis of lack of response it is impossible to tell whether the intention of a mediational move remained obscure to the learner; the learner’s silence is due to an unknown linguistic or cultural point that impeded his/her text comprehension; or, as shown in Protocol 1, the learner’s answer could be affected by memory difficulties. The excerpt, taken from Dan’s third transfer assessment session, illustrates the mediator–learner interactions based on the discussion of the following segment from the TA3 video text: Extract 1 The speaker said: . . . « fumeur-non-fumeur ? », dès l’an prochain cette question rituelle pourrait bien disparaître de tous les lieux publics . . . [. . . “smoker or non-smoker?” . . . beginning next year this ritual question could disappear from all public places . . .] Earlier in the session Dan recalled the above segment as follows: “ok . . . he is saying . . . the question “smoking/non-smoking?” is going to disappear from public places.” Since he failed to recognize pourrait (could), the present conditional form of the verb pouvoir, in his independent recall of the TA3 text and continued to do so during his third transfer assessment session, the researcher (R henceforth) decided to focus Dan’s (D) attention on this grammar point in order to improve his text comprehension. Protocol 1 Listening 1 R. what he says before disparaître [to disappear]? Basically you understand the whole idea 2 it’s just the struggle for . . . 3 D. it’s something like *vrai [true] . . . 4 R. how would you say ‘could disappear’? . . . could disappear . . . 272 Reciprocity in Learner L2 Development: 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 D. silence {Unresponsive} R. this question could disappear . . . next year this question could disappear . . . D. silence . . . {Unresponsive} R. could . . . could . . . could . . . D. salience . . . {Unresponsive} R. . . . how to say ‘can’ in French? Can . . . D.(pause) . . . oh . . . pouvoir [can] . . . (D. begins to respond to mediation - Responsive) R. pouvoir . . . exactly! . . . now using conditional . . . how would you say could disappear? D. silence . . . {Unresponsive} R. cette question . . . this question . . . (rising intonation) D. conditional . . . uh . . . pourrait [could] ? R. pourrait . . . {affirmatively} D. pourrait disparaître [could disappear] . . . R. ok . . . cette question pourrait disparaître [this question could disappear] . . . (Learner listens again to the segment) 19 20 21 22 23 D. pourrait bien . . . disparaître [could really disappear] R. do you hear it ? . . . pourrait? pourrait bien disparaître de tous les lieux . . . = D. = pourrait bien disparaître de tous les lieux publics [could really disappear from all public places] R. = . . . right! and then . . . now you understand it? D. . . . yeah . . . it could disappear from . . . from public places . . . Protocol 1 exemplifies Dan’s struggle to recognize the conditional form and provides an illustration of a learner’s unresponsive and responsive moves that occurred in the same small episode of the session. In line 1, R invites him to rethink his recall and reveals Dan’s inability to hear correctly the verb form in question (line 2). R begins her help with a fairly explicit mediational strategy (Translation) in line 4, but it does not generate any response from Dan, he remains silent (line 7) until she switches to another more explicit hint in line 10. This time, after a pause, Dan produces a responsive move by providing a correct answer (line 11). Then, R offers him assistance in the form of a Metalinguistic clue which again results in Dan’s unresponsiveness (line 13). He remains silent for a while and finally responds correctly but seeks R’s evaluation in order to confirm the appropriateness of his response, indicated by the question intonation of his utterance in line 15. To encourage Dan, R accepts his response and confirms the correctness of the conditional form (line 16) produced by Dan in line 15. In response to this mediation, Dan finally generates a correct pattern from the segment (line 17). In line 23, Dan displays his correct understanding of the segment in question, which appears to have been constructed as a result of what he produced in line 17 and mediational strategies used by R. Negative vs. Positive Response This move was observed in situations when the learners were able to provide any kind of response immediately. Contrary to the Responsive/Unresponsive move, negative or positive responses suggest that the learners were cooperatively engaged in the task and understood the meditation. Generally, these moves occurred after an incorrect recall of a passage or a 273 Rumia Ableeva segment and were generated by R’s additional leading questions aimed at enhancing the learners’ text comprehension. Protocol 2 offers an episode from Michel’s (M) first DA session in which he provided both negative and positive responses. The episode is grounded in the mediator–learner discussion of the following passage from the DA1 video text: Extract 2 The speaker said: .. et les légumes sont très . . . ils manquent de goût . . . sont très . . . on a l’impression de . . . euh . . . de manger de l’eau . . . ça a pas forcement de goût . . . [. . . and vegetables don’t have any taste . . . they are . . . I have the impression that . . . uh . . . I’m eating water . . . they don’t have any taste.] Protocol 2 Listening 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 M. R. M. R. M. R. M. R. I heard le goût [taste] . . . Did you hear the word l’eau [water]? no . . . Qu’est ce que c’est l’eau [what is water] ? I don’t know (mumbling) and . . . j’aime bien l’eau minérale [I like mineral water] = = oh!!! . . . water? uhu . . . ok . . . that’s what he is saying . . . In Protocol 2, the learner displays evidence of appropriation of the mediator’s help based on R’s assumption that Michel knows the lexical item in question, i.e., l’eau (water), but needs more explicit mediation to recognize it. In this protocol, Michel is given support in the form of three mediational moves: R provides a correct pattern (line 2) and receives a negative response from Michel (line 3), then she offers a choice (in lines 4 and 6) which triggers Michel’s correct response (line 7), but his hesitation prompts R to overtly accept the learner’s response (line 8) in order to encourage him before continuing further discussion of the segment in question. Correct vs. Incorrect Choice These responsive moves occurred in situations when the learners could or could not appropriately respond to R’s mediational move Offering a choice, which invited them to choose between two options. The excerpt, taken from Lora’s (L) first DA session, is an illustration of the learner failing to make an appropriate choice while recalling the following excerpt from the video text. Extract 3 The speaker said: . . . d’habitude ce que je mange ici . . . c’est les pizzas, hamburgers . . . les desserts . . . [. . . what I usually eat here [in the US] . . . it’s pizzas, hamburgers . . . desserts . . .] 274 Reciprocity in Learner L2 Development: Protocol 3 1 2 3 L. he says that by habit we eat a lot of pizza, hamburgers and desserts . . . R. now . . . try to understand who eats these things . . . he or Americans? = L. (silence) Listening again 4 L. Americans . . . In line 1 Lora produces a partially correct recall of the segment. R offers her a choice so that Lora can improve her recall with minimal assistance. R waits for her to see if the learner is able to use her prompt appropriately. Because the learner remains unresponsive, R replays the segment, but Lora’s incorrect response in line 4 suggests that she requires more explicit mediation. In some cases, this category of moves resulted in the learners’ correct responses to R’s mediation in the form of choice offering. Protocol 4 illustrates an interaction in which the learner makes a correct choice. The mediator–learner interaction in Protocol 4 occurred during the first DA session with another learner, Mona (M). This protocol is based on the discussion of the segment presented in Extract 3: Protocol 4 1 M. habitually they eat more . . . uh . . . = 2 R. = he or they? 3 M. . . . he said he did . . . he said most of the time 4 I eat a lot of pizza, burgers and deserts . . . In this episode, the learner initially produces an incorrect recall of the segment (line 1). Mona’s recall in line 1 repeats her independent recall in which she recalled this segment as follows: “Americans eat a lot of fast food . . . he said burgers and . . . uh . . . pizza.” In line 2, R interrupts her by offering a choice to make sure that this time she has understood appropriately the agent in the segment, i.e., “who eats hamburgers.” In the next line, Mona displays her correct understanding of the segment by switching from “they” to “he” and in so doing, she confirms that she heard the speaker making reference to himself (line 4). In fact, Mona’s response in line 4 displays her appropriate understanding of the segment. Not Deciphering a Pattern Correctly vs. Deciphering a Pattern Correctly These types of learner’s moves were reserved for those instances when mediation led to a correct or incorrect hearing of a pattern from a text. An especially important responsive move with respect to listening development was when learners provided evidence to decipher correctly chunks in speech, even if in some cases it happened without their ability to assign meaning to a chunk. Protocol 5, taken from Erica’s (E) first DA session, exemplifies learner inability to decipher any word and, therefore, the inability to control the listening task. In contrast, Protocol 6, from Dan’s (D) third transfer assessment, provides evidence of learner ability to correctly identify “chunks” from the text, illustrating their movement towards control over the target segment of a passage. The mediator–learner interactions presented in Protocol 4 are anchored in the following excerpt from the DA1 text: 275 Rumia Ableeva Extract 5 The speaker said: . . . j’ai remarqué que les petits déjeuners étaient très riches donc sucrés-salés alors qu’en France ça serait plutôt sucré . . . [. . . I noticed that breakfasts are rich here, sweet and salty, while in France it [breakfast] would be mainly sweet . . .] Protocol 5 1 E. I mean . . . the first like. . . . I can’t really understand . . . like the first you know 2 five or six words that come out of his mouth . . . it’s just like bluu-u-urr . . . . 3 it just seems like bluu-u-u-r . . . 4 R. . . . ok . . . but . . . do you hear les petits déjeuners [breakfasts]? 5 E.yeah . . . I do hear that and . . . I thought I heard manger [to eat] and un peu [a bit] . . . 