Sutida Ngonkum, Ph.D.
Khon Kaen University, Thailand
E-mail: sutida.ng@hotmail.com
Mediation
(Vygotsky, 1978; Leont'ev, 1977; Engeström, 1987)
Cognitive development is
culturally situated and
mediated by tools and social
contact with others
(Vygotsky, 1978)
Attempts to locate the analysis of
mediation of activity (Leont'ev,
1977).
 Activity
theory’s units of analysis is
activity rather than the individual (,
1977).
‘While Vygotsky’s SCT claims that an individual
mind is mediated by cultural tools (semiotics),
Leont'ev focuses the mediation of mind through
human activity ( Lantolf & Thorne, 2006, p. 214)
 It
could demonstrate human in both action
level elaborating individual acting upon the
task.
 It
could demonstrate collective activity
system which is affected by the interrelation
of the three elements: rules, community,
and division of labour.
The basic triangular representation of
mediation (Vygotsky, 1978)
Artefact
Subject
Object
 Depicts
a view of a human agent acting
within an activity
 Depicts
activity
a holistic view of human collective
Emphasises individual (subject) using tools in
completing the task (object) ( Daniels, 2001).
Artefact
Subject
Object
Emphasises human working in a collective
system and being influenced by particularly
the three elements in an activity:
Community, Rules and Division of labour.
 Community
= people who share the same
goal
 Rules= implicit and explicit norms and
convention that place certain limits as well
as possibilities on the nature of interaction
within the actively system
 Division of Labour =position distribution for
members in the community
investigates the implementation
of innovative teaching
intervention in a Thai tertiary
listening comprehension class
 To
explore individual student
regulation of listening tasks
 To
examine influences of group
interaction on learning in this
context
RQ2. In what way did the students
use listening strategies to regulate
their listening tasks?
RQ3. In what ways did the group
function during the listening tasks?
 Preparation period
-pre-test
 Teaching
and training period
- video recordings of classroom activities
- teacher-researcher’s field notes
 Concluding
period
- post-test
-group interview
 Pre-listening
group work allowing social interaction
 While-listening
individual work providing space for
self-awareness development
 Post-listening
group work allowing social interaction
 Planning
 Monitoring
 Problem-solving
 Evaluating
Teacherresearcher’s
field notes
Group interview
Video
recording of
classroom
activities
Triangulation
 The
High Improvement Group
 The
Moderate Improvement Group
 The
Marginal Improvement Group
1) Students’ ability to take control
over the listening task
2) Students’ mastery in using the
mediation tools (strategies)
2.1 their ability to match the appropriate
combination of strategies
2.2 their ability to operationalise
strategies
2.3 their' ability to actively and
systematically repair their listening
problem
Individual students in High
Improvement Group exhibited:
1) high ability to take control over their
listening compared to peers in the
Moderate and Marginal Improvement
Groups.
2) high ability to match the appropriate
combination of strategies, to
operationalise strategies, and to actively
and systematically repair their listening
problems
Overall students in the Moderate
Improvement Group:
1) Could sometimes take control over their
listening task.
2) Generally demonstrated a better ability
to match and combine strategies,
appropriately operationalise the
strategies, repair their listening problem
than their peers in the Marginal
Improvement Group, but could be seen as
less effective listeners when compared to
students in the High Improvement Group.
Overall students in the Marginal
Improvement Group:
1. exhibited less ability to take control
over the listening task
2. exhibited less ability to match the
appropriate combination of strategies,
operationalise strategies, repair their
listening problem.
1) Task adherence
2) Learning effort
3) Collaboration
4) Appreciation of benefits of group
work
Task adherence
All group members strictly followed the prescribed learning task with only one member
making a minimal alteration
 Learning efforts
Learning effort was evidence by all members
 Collaboration
 Individual students brought their knowledge to
share with peers
 Appreciation of benefits of group work
All members strongly exhibited their
appreciation of how group work enhanced their
listening comprehension skills improvement

Task adherence
Group members all made one minor alteration to
the prescribed learning task
 Learning efforts
Learning effort was evidence by all members
 Collaboration
 Individual students brought their knowledge to
share with peers
 Appreciation of benefits of group work
All members strongly exhibited their
appreciation of how group work enhanced their
listening comprehension skills improvement

