Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning.pdf

8 Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning In this chapter I describe and discuss some of the most important research studies that investigated the application of Vygotsky’s SCT to second language acquisition. This chapter is divided into four sections. Each pre- sents studies that focused on one particular principle of SCT such as the zone of proximal development (ZPD), the role of interaction, activity theory, and private and inner speech. Most of the studies discussed in this chapter are included in Lantolf and Appel (1998) and Lantolf (2000). At this point, I would like to express my appreciation for the work of Lantolf, who has been one of the strongest advocates of the application of sociocultural theory to SLA. He has been truly a voice calling in the wilderness when the mainstream SLA research community was mainly preoccupied with building information processing models. My own work and the work of other researchers owes a great deal to his pioneering e√orts to introduce SCT to the field of SLA. The Zone of Proximal Development In ‘‘Collective Sca√olding in Second Language Learning,’’ Richard Do- nato (1998) addresses the role of collective sca√olding in the acquisition of French. The findings of his study reveal that, contrary to the accepted view of sca√olded help, in which help is provided by a more capable individual 129 130 A Dialogical Approach to SLA such as an expert, parent, or an adult native speaker, learners at the same level of second or foreign language proficiency appear quite capable of pro- viding guided support to one another. His findings reveal that learners them- selves could be considered a good source of L2 knowledge. Collectively con- structed support (sca√