6 it sounds like that . . . Interestingly, during her independent recall of this text, Erica produced a more detailed recall of the segment in question. She said: “I . . . I definitely picked out a few words . . . he was talking about breakfast and . . . I heard him talking about sweetness as opposed to saltiness.” In lines 1 and 2, however, Erica overtly comments on her inability to understand this segment after an additional replay during her DA1-MP session. R’s clarification question in line 4 reveals that this time she was able to pick out correctly at least one expression, i.e., les petits déjeuners (breakfasts), since two other lexical items mentioned by Erica, i.e., manger (to eat) and un peu (a little bit), do not appear in the segment (line 5). At a later point in the same session Erica experienced difficulties with recognition of a number of words from this segment (e.g., j’ai remarqué, étaient très riches and ça serait plutôt ) due to the particularities of the speaker’s pronunciation. Unlike the episode from Erica’s first DA session, Protocol 5 presents an example in which a learner shows signs of his ability to function independently. During this interaction, Dan was asked to recall the following segment from the TA3 text based on a TV news report on smoking regulations in French restaurants: Extract 6 The speaker said: Dans cette brasserie marseillaise, très fréquentée à l’heure du déjeuner, les nonfumeurs sont largement majoritaires et tous se félicitent, bien sûr, de cette nouvelle législation. [In this brasserie of Marseille which is very popular during lunch time the majority of clients are non-smokers and they congratulate themselves, of course, on this new law.] Protocol 6 1 2 3 276 D. R. D. tous se félicitent [they congratulate themselves] . . . (rising intonation) yeah! . . . you said this! I said this but I don’t know what it means . . . Reciprocity in Learner L2 Development: In line 1, Dan correctly produces a pattern from the segment and receives R’s approval regarding the correctness of his recall (line 2). In the next line, Dan points out that even though he did hear the pattern, he is unable to assign it any meaning and, therefore, he needs more explicit mediation to achieve an appropriate understanding of the segment. It is important to note here that the learners’ ability to correctly pick out items even without meaning is seen as an important sign of listening development. That is, moving from “a blur” toward correctly heard patterns in listening may be similar to using memorized chunks in speech and then analyzing them into recombinable units (Lantolf, personal communication, spring 2009). The microgenetic analysis also yielded insightful instances in which the learners were able not only to correctly decipher a pattern but also to assign it appropriate meaning. These instances revealing learners’ listening developmental path are discussed in the next sub-section. Overcoming Problem vs. Not Overcoming Problem There were instances in which the learners could understand a passage or a segment of a text with minimal assistance from R. Protocol 7 provides an example of a learner overcoming a problem after the provision of an implicit move by the mediator. The protocol is taken from Fée’s (F) second DA session and captures the point in the session when Fée tries to understand the following segment from the DA2 text: Extract 7 The speaker said: . . . et je comprends parce que . . . je veux dire . . . les serveurs et puis j’ai travaillé dans un restaurant ici [aux US] . . . je comprends . . . enfin . . . ils se font payer rien du tout et puis leur paie vient du pourboire. . . [. . . and I understand because . . . I wanna say . . . waiters and I worked at a restaurant here [in the US] . . . I understand . . . well . . . they are paid next to nothing and their payment comes from tips . . .] Protocol 7 Listening 1 2 3 F.I don’t know what she says . . . it sounds like rien du tout [nothing at all] or something . . . R. ok . . . that’s why . . . let’s listen . . . (laughter) F. ok (laughter) Listening 4 5 6 7 8 R. F. R. F. R. did you hear it? rien du tout? ok . . . rien du tout . . . oh! . . . so they are not paid at all. . . yeah!.. Voilà! [there we go!] In line 1 Fée correctly deciphers a phonological pattern from the segment without attributing any meaning to it. Then R invites her to listen to the segment once more (line 2). This minimal 277 Rumia Ableeva prompting was sufficient to trigger Fée’s comprehension and in line 7 she overcomes the problem on her own by translating correctly rien du tout (nothing at all). It is clear that Fée understood the meaning of the expression on the basis of her previously acquired linguistic knowledge. That is, the ability to understand this particular segment is high in Fée’s ZPD, and the learner is very close to being able to control this listening task by herself. In the latter case, presented in Protocol 8, the learner displays her inability to comprehend a previously acquired lexical item even with R’s fairly explicit help. In contrast with Fée’s performance, Protocol 8 offers an instance in which a learner was unable to overcome a difficulty even after substantial intervention on the part of R. The exchange, taken from Mona’s (M) third transfer assessment, revolved around discussion of the following segment from the TA3 text and the learner’s difficulty understanding the adjective responsable (responsible): Extract 8 The speaker said: . . . en France le tabagisme passif est responsable d’environ cinq mille décès par an. . . [. . . in France second-hand smoking is responsible for around five thousand deaths per year . . .] Protocol 8 Listening to the segment 1 2 M. I . . . I . . . I still can’t hear it . . . R.so . . . but you hear . . . en France le tabagisme passif [in France second-hand smoking] and then (rising intonation) 3 M. I just can’t hear the first letter . . . something like *sponsible . . . (unclear) 4 R. and if I say le tabagisme passif est responsable . . . does it make sense? 5 . . . responsable [responsible]? 6 M. no (laughter) . . . it doesn’t make sense! 7 R.. . . it doesn’t make sense . . . the thing is that . . . the word that you hear now like *sponsible . . . uh.. we have it in English . . . 8 M. uh . . . uh . . . no . . . I can’t . . . Prior to the start of this exchange, Mona had listened to the text twice but had failed to comprehend the adjective responsable. After a third unsuccessful listening (lines 1 and 3), Mona receives the most explicit hint, i.e., Providing a correct pattern. In fact, R repeats this word twice for her (lines 4 and 5) but still Mona is not able to overcome the problem, i.e., to recognize the adjective on her own, even though she had been explicitly prompted to do so. It cannot be known for certain what exactly impeded Mona’s recognition of the word that she obviously knows since French and English, her L1, both have the same cognate with exactly the same meaning. Nevertheless, this type of inability to recognize well-known lexical items or grammar points at the right moment was observed in all study sessions and was a major source of comprehension difficulties experienced by all learners. The source of this problem might also stem from the distinction between spoken and written French and the marked distinction in pronunciation of the cognates in English and French. 278 Reciprocity in Learner L2 Development: Continuing Research Into Learner Reciprocity in L2 DA The position I have advanced in this chapter is that understanding learner L2 development and actively promoting it require an orientation to mediator–learner interaction. This mediator–learner interaction should encompass the contributions of both and the relation between them. As explained, considerable research has documented features of mediation made available to learners but work is only beginning in the area of learner participation in jointly constructed ZPD activity. The concept of reciprocity offers a valuable point of departure for researchers interested in expanding the basis of evidence available for interpreting learner needs and emergent abilities and for practitioners seeking to better focus their mediating efforts during DA. Contrary to a “commonsense” view that learners either answer correctly or incorrectly when confronted with an assessment item or task (or, in the case of DA, when offered mediation), reciprocity calls attention to the range of learner behaviors in DA. These include various responses to a mediating move as well as actions such as imitation, requesting information, refusing offers of support, and seeking confirmation, among others. Examining these reciprocating moves as progressive or regressive aligns with Vygotsky’s understanding of development as revolutionary rather than a smooth, linear process and is a helpful reminder that a learner’s failure to correct problems in response to mediation does not indicate that the DA procedure was unsuccessful. The microgenetic examination of learner reciprocity in the Ableeva (2010) study brought to light several forms of reciprocating behaviors and interpreted them as important indicators of development. While this interpretation was grounded in the context of specific interactions, which included mediator contributions, features of language brought into focus, and listening comprehension tasks, insights into possible forms of reciprocity during L2 DA and their potential significance for development and for informing continued instructional effort are not limited to this context. Rather, such studies might allow for an accumulation of knowledge concerning reciprocity in L2 DA, one that could eventually provide a partial fulfillment of the desire expressed by Poehner (2008, p. 53) to “devise an exhaustive list of all the possible mediating moves and reciprocating acts one can expect to find in L2 DA interactions.” Of course, an “exhaustive” list may not be possible, and indeed the meaning of reciprocating acts must be interpreted in relation to the context in which it occurs. Nonetheless, a line of research that continues to document reciprocity with different populations of learners studying various L2s, at a range of proficiency levels, and focused on different kinds of tasks would seem a worthwhile investment for understanding this crucial dimension of development. With this in mind, it should be noted that the primary studies of reciprocity with L2 learners to date (Ableeva, 2010; Poehner, 2005, 2008) were both undertaken with intermediate-level university learners of L2 French and occurred in interactive one-to-one DA sessions. They differed in that the former focused on the development of listening comprehension and the latter L2 oral narration. Exploration of the extent to which the reciprocating moves identified in these studies manifest in other contexts as well as other ways in which learners might reciprocate during L2 DA could be pursued through close qualitative analysis of DA sessions targeting other language domains (e.g., reading, writing, intercultural knowledge). It is also an open question as to whether or how forms of reciprocity might change according to learner age (e.g., children, adolescents, adults) and, in the case of L2 studies, learner proficiency level (novice, intermediate, advanced). Finally, given the reality that in many L2 educational systems one-to-one interactions may not be feasible, future research might productively set out to understand the dynamics of mediation and reciprocity in 279 Rumia Ableeva contexts involving groups of learners, wherein affordances might emerge through the collective efforts of the mediator and individual learners. The expectation is that the findings of future studies on learner reciprocity in DA will inform the field of L2 acquisition, including researchers and practitioners, about specific areas where learners need improvement and, in so doing, will allow for appropriate intervention to