English 418
Second Language Acquisition
Session Twenty Three Notes
Goals/Objectives:
1) To gain an understanding of the various Social Constructivist/Interactionist Model approaches that have been proposed
2) To begin to understand the different conversational management techniques that humans use to communicate
3) To gain an understanding of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Questions/Main Ideas (Please Notes:
write these down as you think
 Social Constructivist/ Interactionist Models
of them)
 For researchers in both the Innatist and Cognitivist camps, the language experience of the
learner is viewed, on the one hand, as a source of “input” on which internal learning
mechanisms can get to work and, on the other hand, as an opportunity for testing
structural hypotheses through language “output.”
 Interactionist Models
 It is assumed that all learners can/must process this “input” in much the same way, with
differences in usability depending primarily on the current developmental stage at which
the individual learner may have arrived.
 Even Krashen assumes an essentially individual state, which teachers can influence only in
broad contextual terms.
 Interactionist Models
 In the early 1980s, Michael Long first advanced the argument that in order to understand
more fully the nature and usefulness of input to second language learning, greater attention
should be paid to the interactions in which learners were engaged
 Interactionist Models
 The interactions should be seen not only as a prime source of target language input, feeding
into the learner’s presumed internal acquisition device
 It was argued by Long and others that when learners engaged with their interlocutors in
negotiations around meaning, the nature of the input might be qualitatively changed
 Interactionist Models
 That is, the more the input was negotiated to increase its comprehensibility, the greater the
potential usefulness as input well-targeted to the particular developmental level and
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acquisitional needs of the individual learner
Interactionist Models
Long’s Interaction Hypothesis:
Basically an extension of Krashen’s Input Hypothesis
For his own doctoral research, Long conducted a study of sixteen NS-NS and sixteen NSNNS pairs
Interactionist Models
Subjects carried out the same set of face-to-face oral tasks (informal conversation, giving
instructions for games, playing the games, etc.)
He showed that there was little linguistic difference between the talk produced by NS-NS
and NS-NNS pairs, as shown on several measures of grammatical complexity
Interactionist Models
However, there were significant differences between the two sets of conversations, when
these were analyzed from the point of view of conversational management and language
functions performed
Specifically, in order to solve ongoing communication difficulties, the NS-NNS pairs were
much more likely to make use of conversational tactics
Interactionist Models
Examples:
Repetition – the native speaker repeats his or her sentence either partially or completely
“She got lost on her way home from school. She was walking home from school. She got
lost.”
Interactionist Models
Comprehension checks – efforts by the native speaker to ensure that the learner has
understood
“The bus leaves at 6:30. What time does the bus leave?”
Clarification requests – efforts by the learner to get the native speaker to clarify something
which has not been understood
“Could you repeat please?”
Interactionist Models
These requests in turn lead to further modification by the native speaker
NS apparently resorting to these tactics in order to solve communication problems, not with
any conscious motive to teach grammar
 The prime trigger for adjustment is the perception that the interlocutor is experiencing
comprehension problems
 Interactionist Models
 From the perspective of the Interactionist Hypothesis, such collaborative efforts should be
good for language learning
 As they struggle to maximize comprehension, and negotiate their way through trouble
spots, the NS-NNS partnership is incidentally fine-tuning the L2 input
 Interactionist Models
 Thus, they make it more relevant to ensure that the learner is receiving i + 1, rather that i +
3 or i + 0
 Interactionist Models
 Critique: Long himself points out that the studies that have so far been conducted have
mostly been undertaken in culturally homogenous settings (meaning western educational
institutions), so we still know little about the kinds of negotiation and repair which may
typify conversational interactions involving L2 learners in other contexts
 Still too much focus on grammatical aspects of language learning
 Interactionist Models
 Another Interactionist Perspective: Vygotsky
 A sociocultural theory of human mental processing
 Vygotsky’s theory assumes that all cognitive development, including language
development, arises as a result of social interactions between individuals
 Interactionist Models
 Vygotsky’s fundamental theoretical insight is that higher forms of human mental activity
are always, and everywhere, mediated by symbolic means
 From a Vygotskyan perspective, the prime symbolic tool available for the mediation of
mental activity is, of course, language
 Interactionist Models
 Through language, for example, we can direct our own attention (or that of others) to
significant features in the environment, formulate a plan, or articulate the steps to be taken
to solve a problem
 The mature, skilled individual is capable of autonomous functioning – that is, of selfregulation
 Interactionist Models
 However, the child or the unskilled individual learns by carrying out tasks and activities
under the guidance of other more skilled individuals, such as teachers or parents
 Initially, they do this through a process that Vygotsky calls other-regulation, which is
typically mediated through language
 Interactionist Models
 That is, the child or the learner is inducted into a shared consciousness through
collaborative talk, until eventually they take over – or appropriate – new knowledge or
skills into their own individual consciousness
 Successful learning involves a shift from inter-mental activity to intra-mental activity
 Interactionist Models
 The process of supportive dialogue which directs the attention of the learner to key features
of the environment, and which prompts them through successive steps of a problem, has
come to be known as scaffolding
 The domain where learning can most productively take place is named the Zone of
Proximal Development (ZPD)
 Interactionist Models
 This is the domain of knowledge or skill where the learner is not yet capable of independent
functioning, but can achieve the desired outcome given relevant scaffolded help
 Interactionist Models
 Vygotsky defines the ZPD as: the difference between the child’s development level as
determined by independent problem solving and the higher level of potential development
as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or collaboration with more
capable peers
 Interactionist Models
 The metaphor of scaffolding has been developed in neo-Vygotskyan discussions to capture
the qualities of the type of other-regulation within the ZPD which is supposedly most
facilitative of learning/appropriation of new concepts
 Interactionist Models
 According to Wood et al, scaffolded help as the following functions:
 - Recruiting interest in the task
 - Simplifying the task
 - maintaining pursuit of the goal
 - marking critical features and discrepancies between what has been produced and the ideal
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Summary/Minute Paper:
solution
Interactionist Models
- controlling frustration during problem solving
- demonstrating an idealized version of the act to be performed
Interactionist Models
Extending Vygotsky’s theory to second leanguage acquisition, Jim Lantolf and others claim
that second language larners advance to higher levels of linguistic knowledge when they
collaborate and interact with speakers of the second language who are more
knowledgeable than they are
For example, a teacher
Or a more advanced learner
Interactionist Models
This may be observed in a variety of speech strategies used by more advanced speakers to
create supportive conditions for the second language learner to comprehend and produce
language (repetition, simplification, modeling)
Interactionist Models
Once again, through this mediation, students are able to get the comprehensible input they
need to progress
More advanced speakers actually pull them into the zone that will give them
comprehensible input
Interactionist Models
Sociocultural theorists assume that language acquisition literally takes place in the
interactions of learner and interlocutor, whereas other models assume that input
modification provides learners with the linguistic raw material which they will process
internally and invisibly