Social learning theories:
Sociocultural theory
Week 3
Tonight
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Basics
Introduction to Sociocultural Theory
Discussion Leads
HW
Basics
• Name tags
• HW
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOCULTURAL
THEORY
Vygotsky
• Where does knowledge/learning come from?
Mediation
• Self-regulation
• Concept-based regulation
• Lantolf (2011), “It must be stressed that the
distinction is only analytical—in normal
activity the two aspects of mediation are
inseparable” (p. 27, emphasis added).
I and You conversation
• “… there is a close relationship between social
and psychological uses of language” (Lantolf,
2011, p. 25).
• What is he talking about here?
Nature and Nurture: But more nurture
• “… SCT holds that development orginates in
the integration of biologically endowed
abilities with culturally organized artifacts that
mediate thinking” (Lantolf, 2011, p. 26).
Genetic law of cultural development
• Vygotsky states:
– We can formulate the genetic law of cultural
development in the following way: any function
in the child's cultural development appears on
stage twice, on two planes. First it appears on
the social plane, then on the psychological, first
among people as an interpsychological category
and then within the child as an intra
psychological category.
ZPD
• What is it?
• Why, on p. 29, is with the learner, instead of
for the learner, so important?
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Scaffolding
Without your book, and discussing what you
know about the ZPD and SCT, put the following
scaffolding prompts in order.
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Teacher identifies correct answer
Teacher repeats the whole phrase questioningly
Teacher pauses
Teacher explains why
Teacher repeats the part of the sentence with the
error
– Teacher states generally that something is wrong with
the sentence
– Teacher asks an either/or question (e.g., Is it “an” or
“a”?)
– Teachers points out the incorrect word
Lantolf and Poehner (2001, p. 20)
Scientific Knowledge
• What is the difference between spontaneous
and scientific knowledge?
• How does this relate to declarative and
procedural knowledge?
Artificial knowledge?
• How does declarative vs. procedural
knowledge relate to SLA?
CBI
• What is it?
• How does it relate to SLA?
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CBI procedure
The first phase, explanation, must be based on scientific knowledge of the concept under
study. In my view, cognitive linguistics provides a potentially useful source of such knowledge
for language instruction (Lantolf, in press). This is because cognitive linguistics foregrounds
meaning and seeks to develop theoretical concepts that generalize across language domains.
A second reason I believe cognitive linguistics is compatible with SCT is its robust use of visual
models to depict linguistic concepts. This links the theory closely with Gal’perin’s (1970) first
two phases of instruction—explanation and materialization, with the latter concept being
based on the premise that the former alone is often problematic for learners. Thus, Gal’perin
argued that students tend to memorize explanations as rules rather than understanding
concepts well enough for them to inform and guide practical activity.
He therefore proposed the second phase—materialization—in which the concept is
represented visually as a model, graph, or other synthetic depiction. Gal’perin called the
materialization of a concept a schema for the orienting basis of action (SCOBA).
SCOBAs provide learners with resources that are then formulated as a plan of action in the
third, or communication, phase of instruction. In language instruction, communication can
involve a wide array of activities, ranging from tasks to scenarios (Di Pietro, 1987) to
literature-based conversations and writing activities (Yáñez-Prieto, 2008) to service learning
(Grabois, 2008), where language is used as a tool for accomplishing specific goals.
The fourth phase, verbalization, is the point at which learners use language (i.e., engage in
languaging—Swain, 2006) to both explain the concept to themselves and explain to
themselves how they use it in specific communicative activities.
In essence, this phase calls for production of speech in its psychological function with the
intention of giving rise to the final, or internalization phase of the developmental process.
DISCUSSION LEADS
Discussion Leads
• 15 mins max
• Will hold up sign with 4 minutes remaining.
• As listeners, you are trying to find links to the
ideas we have discussed so far. We will share
these links.
DL 1: Mediation
DL 2: Dunn and Lantolf
DL 3: McNeil
DL 4: Renshaw and Brown
Evaluating L2 activity from SCT
• If wanted to examine L2 activity from this
perspective, what questions would we ask?
Theory and practice
• Van Patten vs. Vygotsky
• Lewin
HW
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SITUATED LEARNING
Lave and Wenger (1991), Situated Learning
Discussion lead: Brown et al. (1989):
Discussion lead: Young & Miller (2004) :
Discussion lead: Collins, Brown, Holum
(1991):