help learners overcome these problems. The findings obtained in the future studies might also provide L2 pedagogy with empirically grounded insights into acquisitional processes that can inform the methodology for teaching foreign languages. References Ableeva, R. (2010). Dynamic assessment of listening comprehension in second language learning (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Aljaafreh, A., & Lantolf, J. P. (1994). Negative feedback as regulation and second language learning in the zone of proximal development. The Modern Language Journal, 78, 465–483. Chaiklin, S. (2003). The zone of proximal development in Vygotsky’s analysis of learning and instruction. In A. Kozulin, B. Gindis, V. S. Ageyev, and S. M. Miller (Eds.), Vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haywood, H. C., & Lidz, C. S. (2007). Dynamic assessment in practice: Clinical and educational applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lidz, C. S. (1991). Practitioner’s guide to dynamic assessment. New York: Guilford. Lantolf, J. P., & Aljaafreh, A. (1995). Second language learning in the zone of proximal development: A revolutionary experience. International Journal of Educational Research, 23, 619–632. Lantolf, J. P., & Thorne, S. (2006) Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Poehner, M. E. (2005). Dynamic assessment of oral proficiency among advanced L2 learners of French (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Poehner, M. E. (2008). Both sides of the conversation: The interplay between mediation and learner reciprocity in dynamic assessment. In J. P. Lantolf & M. Poehner (Eds.), Socio-cultural theory and the teaching of second languages (pp. 33–56). London: Equinox Press. Poehner, M. E., & Ableeva, R. (2011). Dynamic assessment: From display of knowledge to engagement in the activity of development. In D. Tsagari & I. Csepes (Eds.), Classroom-based language assessment (pp. 15–28). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Van der Aalsvoort, G. M., & Lidz, C. S. (2002). Reciprocity in dynamic assessment in classrooms: Taking contextual influences on individual learning into account. In G. M. Van der Aalsvoort, W. C. M. Resing, & A. J. J. M. Ruijssenaars (Eds.), Learning potential assessment and cognitive training 7 (pp. 15–28). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Van der Veer, R. & J. Valsiner. (1991). Understanding Vygotsky. Oxford: Blackwell. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 4: The history of the development of higher mental functions (R. W. Rieber, Ed.). New York: Plenum. Zebroski, J. T. (1994). Thinking through theory: Vygotskian perspectives on the teaching of writing. Portsmouth, NH, Boynton/Cook. Further Reading Poehner, M. E. (2008). Both sides of the conversation: The interplay between mediation and learner reciprocity in dynamic assessment. In J. P. Lantolf and M. Poehner (Eds.), Socio-cultural theory and the teaching of second languages (pp. 33–56). London: Equinox Press. 280 Reciprocity in Learner L2 Development: The first study to examine learner reciprocity in contexts of L2 development, analysis of mediator– learner interaction during DA brings to light a range of ways in which learners contribute to joint functioning with a mediator and how these may be interpreted with regard to development. Poehner, M. E., & Ableeva, R. (2011). Dynamic assessment. From display of knowledge to engagement in the activity of development. In D. Tsagari & I. Csepes (Eds.), Classroom-based language assessment (pp. 15–28). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. The authors offer an extension of Poehner’s (2008) initial discussion of reciprocity and L2 development by documenting a DA procedure with learners of L2 French in which particular attention is given to the developmental significance of learner imitative behaviors. Van der Aalsvoort, G. M., & Lidz, C. S. (2002). Reciprocity in dynamic assessment in classrooms: Taking contextual influences on individual learning into account. In G. M. Van der Aalsvoort, W. C. M. Resing, & A. J. J. M. Ruijssenaars (Eds.), Learning potential assessment and cognitive training 7 (pp. 15–28). Amsterdam: Elsevier. While not explicitly concerned with processes of L2 development, this text offers an early, in-depth discussion of the concept of reciprocity and discusses its interrelation with mediator intentions to intervene in learner functioning. 281 18 Mediator and Learner Engagement in Co-Regulated Inter-Psychological Activity Kristin J. Davin Introduction and Definitions The focus of this chapter is on mediator–learner engagement in co-regulated, inter-psychological activity, with particular attention to how participants employ verbal and nonverbal means to reach alignment in their functioning. The task of the mediator, frequently a teacher, tutor, assessor, or other expert, in such activity is a complex one, requiring that s/he: (a) understand learners’ independent level of performance; (b) interpret learners’ emerging capabilities according to their responsiveness during interaction; and (c) make available particular forms of resources, or tools, for the purpose of guiding learners toward new ways of thinking and acting. Central to this task is an understanding of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as a theoretical basis for intervening in and promoting processes of learner development. The most frequently cited description of the ZPD is from Vygotsky (1978, p. 86), where it is characterized as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.” While the ZPD has been subjected to many interpretations and applied for various purposes in a range of contexts, the understanding of the ZPD that informs the current chapter brings into focus the activity of cooperation between mediators and learners as psychological processes play out on the dialogic plane of interaction (see discussion, see Lantolf & Poehner, 2014; Poehner, 2008b). One particular strand of sociocultural theory (SCT) research that has shed light on how ZPD activity can reveal learner abilities and support their development is dynamic assessment (DA). DA posits a dialectic relation between the activities of teaching and assessing, activities that have long been separated in most education systems. The crux of their relation, from the perspective of DA, is that both rest upon a process of mediation in which learners are challenged to perform beyond their current capabilities. Learner responsiveness to mediator efforts to engage in cooperation reveal abilities that are still emerging while the quality of mediation negotiated with learners helps to push development forward by offering models, feedback, and guidance. While DA has been pursued for decades outside the L2 field, close analysis of mediator–learner interactions has generally not been reported. Within the L2 field, 282 Co-Regulated Inter-Psychological Activity DA researchers have made a far more consistent effort to capture interactions and to feature these as an integral part of analyses. That said, much L2 DA research, including studies by the present author, has focused primarily on overt statements produced by mediators. This work has served the important purpose of drawing attention to the various ways in which mediators may endeavor to co-construct ZPD activity with learners. However, there have also been calls to take a broader, more inclusive view of the dynamics of mediator–learner interaction. For instance, Poehner (2008a) has argued for the inclusion of learner behaviors to contextualize any analysis of mediation during DA, and van Compernolle (2015) has demonstrated how conventions and methods developed in conversation analysis may be used to illuminate how ZPD activities are constructed and negotiated. The present chapter advances discussion of how researchers interested in ZPD activity in general, and DA in particular, may approach analysis of mediator–learner interaction. At the same time, the chapter seeks to provide some orientation for practitioners as the dimensions of interaction discussed are also relevant to how one might approach cooperation with learners in instructional settings. Following recent L2 Vygotskian scholarship, the chapter specifically calls attention to the following as potentially important areas that influence mediator–learner interaction and, by extension, processes of learner L2 development: eye gaze, body positioning, and gesture; and learner emotionality. I begin by reviewing selected studies that analyze mediator and learner engagement, focusing on how ZPD activity is co-constructed and negotiated moment to moment by mediators and learners. I next discuss recent research that has begun to examine how emotion influences such activity, highlighting how mediators must provide both affective and cognitive mediation and how such mediation can influence learners’ willingness to communicate. I then turn to the implications of these findings for teacher training, that is, for helping to sensitize teachers as they learn how to mediate. The chapter closes with a discussion of recommendations for practice and areas in need of future research. Interpreting Mediator and Learner Engagement in ZPD Activity In this section, I discuss research on ZPD activity that has analyzed mediator engagement, learner engagement, and the interaction between the two. As explained, ZPD activity is a cooperative undertaking involving both mediators and learners. Separate discussions of mediator and learner participation should not be taken as contradictory to this understanding of the ZPD. Rather, the organization of the discussion in this chapter is partly prompted by convenience and partly by the studies that are reviewed, where in fact there have been shifts in researcher attention and analytic focus. Thus, the first subsection, focused on mediator engagement, begins with the work of Feuerstein and colleagues on necessary characteristics for interactions that promote development and connects to work on dialogic interaction in L2 DA. The second subsection, which examines learner reciprocity, follows Poehner’s (2008a) argument that previous studies had not paid adequate attention to ways in which learners responded and participated during DA. Finally, the third subsection reviews van Compernolle’s (2015) strong socio-interactionist perspective, which provides a sophisticated lens through which to understand the interconnectedness of mediator and learner engagement. Mediator Engagement Although Reuven Feuerstein, one of the most widely known DA researchers, developed his ideas independently from Vygotsky, the two arrived at commensurable, even parallel 283 Kristin J. Davin perspectives. For example, Feuerstein’s theory of structural cognitive modifiability shares with SCT the tenet that social interaction of a particular quality, specifically one that entails intentional efforts to mediate learner psychological processes, is an essential source of human development (R. Feuerstein, Rand, & Hoffman, 1979; R. S. Feuerstein, Falik, Rand, & Feuerstein, 2003). Moreover, Feuerstein proposed an interactional framework for assessing and promoting general cognitive abilities among learners with special needs that is strikingly similar to ZPD activity. He referred to his approach as mediated learning