Task adherence
Group members all made a number of major
alteration to the prescribed learning task
 Learning efforts
Learning effort was minimal by group members
 Collaboration
 Individual students learned from a knowledge
provider
 Appreciation of benefits of group work
Group members exhibited minimal appreciation
of how group work enhanced their listening
comprehension skills improvement

 In
carrying out their task, the subjects
(students) differed in terms of their
ability to use listening strategies as a
mediation tool to help them regulate
their action toward the goal (listening
task).
 Such a difference in this ability was due
to two factors: the inherent attributes of
individual learners and the training.
Listening
strategies
Subject
Object
‘The more proficient the subjects (students)
were, according to student reports about
the English language problems they
encountered when they practice listening,
the more able they were to use the
mediation tool to enhance their action upon
the task. This phenomenon is compatible
Wertch (1998)’s notion of inherent attributes
of individual learners.’
‘Both more and less proficient learners could
become more proficient after they had been
trained to master the tools. Once they
mastered the use of the tools, they could
then make use of them in their action,
which in turn led to their successful goal
completion. This is confirmed by Vygostsky
(1978)s SCT concept’
Community
Members valued hard-work and individual
contribution. Generally, they believed that
they are confident language learners who are
capable of regulating the listening task.
Rules
Members demonstrated obedient learning
behaviour as most of them strictly followed
the task rules.
Division of labour
Members seemed to realise that they should
bring new knowledge into the group so other
members could learn
Community
Members valued hard work. However,
members believed that by themselves they
were not able to regulate their listening
task. Thus, the community as a whole
strongly stated that contributions from every
group member are precious.
Rules
Members altered the rules of community (the
task’s rules).
Division of labour
Members perceived themselves as buddies
who rely on one another, and they together
foster the group’s work into a successful
whole.
Community
Members did not event value learning for its
own sake, but focused on only the lowest
level of task completion. Thus, the majority
of the members in this group were
dependent learners in that they depended on
one student as a source of knowledge.
Rules
Overall members made major alteration to
the task rules, and not all students showed
discipline in approaching their listening task.
Division of labour
Every member believed that one member was
the source of knowledge.
1)
the practice in each of group (activity system)
differed due to the influence of the interaction
of the elements of community, rules, and
division of labour.
2) the community of each system possessed its
own values and beliefs, which influenced the
way the group or the system tailored the rules
and distributed the division of labour.
‘It can be argued that the community values
and beliefs exhibit significant influences on
how the community designed its rules as well
as defined the division of labour, as John
(2009) proposed.’
3)‘ It could be particularly noticed that the
members of the three groups altered the
rules of prescribed task. Such alteration
negatively affected the degree of shared
object completion.
Of the three group, The Marginal Improvement Group
was significantly affected by the members’ task
altering hampering the successful task completion,
which in turn limited the members’ development in
learning.
1) Language learners are active learning
agents actively engaging in constructing
their own learning (Lantolf, 2001)
2) Learning occurs when learning agents
construct their learning with the help of
artefacts and within an activity system
(Engeström, 1987)
3) Learning does not occur separately from
the social context but is dependent on
social and individual processes in the
construction of knowledge (Vygotsky, 1978)
4) Therefore, the pedagogical intervention,
which combined group work with the CALLA
instructional model involving students using
listening strategies through meta-cognitive
process in the pre, while, and post-listening
steps of a learning task, positively affected
student improvement in listening
comprehension (Ngonkum, 2010).
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Y. (1987). Learning by expanding:
An activity-theoretical approach to
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work: Toward activity-theoretical
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and Work, 14(1), 133-156.
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consciousness'. In Philosophy in the USSR:
Problems of dialectical materialism (pp.
180-202). Moscow: Progress.
 Lantolf,
J. P. (2000b). 'Second and foreign
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 Lantolf, J. P., & Pavlenko, A. (2001).
(S)econd (L)anguage (A)ctivity theory:
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(Ed.), Learner contributions to Language
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