experience (MLE), underscoring the importance of mediation provided externally to individuals. While an initial MLE session is concerned with an individual’s needs and abilities according to responsiveness when feedback, prompts, leading questions, and other forms of dialogic mediation are offered, later sessions privilege instruction over assessment. Often referred to as a cognitive intervention or enrichment program, these sessions are marked by the introduction of specialized materials and models intended to teach learners generalizable principles and concepts believed to be relevant for later learning in school. Whether focused primarily on assessing or teaching, all MLE sessions emphasize mediator–learner co-functioning. As Lidz (1991) elaborates, the mediator in Feuerstein’s approach “strives to function as an optimal teacher, engaging in behaviors that have been found to be definitive of excellence in teaching or parenting” (p. 13). Feuerstein and his colleagues designated three essential characteristics of MLE: intentionality and reciprocity, mediation of meaning, and transcendence. To bring intentionality and reciprocity to a learning activity, the first essential characteristic of a MLE, the mediator must introduce and change stimuli with the intent of modifying the learner. Such intentionality requires monitoring learners’ needs, sustaining their attention, and addressing those needs through the introduction of secondary, or auxiliary, stimuli (Kinard & Kozulin, 2008). In introducing and modifying stimuli, the mediator carefully observes the learner and alters methods of mediation when necessary to meet the learners’ needs. In this way, “the intention to mediate modifies the three partners to the interaction—the mediator or mediating teacher, the world of stimuli, and the student” (Feuerstein, Feuerstein, & Falik, 2010, p. 41). The teacher’s transfer of intentions to the learner constitutes reciprocity, in which the learner decides to engage and become an active co-constructor of knowledge. The second key characteristic is mediation of meaning, described by Feuerstein (1990) as “the generator of the emotional, motivational, attitudinal, and value-oriented behavior of the individual” (p. 98). When mediating meaning, the mediator makes learners aware of why the material is important and necessary to their development, emphasizing the purpose behind the MLE session. Finally, the third essential characteristic is transcendence, in which the mediator “widens the scope of the interaction” (Feuerstein, 1990, p. 97), going beyond the concrete nature of a particular task so that the learner understands underlying systems and relationships to be able to apply learning in novel contexts. In addition to these required characteristics of MLE, Feuerstein and colleagues identified nine other dimensions of the activity that may not always be present but that they have found to enrich the experience and build students’ positive attitude toward learning. Examples include mediating the learner’s feelings of competence, mediating behaviors such as goal seeking, setting, and planning, and mediating regulation and control of behavior (Feuerstein et al., 2010). Lidz (1991) furthered the work of Feuerstein and his colleagues, creating a 12-item rating scale to evaluate teachers’ administration of MLE sessions. The scale included definitions of each component and assigned a rating system from 0 (no evidence) to 3 (clear and consistent evidence). As these frameworks suggest, the role of the mediator can go far beyond providing instruction that targets a specific concept to also 284 Co-Regulated Inter-Psychological Activity mediating learners’ behavior and engagement in the collaboration, recognizing the relationship between the cognitive and the affective. While Feuerstein’s attributes offered a general framework for maintaining a focus on development (and not just learning), L2 SCT researchers, perhaps more accustomed to close analysis of interaction, had begun to identify discrete mediating behaviors associated with ZPD activity. Aljaafreh and Lantolf’s (1994) seminal work with adult English-as-a-secondlanguage students illustrated how learner errors provide opportunities to promote learner development by rejecting simple overt corrections in favor of an interactional process in which support is tailored to learner needs. Equally important, the authors advocated that mediation be negotiated collaboratively with learners rather than pre-determined. Aljaafreh and Lantolf documented processes through which a mediator provided support that was graduated, moving from implicit to explicit, and contingent upon learners’ needs (i.e., it was offered only when needed and discontinued when learners no longer required it). In addition, the authors argued that development need not be limited to fully independent performance but could be evidenced through reduced reliance on mediator support, that is, movement away from other-regulation and toward greater self-regulation. Following analysis of mediator behaviors in the study, Aljaafreh and Lantolf (1994) generated a ‘regulatory scale’ of graduated mediating moves, with a level-0 prompt (learner is asked to repair errors independently), to a level-12 prompt (tutor provides examples of correct pattern). They concluded that “corrective procedures in the ZPD must be negotiated between the novice and the expert” (p. 469), such that the learner receives as little guidance as possible to reach target performance. Poehner (2008b) sought to integrate elements of Feuerstein’s MLE with Aljaafreh and Lantolf’s (1994) regulatory scale to analyze alignment between learners’ needs and teachers’ mediation. Investigating adults’ development of verbal aspect in French, he created a mediation typology of discursive moves made by a mediator in L2 DA and identified 15 different moves that included: helping the narration along, accepting response, request for repetition, request for verification, reminder of directions, request for renarration, identifying the specific site of the error, specifying error, metalinguistic clues, translation, providing an example or illustration, offering a choice, providing correct response, providing explanation, and asking for explanation. These moves, sequenced from implicit to explicit, were examples of some forms of mediation that promoted L2 development in Poehner’s study. Poehner (2008b) further observed that the mediator’s use of these discursive moves could be classified according to the following five functions within DA interactions: managing the interaction, prompting learner reconsideration of performance, supporting learner identification of problems, working with learners to overcome problems, and probing for learner understanding. Poehner noted that the same discursive move could fulfill different purposes in different instances. For example, a mediator might use a request for repetition in one instance to prompt a learner to reconsider her performance while it might be an indicator of a problem in another, highlighting the need for attention to the context of talk-in-interaction. Learner Engagement Although much of the existing work has focused on describing mediating techniques and principles, the bidirectional nature of the ZPD calls for equal attention to learners’ contributions to the interaction (van der Aalsvoort & Lidz, 2002). Van der Aalsvoort and Lidz (2002) conducted a grounded analysis of learners’ contributions to DA and developed a learner reciprocity rating scale to codify learners’ responsiveness to mediation. This scale 285 Kristin J. Davin included components such as self-regulation of attention and impulses, use of mediator as resource, reaction to challenge, and comprehension of activity demands. Poehner (2008a) extended the work of van der Aalsvoort and Lidz to L2 DA. In his analysis of mediator and learner collaboration, he illustrated five forms of reciprocity: negotiating mediation, use of mediator as a resource, creating opportunities to develop, seeking mediator approval, and rejecting mediation. Poehner (2008a) cautioned that these forms of reciprocity “by no means constitute an exhaustive inventory” (p. 42), but that they illustrate other insights—aside from whether a learner provided a correct answer—into learner abilities. As an illustration, Poehner (2008a) reported an instance when a learner chose to reject a verb form offered by the mediator, opting instead to ponder aloud other forms that might be used. Through the learner’s verbalization, the mediator gained a deeper understanding of her comprehension of the topic at hand, verbal aspect. Moreover, the dialogic nature of the assessment provided an opportunity for the learner to assert agency, allowing her to think through which form expressed her intended meaning. Attending to learners’ responsiveness to mediation provides an additional data point for diagnosing learners’ ZPD, beyond attention only to the mediator’s discursive moves. In a study of DA of L2 listening comprehension, Ableeva (2010) also analyzed learners’ responsiveness to mediation. Her work brings into focus the power of imitation for language development. Ableeva identified five transitional levels of listening development, and for each level she identified examples of learners’ response moves and examples of the mediators’ strategies. While many of the responsive moves that she found were similar to those discussed by Poehner (2008a) (e.g., using the mediator as a resource and rejecting mediation), she also found examples of learners imitating the mediator. Unlike animal mimicry or the replication of a model, Vygotsky’s use of the term imitation referred to a learner’s reconstruction of the model in ways that allow for adaption to future performances. According to Vygotsky (1998), imitation understood in this way is only possible when maturing functions are still insufficient to support independent performance but have developed enough that a person is able to understand and benefit from another’s support. Elsewhere, he explained, A central feature of the psychological study of instruction is the analysis of the child’s potential to raise himself to a higher intellectual level of development through collaboration, to move from what he has to what he does not have through imitation. This is the significance of instruction for development. (Vygotsky, 1987, pp. 210–211) One example from Ableeva’s work concerned a learner attempting to imitate an unknown lexical item used by the mediator. The learner’s attempt at imitation opened up a collaborative space through which he and mediator discussed the meaning of the word. In subsequent interaction, the learner was able to use the word independently. As this example reveals, imitation is yet another form of learner reciprocity that researchers and practitioners alike must attend to in their efforts to understand and promote learner development. Interaction as Co-Regulation Drawing insights from conversation analysis research, van Compernolle (2015) has offered another approach to understanding interactions organized according to SCT principles. Arguing that discursive moves carry a variety of meanings and, therefore, can only be understood through analysis of the context and discourse of all interactants, van Compernolle 286 Co-Regulated Inter-Psychological Activity (2015, p. 84) proposed that “each utterance, including its content, form, timing, delivery, and so on, shapes what follows it, because each utterance variably affords and constrains possible next utterances.” Rather than distinct analyses of mediator and learner engagement, van Compernolle emphasized the dialectic relationship between the objective environment and interactants’ shared orientation to joint activity in that environment, what he termed a “strong socio-interactionist perspective” (p. 5). In this way, negotiation for meaning is co-regulation in that the teacher regulates the learner’s behavior, whose behavior in turn regulates the teacher’s behavior. Another influence from conversation analysis on van Compernolle’s (2015) thinking is his proposal of the mediation sequence as a unit of analysis for understanding DA interactions. He explains that a mediation sequence comprises an opening, the negotiation of support, and a closing. The opening signals a shift from “task-work to pedagogical support” (p. 72) and the closing signals the shift back. Mediation sequences may be either self- or other-initiated, depending on whether a learner requests assistance or the teacher/peer initiates the pedagogical support. In a study involving university-level learners of L2 French, van Compernolle’s (2015) use of the mediation sequence to trace microgenetic development (i.e., development over a short span of time) expanded evidence of development beyond the extensiveness, explicitness, and quality of negotiation of support to also include whether mediation sequences are self- or other-initiated and the extent to which the correction was carried out by the learner. As he noted, a learner able to notice when he or she required assistance was closer to an independent level of performance than one who could not and required other-initiated support. Van Compernolle’s (2015) work also underscored the importance of attending to the visual aspects of engagement rather than just the verbal. He broadened the analysis of interaction to also include eye gaze, body posture, and gesture, emphasizing these as intrapersonal resources for participating in interaction. Such active reception (van Compernolle & Williams, 2013) recognizes learners’ “engagement in observing and attending to the talk-in-interaction, artifacts, and activities of others that are present in their environment” (van Compernolle, 2015, p. 114). For example, van Compernolle (2015) described how learners’ imitation of the mediator’s gaze and gestures revealed their active participation in the interaction, even when not engaged in production roles. He emphasized that the mediator’s attention to such active engagement was necessary for “recognizing, orienting to, and coproducing opportunities for developmentally appropriate assistance” (p. 119). Learner Emotionality A feature of ZPD activity that has not, to date, received adequate attention in either the L2 or general educational or psychological research literatures is emotionality. As will be explained, from a Vygotskian perspective, emotionality may well be key to achieving mediator–learner alignment during interaction. Indeed, Feuerstein, Rand, Hoffman, and Miller (1980) long ago recognized the importance of emotionality on the part of the mediator when they observed that the mediator is guided by his/her “intentions, culture, and emotional investment” as s/he “selects and organizes the world of stimuli for the child” (pp. 15–16). The same is true, of course, for the learner, as highlighted by a recent study in the L2 domain (Poehner & Swain, 2017). In their effort to understand the emotional and cognitive as a dialectical unity, Poehner and Swain drew upon Vygotsky’s discussions of perezhivanie, which he defined as “a dynamic meaningful system that constitutes a unity of affective and intellectual processes” (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 50). As Poehner and Swain note, Vygotsky 287 Kristin J. Davin (1994) likened perezhivanie to a prism through which individuals experience reality, and that failure to account for this emotional quality of psychological processes means that the processes themselves cannot be fully understood. Linking this back to ZPD interactions in instructional contexts, Poehner and Swain (2017) argue that mediators must remain aware of both the cognitive and the affective as legitimate aspects of psychological functioning that might become a focus of mediation. The authors further propose that even when mediation is aimed primarily at the cognitive, how it is offered and negotiated must be informed by continued monitoring of learner emotionality. As Poehner and Swain observed, Feuerstein’s MLE includes attributes such as mediation of sharing behavior, mediation of frustration, and mediation of feelings of competence. These attributes concern the teacher’s responsibility of maintaining the learner’s interest and engagement in the interaction and minimizing their feelings of frustration, all of which are necessary for L2 development to occur. Poehner and Swain (2017) shared an example of a student learning English, interacting with a mediator as she worked to revise an essay. During the interaction, she became frustrated that she was unable to express her meaning in one particular phrase, so she decided to delete the sentence entirely. The mediator recognized her frustration and oriented to the emotive, reminding the student of their shared responsibility in the task and encouraging her to discuss her intended meaning to reformulate the sentence. Through careful attunement to the learner’s cognitive and affective needs, the mediator was able to maintain intersubjectivity with the learner to promote her language development, an opportunity that would have been missed had the learner been allowed to simply delete the sentence. The significant role of learner emotionality in classroom interaction was further highlighted in a recent dissertation on the use of L2 DA at the university level with learners studying Korean honorifics (Lee, 2016). Four learners were interviewed after a semester in which they had engaged in DA sessions with five instructors trained for the investigation. The research sought to understand factors influencing the learners’ willingness to communicate, defined as “a readiness to enter into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons, using an L2” (Macintyre, Dörnyei, Clément, & Noels, 1998, p. 547). Lee (2016) reported that variables such as “feelings of comfort and familiarity” and the mediator’s ability to create “a comfortable context for active reciprocity” (p. 207) influenced learners’ willingness to communicate and the quality of interaction. One student’s explanation summed up those of the other learners quite well: If I do the sessions like this with a teacher who I don’t know well, it can be much more difficult. I mean, if the teacher looks at me like this (question look) and asks a bunch of questions, I think I’m afraid to make the mistake again and like . . . like feel uncomfortable taking time to think. I can’t talk when it is not comfortable. I don’t like talking in front of people I don’t know, even if he or she is my teacher. I feel so nervous. (p. 208) This student’s statement highlighted how affective variables such as fear and nervousness influence learner orientation to interactions, which in turn impact teacher efforts to achieve an intersubjective stance. In addition to the influence of learners’ level of comfort with the mediator, Lee’s (2016) work also highlighted how learners’ perceptions of the mediator’s efficacy might influence engagement. Some learners complained that variation in teacher mediation styles hindered the “fairness” of the assessment. For example, one student stated, “When I had sessions with 288 Co-Regulated Inter-Psychological Activity one teacher, it seemed I had more chances to think than [when interacting with] the other teacher” (Lee, 2016, p. 196). Another student reported that teachers’ “feedback . . . kind of varies throughout the semester and there’s a quality and quantity difference from the teachers” (p. 196). Other students contended that certain teachers were more skilled mediators than others, and they expressed concern that the instructors’ ability to mediate would negatively impact their course grades. While examination of the extent to which the mediators’ skill actually varied was beyond the scope of Lee’s study, the student remarks provide an important window into their perezhivanie of engaging in DA and compels us to wonder how it might interact with any developmental benefits they might gain through DA. Preparing L2 Teachers to Engage in Inter-Psychological Activity With Learners Research suggests that for many teachers, pedagogies based on SCT principles such as mediation through interaction to promote learners’ increasing self-regulation, are unfamiliar and challenging (van Compernolle & Henery, 2015; Williams, Abraham, & NegueruelaAzarola, 2013). These pedagogies may not align with teachers’ existing conceptualizations of what it means to teach, especially when those conceptualizations are based on teachers’ own observations and experiences rather than on formal instruction. Davin, Herazo, and Sagre (2016) highlighted the complex nature of learning to mediate in DA in the classroom setting. They conducted a series of workshops on DA with pre-service and in-service L2 teachers and analyzed the teachers’ subsequent effort to implement principles of mediation in their interactions with learners in the classroom. Echoing reports from others (e.g., Summers, 2008), Davin and colleagues found that learning to align mediation with learner responsiveness is a complex endeavor that requires substantial time and practice and is subject to a variety of tensions that must be taken into account. Only two of the four teachers in the study showed signs of moving toward contingent support during interaction (i.e., providing graduated prompts based on learners’ needs). In addition, it would seem that preparing teachers to implement Vygotskian pedagogy can be further advanced by helping teachers to examine their current beliefs about language, learning, teaching, and assessment, among other issues. For example, DA implementation requires a considerable shift in terms of teachers’ understanding of assessment and appropriate assessor behaviors. Summers (2008) reported on a teacher who participated in DA training and struggled to embrace the concept of providing mediation during assessment. She was reluctant to provide learners additional support during testing because it challenged her notion of valid and reliable assessment. SCT-inspired pedagogies also challenge teachers to broaden their conceptualization of mediation, expanding from a cognitive focus to also include the affective. As the research on learner emotionality (discussed earlier) suggests, teachers must develop skill at attending to learner frustration and feelings of competence. These findings are important because they reveal a potential challenge for teacher educators. As Lantolf and Poehner (2014) argue, preparing L2 teachers to engage in Vygotskian pedagogical practices requires both in-depth knowledge of language as well as a theoretical understanding of how education may guide learner development. An additional point supported by both research in teacher education and practical experience is that working with teachers to shift their practice toward a Vygotskian pedagogy should itself be approached as a process rather than a one-time intervention that leads to a completed, fully designed educational system. While introducing teachers to SCT should indeed be pursued in a holistic, non-reductive manner (i.e., one that avoids for instance 289 Kristin J. Davin an exclusive focus on scientific concepts and completely ignores the rest of the theory), employing theoretical principles to transform practices may be approached in a focused, incremental manner. For example, many teachers, especially novices in their first years of teaching, struggle with contingency in interaction; that is, they struggle with decisions such as when to intervene and provide mediation, how much mediation to provide, and in what forms mediation should be offered (Davin & Troyan, 2015). By choosing structured scenarios in which to practice planning dialogic mediation and negotiating it with learners, teacher educators might seek ways to enable novices “to get deep enough into authentic interactions with specific learners to practice inventing educative responses while not being overwhelmed with the unpredictability and complexity of creating improvised interaction” (Lampert, Beasley, Ghousseini, Kazemi, & Franke, 2010, p. 135). For example, Davin and colleagues (2016) found that teachers who practiced L2 DA implementation by first using scripted mediation prompts (in which they anticipate students’ misconceptions related to the concept under investigation and pre-plan discursive prompts) before moving on to flexible mediation prompts were more successful at mediation than those who did not. Once teachers become comfortable with scripted approaches to mediation, they can then begin to improvise and offer more flexible and contingent forms of mediation. In a similar manner, teachers interested in employing a Vygotskian concept-based instructional approach might begin by selecting linguistic concepts for which they feel they already have strong pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Mediating teacher education in this way might lead to greater confidence and motivation to use Vygotskian principles to guide practice (see Glisan & Donato, 2017). Another question that must be considered is whether and how teachers might take account of learners’ expressed preferences for particular forms of mediation. The learners in Lee (2016) commented upon specific forms of mediation they experienced. All five of the learners interviewed reported that the prompt, pause with questioning look, was “confusing and a waste of time” (p. 202). They also all agreed that the prompt, “Ask ‘what honorifics do you need to correct in the sentence?’” was not helpful (p. 90). The students indicated that omitting these unnecessary prompts would have saved time, allowing them to cover more during their DA sessions with the instructor. Similarly, Summers (2008) reported that learners found mediator behaviors such as individualized attention, translation to L1, and drawing attention to relevant text useful, while they reacted negatively to mediation only in the L2. As these studies illustrated, learners often have strong opinions about what forms of mediation are most helpful to their own learning styles. Reactions to mediation may vary from one group to another, with cultural norms and values influencing preferred mediational means. Understanding and responding to this likely depends upon another kind of teacher knowledge: knowledge of one’s students as individuals. As Lee’s (2016) findings suggest, interactions between teachers and learners who are familiar with one another and have a strong rapport may prove more successful at promoting development because, among other things, learners may feel threatened by receiving mediation from someone in whom they lack trust, especially when these interactions occur in the presence of peers. Finally, teacher educators must recognize that changing teacher practice is a complex process that requires attention to teachers’ cognition, emotion, and activity (Johnson & Golombek, 2016). Teachers must be required to explore their own lived experiences, their emotional reactions to those lived experiences, and their impressions of how those experiences influenced their beliefs in practice during the work of learning to implement Vygotskian pedagogies (Donato & Davin, 2017). Such work might begin with a narrative inquiry assignment in which they systematically explore their tacit thoughts, beliefs, 290 Co-Regulated Inter-Psychological Activity knowledge, fears and hopes in an explicit form through their own stories and language (Johnson & Golombek, 2002). This work can continue during professional development with video-based shared reflection, a term used by Tochon (2008) to refer to the use of videos for teachers to reflect on whether their enacted teaching practices align with their beliefs and goals, as well as whether they promote learners’ development. In addition to pushing teachers to analyze their own cognition and activity, such practices create an opportunity for the teacher educator and teacher to co-construct new conceptualizations of teaching (Johnson & Golombek, 2016). Directions for Future Research While substantial L2 research now documents mediator and learner moves during interpsychological functioning, particularly in DA, the argument developed in this chapter is that this focus may be broadened to better understand processes through which teachers and learners in classroom settings succeed in co-constructing ZPD activity and the challenges that impede that success. One area touched upon by some of the studies discussed and that merits further investigation concerns teacher and learner reflections on their experiences attempting to engage in ZPD activity. For example, comparing teacher and learner perceptions of the same DA interactions could provide insights into their interpretations of mediation and the extent to which they are reaching intersubjectivity at specific moments in the activity. Thus, the teacher and learners might jointly engage in a video-based shared reflection, contributing their own perspectives on the unfolding interaction. Such research might also illuminate aspects of teacher and learner orientation to the activity, including their beliefs concerning language learning, teaching, and assessment. In this regard, the research literature around the concept of willingness to communicate may offer points to consider, such as the role of learner self-confidence, personality, and interpersonal motivation, and how each of these interact with one another and with the broader social context to influence learner participation in instructional activities (Macintyre et al., 1998). Similarly, the recent turn in L2 SCT research to investigate Vygotsky’s proposal of perezhivanie (Mok, 2015; Poehner & Swain, 2017) holds considerable potential for understanding how learner emotions may shape their engagement in ZPD activity. As Axel (1997) contends, “of the elements of subjectivity—cognition, emotion, conscious relation, and action—emotions are the most crucial for a social conception of the individual” (p. 143). Future research on L2 classroom DA might probe interactants’ emotions and begin to examine how emotional reactions influence teacher and learner engagement and, thus, L2 development. Advancing these lines of research requires moving beyond recording, transcribing, and carefully analyzing features of interaction. While such methods are essential to understanding mediator and learner moves, understanding the thoughts and experiences of teachers and learners requires additional approaches. Following Cross (2010, p. 436), data sources can be “strategically juxtaposed in a way that practice-based data (e.g., classroom observation notes) are informed by thought-based data (e.g., stimulated recall or interviews).” As an example of how this kind of juxtaposition of data can advance research and also inform practice, I close by relating a finding from a stimulated recall session conducted with teachers following their implementation of DA (see Davin, Herazo, & Sagre, 2016). The researchers report that in several instances the codes they had assigned to teachers’ discursive moves did not correspond to the teacher’s intention for those moves as expressed during the stimulated recalls. In one case, a teacher had repeated a student’s utterance with a questioning intonation. The researchers coded this utterance as a clarification request and 291 Kristin J. Davin an attempt by the teacher to provide mediation to a learner. 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Language and Sociocultural Theory, 3(2), 219–241. Summers, R. (2008). Dynamic assessment: Towards a model of dialogic engagement (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. Tochon, F. V. (2008). A brief history of video feedback and its role in foreign language education. CALICO, Special Issue, 25(3), 420–435. van Compernolle, R. A. (2015). Interaction and second language development: A Vygotskian perspective. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. van Compernolle, R. A., & Henery, A. (2015). Learning to do concept-based pragmatics instruction: Teacher development and L2 pedagogical content knowledge. Language Teaching Research, 19(3), 351–372. van Compernolle, R. A., & Williams, L. (2013). Group dynamics in the language classroom: Embodied participation as active reception in the collective ZPD. Classroom Discourse, 4(1), 42–62. van der Aalsvoort, G. M., & Lidz, C. S. (2002). Reciprocity in dynamic assessment in classrooms taking contextual influences on individual learning into account. In G. M. van der Aasvoort, W. C. M. Resing, & A. J. J. M. Ruijssenaars (Eds.), Learning potential assessment and cognitive training: Actual research and perspectives in theory building and methodology (pp. 111–144). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. In R. Rieber, & A. Carton (Eds.), Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of general psychology (pp. 39–285). New York: Plenum. Vygotsky, L. S. (1994). The problem of the cultural development of the child. In R. van der Veer & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Vygotsky reader. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Vygotsky, L. S. (1998). The problem of age (M. Hall, Trans.). In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 5. Child psychology (pp. 187–205). New York: Plenum Press. (Original work written 1933–1934). Williams, L., Abraham, L. B., & Negueruela-Azarola, E. (2013). Using concept-based instruction in the L2 classroom: Perspectives from current and future language teachers. Language Teaching Research, 17(3), 363–381. Further Reading Glisan, E. W., & Donato, R. (2017). Enacting the work of language teaching: High leverage teaching practices. Alexandria, VA: ACTFL. This book presents a practice-based approach to L2 teacher education and offers insight into how to structure intentional and iterative practice for teachers. 293 Kristin J. Davin Johnson, K. E., & Golombek, P. R. (2016). Mindful L2 teacher education: A sociocultural perspective on cultivating teachers’ professional development. New York: Routledge. This book provides insight into how teacher educators might approach teacher preparation from a sociocultural perspective. Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (2014). Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative in L2 education. New York: Routledge. This book provides an in-depth and current discussion of the implications of Vygotskian sociocultural theory for second language teaching. van Compernolle, R. A. (2015). Interaction and second langauge development: A Vygotskian perspective. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. This book examines interaction from a sociocultural perspective, emphasizing how communicative interaction drives development. 294 19 Employing Dynamic Assessment to Enhance Agency Among L2 Learners Tziona Levi and Matthew E. Poehner Introduction This chapter attempts to contribute an expanded view of how learner abilities may be understood and promoted through zone of proximal development (ZPD) activity by bringing attention to learner agency as a legitimate focus of mediation. As we explain, we conceive of agency in the context of L2 education to entail not only intentional use of the target language for meaning-making but also the more general metacognitive processes involved in assuming responsibility for one’s learning, including setting goals for language study and monitoring and assessing one’s progress and emerging needs. To date, L2 ZPD research has examined how engagement in co-regulated activity can reveal and promote processes of learner L2 development (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014). L2 development has generally been described in terms of metalinguistic knowledge and control over specific features of language during communicative tasks (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994; Poehner, 2007). In our view, this emphasis does not imply that metacognitive processes relevant to successful school learning in general are not of interest to L2 sociocultural theory (SCT) researchers. Rather, it reflects the reality that this work has been conducted in contexts concerned with L2 teaching and learning, and so language and language use have understandably been the primary focus of mediation. Nonetheless, designing ZPD activity from the outset with an aim of promoting learner awareness of their abilities and positioning them to actively participate in setting learning goals and monitoring progress may prove an effective addition to previous and ongoing initiatives that seek to guide learners toward learner control over the L2. This chapter begins with a brief overview of relevant concepts from Vygotsky’s (1978, 1987) and Feuerstein’s (Feuerstein, Falik, Rand, & Feuerstein, 2003; Feuerstein, Rand, & Hoffman, 1979) writings that have influenced L2 research in the area of dynamic assessment (e.g., Lantolf & Poehner, 2006) and, more recently, mediated development (Poehner & Infante, 2015, 2017). As we explain, this work is characterized by dialogic interaction between teachers/assessors, or mediators, and L2 learners as they co-construct ZPD activity, in order, respectively, to diagnose learner abilities and to guide them toward new ways of thinking and functioning. We then turn to the topic of learner agency and how it may be understood from an SCT perspective. Highlighting the importance of mediation for agentive 295 Tziona Levi and Matthew E. Poehner behavior, we argue that in addition to symbolic resources that learners may employ to regulate their use of language, their agency may also be supported through the use of resources that draw their attention to particular features of language performance and through tasks that require careful reflection on their own language use and that of their peers during instructional and assessment activities. An example of promoting learner agency through ZPD activity is provided in a detailed discussion of a large-scale project in which dynamic assessment was employed to diagnose oral language abilities among secondary school learners of L2 English in Israel (Levi, 2012). We conclude by considering implications and future directions for research and pedagogical practice that approach learner agency as a feature of L2 development and as a target for mediational efforts. ZPD Activity in L2 Research and Education: Dynamic Assessment and Mediated Development Since its introduction to the L2 field (Lantolf & Poehner, 2006; Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Poehner, 2007), dynamic assessment has attracted considerable attention from SCT researchers and now represents one of the major ways in which ZPD activity is pursued in contexts of L2 education. Dynamic assessment (DA) refers to the integration of instruction and assessment processes within a single procedure that looks beyond whether student independent performance at a given moment in time is successful or unsuccessful (Gillam et al., 1999; Tzuriel, 2000) and seeks to determine the instructional investment likely required to move individuals beyond their current level of functioning. DA derives from Vygotsky’s (1987) discussions of the ZPD and is also heavily influenced by Feuerstein’s (e.g., Feuerstein et al., 1979) writings concerned with the modifiability of human psychological abilities. Following Lantolf and Poehner (2014), ZPD activity is understood as a cooperative undertaking in which a learner’s intra-psychological functioning (i.e., reliance upon abilities that have already formed and the results of prior learning) is transformed through a process of thinking and acting together with others. As Feuerstein, Feuerstein, and Falik (2010) explain, the quality of such interaction is crucial for development, as it is through cooperative engagement that our relation to the world is mediated by others, a process that allows us access to new ways of thinking and acting. In Vygotskian terms, such cooperation constitutes interpsychological functioning, and it is in the context of such activity that new abilities are formed. The quality of learner contribution to such activity, the problems that arise, and learner responsiveness to mediation allow for what Vygotsky (1978, 1998) understood to be as a “diagnosis of development.” This diagnosis captures abilities that have fully developed as well as those that are still emerging. This diagnostic function of ZPD activity has inspired considerable research in DA, which looks beyond learners’ independent performances as the sole indicator of abilities and instead requires the provision of external support when learner performance breaks down. Typically, this process occurs through dialogic interaction, although other means of delivering mediation to learners have been explored (see Poehner, this volume). Regardless of how mediation is formulated, the aim is to interpret learners’ emerging abilities according to the quality of mediation required for them to modify their performance and the degree of change evidenced. From this perspective, individuals who require very little mediation are interpreted as being closer to self-regulated functioning. Similarly, individuals who are able to draw upon available mediation to extend their functioning to more complex problems or in creative combinations are understood as having reached a greater degree of self-regulation than those who are unable to do so. 296 Dynamic Assessment and Learner Agency While the intent to mediate learners is a defining characteristic of DA, it is important to keep in mind that learners are not regarded as passive recipients of assistance. Mediation is contingent upon learner responsiveness, and in more dialogic approaches to DA it is actively negotiated with learners. Thus, learner involvement in DA goes well beyond simply identifying and correcting errors. The range of possible ways in which learners may engage with mediation has been discussed as reciprocity (see Poehner, 2008; Poehner & Ableeva, 2011). Ableeva (this volume) explains that as learners struggle to do what they are not yet capable of, they may imitate mediator behaviors, negotiate support offered by mediators, request specific forms of assistance, seek mediator evaluation of their performance, or even reject mediator guidance. These reciprocating behaviors, while generally not even possible during most assessments, are absolutely critical to DA, underscoring the role of learners as coparticipants on the way toward assuming full responsibility for their functioning in the L2. While the aim of DA is to diagnose learner development, the instructional quality of interaction as learners struggle to stretch beyond their current abilities can promote development. Poehner (this volume) explains that in ZPD activity, assessing and teaching exist in dialectic relation to one another. Both are present even if one is brought into focus in particular circumstances. This view resonates with Vygotsky’s (1998) discussions of the importance of the ZPD for education, where he recognized that learner emerging abilities are the appropriate target for instructional efforts to guide development. According to Kozulin (1998), Vygotsky’s formulation of the ZPD as a framework for both identifying emerging abilities and actively promoting their development is closely paralleled in Feuerstein’s proposal of mediated learning experience (Feuerstein et al., 2003). Briefly, Feuerstein approaches mediated learning as an opportunity for a teacher/assessor, or mediator, to provide every imaginable form of external support to the learner in order to offset any lack of prior mediational experiences and to create a picture of what an individual might one day be capable of. Paralleling Vygotsky’s recognition of the value of the ZPD for both diagnosing and promoting learner development, Feuerstein approaches initial mediated learning sessions with a goal of identifying cognitive functions that have not fully developed and that are likely amenable to intervention and subsequent mediated learning sessions seek to move learner development forward. When instruction is foregrounded, learners are introduced to specialized learning materials and activities intended to provide individuals with new resources, or tools, for thinking (for details, see Feuerstein et al., 2003). An additional point worth noting is that Feuerstein’s work has emphasized the development of general cognitive abilities (e.g., logical reasoning, pattern recognition, analogy completion) held to be important for success in a range of academic areas as well as more affective dimensions of psychological functioning (e.g., managing frustration, controlling impulsivity, maintaining a goal orientation, planning and evaluating performance). As Kozulin (1998) observes, this contrasts with the emphasis in much ZPD research with the development of abilities in specific domains such as reading, mathematics, and language. He proposes that these two foci might fruitfully be brought together for a more comprehensive view of how mediator– learner cooperation can promote learner psychological processes. We concur, and this view is central to our interest in ZPD activity that integrates a focus on learner use of language with their reflection on that use as a means of promoting their agency. Before turning to the topic of agency, however, there are two initiatives in the L2 field that we wish to mention as they draw upon both the ZPD and mediated learning and conceptualize L2 development in ways that are directly relevant to learner agency. Poehner (2012) explored the use of learner evaluation of their own language performance as a pathway toward promoting self-regulated use of language. Following Zuckerman (2003), Poehner 297 Tziona Levi and Matthew E. Poehner proposed evaluative reflection as a central feature of self-regulation. Evaluative reflection concerns examining one’s performances, in this case, uses of the target language while carrying out communicative tasks, and critically considering difficulties or shortcomings that need to be either addressed or revised in the future. Poehner (2012) reported that learner success in discussing their performances, identifying problems, and considering alternatives emerged alongside their control over particular features of language (e.g., the passé composé–imparfait distinction in French). More important, and in line with Zuckerman’s (2003) arguments concerning the importance of reflection, the process of engaging in metalinguistic discussion of their language choices accompanied improved independent use of the language. As Poehner (2012) observes, it was not the case that learners were successful in identifying and correcting problems with their use of language at the outset, but the process of attempting to do so, in dialogue with a mediator, proved to be a catalyst for development. As he put it, learner evaluative reflection on performance was “simultaneously a condition for and consequence of development” (Poehner 2012, p. 620). That is, early on, evaluative reflection was jointly accomplished by mediators and learners, but over time it shifted increasingly to learners as they gained greater control over relevant abilities. Relevant to our present interest, a part of this process was the activity of reflecting on and revising language performance. More recently, Poehner and Infante (2015, 2017) proposed a framework for ZPD activity that foregrounds teaching rather than assessing and that emphasizes conceptual knowledge of language but that also reflects the kind of expanded view of psychological function discussed by Kozulin (1998). Poehner and Infante refer to the framework as mediated development (MD), acknowledging the influence of Feuerstein’s ideas while remaining committed to Vygotsky’s position that education must be concerned foremost with teaching and learning that guides development. Poehner and Infante (2015, 2017) submit that DA and MD are complementary activities in that the former allows for diagnosis of learner emergent understandings while the latter introduces new mediational means of development to guide learners toward increased self-regulated functioning in the target language. Infante (2016) illustrates this approach through an L2 education program focused on the English tense–aspect system in the context of writing instruction aimed at L2 English secondary and tertiary school learners. The curricular content of the program followed a Vygotskian concept-based approach rather than traditional presentations of grammatical rules commonly found in language textbooks. As such, the MD program was organized according to a progression that began with a verbal introduction to the tense–aspect system along with contrastive examples; models and visual representations of the concepts and its component parts were then provided and explained; use of the representations as tools for interpreting exemplars of language was modeled by a mediator; and, finally, learners were offered dialogic mediation as they began to think with the concepts while composing and revising their own texts in English. An important feature of Infante’s (2016) research, and one that also drew inspiration from Feuerstein’s work, is that while the language focus of the instructional program was conceptual understanding of the English tense–aspect system, dialogic mediation during the sessions attempted to be responsive to psychological processes more generally. Specifically, the mediator intentionally sought to mediate the learners’ feelings of competence and their control of impulsivity in favor of more carefully planned actions and reflection on outcomes. For instance, Infante reports that the mediator’s leading questions and suggestions while jointly reviewing learner writing frequently guided learners away from guessing and toward developing plans for how to portray past situations and then evaluating whether their 298 Dynamic Assessment and Learner Agency language choices were appropriate to their intended meanings. He further documents how the mediator consistently worked to position learners in the role of leading the interactions and explicitly drew attention to learner successes, thereby reinforcing learner confidence and perception of self as a legitimate user of English. In this way, the work of mediating learner conceptual understanding of tense–aspect was interrelated with mediating a broader view of self-regulated functioning aimed at helping learners not only gain important knowledge of language but also the experience of using it in intentional, agentive ways. In sum, the understanding of ZPD activity that informs both L2 DA and MD takes as a starting point learner active participation in cooperative functioning. DA research has begun to examine some of the ways in which learner participation, or contribution, may manifest through the concept of reciprocity. Of course, both DA and MD are concerned with developmental processes, and so it is also understood that the precise nature of learner engagement is likely to change over time. That is, as learner abilities develop, one can expect that the quality of mediation they require will not remain the same nor will the ways in which they seek, negotiate, or refuse mediator support. Furthermore, SCT researchers are becoming increasingly interested in how mediation may effectively guide learners toward greater awareness of and control over their own functioning and learning processes. All of this points toward an understanding of agency as emerging from the social and cultural environment, and this is an important point of departure for considering how its development may therefore be promoted through purposefully organized activities. Learner Agency: Acting With and Through Mediational Means In his appraisal of trends in education from the early 20th century onward, Egan (2004) observes that Piaget’s model of childhood development has been among the primary drivers of so-called “progressive” innovations. While Piaget’s work has been challenged on several fronts within psychology, its hold on educational practice, as Egan notes, remains strong. Kozulin (1998) points out that one area where Piaget’s influence is particularly acute concerns the relation of teaching and learning to development. As Kozulin explains, the interpretation of Piaget that guides much educational policy and practice assumes learners to be agentive individuals ready to direct their own learning from the outset. By implication, educators have a far reduced role, providing experiences and access to materials that support learner choice and interest while carefully avoiding disrupting “natural” developmental processes. In educational approaches informed by Vygotskian principles, in contrast, teachers and school activities have infinitely greater importance, as the social and cultural environment is understood to be the essential driver of development. The implications of this view for the development of learner agency have attracted considerable attention from L2 SCT researchers in recent years (e.g., Donato, 2000; Kramsch, 2000; Lantolf, 2013; Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001; van Compernolle & Williams, 2013; van Lier, 2000, 2008). Full discussion of this work is beyond the scope of a single paper. We focus our remarks on outlining how learner agency, understood from an SCT perspective, may be rendered a target for mediation during ZPD activity that is simultaneously concerned with learner development of L2 abilities. To begin, Ahearn (2001) defines agency as a “socioculturally mediated capacity to act” (p. 112). As an example of how agency is mediated by social and cultural contexts, consider Ollman’s (2003) discussion of the freedom to act experienced by a Wall Street investment banker and a restaurant employee. Ollman explains that an ideal within capitalism is that all individuals are free to act as they choose, including free to sell their labor, pursue 299 Tziona Levi and Matthew E. Poehner an education, enjoy leisure activities, and so forth. What this view of freedom distorts, however, is that individuals experience dramatically disparate material realities. While a Wall Street banker has access to the kind of education that is highly valued, a network of powerful social contacts, and virtually every other imaginable affordance for achieving success, a restaurant employee likely has none of these. Thus, as Ollman (2003) concludes, the observation that both are free—or alternately, of course, that both face constraints on their freedom—is true only in a trivial, unimportant way. The freedom experienced by the banker is unknown to the minimum-wage worker. Returning to Ahearn (2001) and to educational contexts, agency from the perspective of SCT is properly understood not as a property of an individual but as individuals in relation to the mediational means available to them that enable them to act and that also place limitations on that capacity. Lantolf and Thorne (2006) further argue that an SCT perspective allows us to understand agency not only as a characteristic of individuals acting in particular contexts but that it also may emerge as a characteristic of a group of individuals functioning cooperatively. Applying this view to an analysis of agency in L2 classrooms, Van Lier (2008) argues that agency is interdependent with the environment, meaning that it both mediates and is mediated by the social and cultural contexts created by individuals. Van Lier’s (2008) point drives home the importance of affordances and constraints for understanding agency while also recognizing that learner actions contribute to shaping their environment, thus opening or restricting opportunities for further actions. Finally, Lantolf (2013) proposes distinguishing what we might term learner “independence” from “agency.” What is at issue here is the quality of mediational means with which L2 learners self-regulate. For instance, L2 SCT research concerned with concept-based teaching has advocated that conceptual knowledge of language offers learners possibilities for using semiotic resources for meaning-making that are generally closed off to them when prescriptive grammar rules are favored. This suggests a reciprocal relation between the development of agency (as acting with and through mediational means) and the development of new L2 abilities. Similar to Poehner’s (2012) argument that learner capacity to engage in self-assessment may be seen as a process that co-develops with their L2 abilities, ag

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