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In the initial sociocultural theory (SCT) timeline, Lantolf and Beckett (2009) surveyed a broad spectrum of research informed by sociocultural psychology as it was extended into the field of second language acquisition and language teaching. Since that time, the amount of research that has been published within the SCT framework has grown exponentially. With regard to the educational setting, two major strands of research have emerged; one that addresses pedagogical practice and the other that deals with assessment. The assessment strand, Dynamic Assessment, adheres to principles that emerge from the SCT concept of the Zone of Proximal Development and is the topic of a separate timeline (see Poehner & Wang, forthcoming). The pedagogical strand, the topic of the present article, is generally referred to as Concept-based Language Instruction (C-BLI), although in some publications the rubric Concept-based Instruction (CBI) is used. Unfortunately, the abbreviation of the alternative rubric has on more than one occasion been confused with content-based instruction, also abbreviated as CBI. We would like to suggest here that it would be better if SCT researchers were to adopt C-BLI to avoid misinterpretations going forward.

This study argues for the relevance of a model of social interaction referred to as “motivationaldialogue” as proposed by Patyayeva (2012) grounded in the concept of dialogue as proposed by L.S. Vygotsky and M. Bakhtin. The model accounts for two types of motivational dialogue: that whichunfolds in social environments between two or more individuals and that which unfolds internally asprivate or inner speech. In the extension of Patyayeva’s model to L2 teaching and learning situations,as proposed in the present study, two critical concepts of Vygotsky’s theory are also brought intoconsideration: perezhivanie (the dialectical interaction between emotion and intellect) and thesocial situation of development (how a particular context is refracted through the personality of anindividual who participates in that context. Two examples from the published literature (Matusov2011) and Lantolf and Genung (2002) are used to illustrate how motivational dialogue might operatein educational settings. The study concludes with several recommendations for how future researchmight be carried out in L2 settings.

The present paper outlines a theoretical framework for the application of dynamic assessment procedures to second language assessment and pedagogy. Dynamic assessment (DA) is grounded in Vygotsky’s writings on the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and has been widely researched in psychology and education. DA distinguishes itself from other approaches to assessment by insisting that mediation of the examinee’s performance prompts, hints, leading questions etc. – during the assessment procedure is crucial to understanding his/her abilities and for promoting development during the assessment process itself. In this paper, the major approaches to DA are reviewed and some key studies are reported on. The few language-acquisition DA studies that have been carried out to date are then considered. Th e paper concludes with a discussion of some of the criticisms leveled against DA and recommendations for further research into DA’s potential contributions to applied linguistics.

L. S. Vygotsky proposed that human consciousness entails the dialectical interaction between memory, attention, perception, emotion and motivation, imagination, and rational thought, organized in large part through language, or more appropriately, communicative meaning-making activity. The development of consciousness occurs more or less spontaneously (i.e., unplanned) in everyday life activity and in more systematically organized and intentionally planned educational activity. An important component of the developmental process is the conceptual knowledge that cultures make available to their through various types of social relations. In everyday life, this knowledge is largely empirically based, while in formally organized educational development conceptual knowledge is highly systematic and much more readily recontextualizable than is everyday knowledge. Academic concepts are derived from rigorous research and as such reveal processes and components of material reality that are otherwise hidden from direct empirical observation by our senses. The responsibility of presenting and explaining academic concepts to students in educational activity is carried out by specially prepared individuals—teachers—who engage students in intentionally planned and (hopefully) rigorous interactions, mediated largely, though not exclusively, through language. According to the pedagogical imperative, as it relates to instruction in world languages, relevant high quality theoretical and conceptual knowledge must be made pedagogically viable; that is, understandable to both teachers and learners and it must be useable by learners to mediate their generation of meaning in practical communicative activities. The knowledge must be presented in a memorable way, usually in a holistic visual representation rather than traditional verbally based rules of thumb and learners must be guided through appropriate prompts, clues, and hints provided primarily by teachers, but at times also by peers, to internalize this knowledge so that it becomes functional in communicative practices. Finally, recognition must be given to the fact that development of any kind, including that provoked by educational practice, must not only take account of the participants (students and teachers) intellect, it must also profoundly consider the emotional aspects of the educational process as teachers and learners engage in the dialectic process captured by Vygotsky in the Russian term, obuchenie, or teaching–learning, whereby teachers and learners engage in a process of mutual mediation.

This article considers the pedagogical research informed by the writings of L. S. Vygotsky concerned with the teaching and learning of languages beyond the first (L2). Following a brief overview of developments in the application of Vygotskian theory to explicating processes of L2 development in instructional settings, we consider more recent scholarship that has employed the theory as a principled basis for reconceptualizing L2 education. Three lines of research are brought into focus: Concept-Based Instruction (CBI), Dynamic Assessment (DA), and a Vygotskian approach to the preparation of L2 teachers. This work follows the distinctions that have been proposed between, on the one hand, cognitive and meta-cognitive mediation (Karpov & Haywood, 1998), and on the other hand symbolic and human mediation (Kozulin, 2003), and brings these together in a coherent manner to support learner L2 development. Specifically, cognitive mediation through symbolic means centers on the importance of high-quality conceptual knowledge relating to the object of educative activity (e.g., vocabulary, grammar, reading, and writing), while meta-cognitive mediation through human interaction stresses the quality of cooperative engagement among teachers and students. Cognitive mediation is brought to the fore in L2 CBI work, which has been strongly influenced by the teaching–learning experiments conceived by Piotr Gal'perin (1967) in his efforts to uncover processes involved in internalization (see Talyzina, 1981). Beginning with Negueruela's (2003) longitudinal L2 CBI project, this framework has attracted considerable attention among L2 researchers and has led to numerous projects involving a range of different languages. We give particular attention to uses of CBI concerned with pragmatics of language use (e.g., van Compernolle, 2014)as this work involves the integration of features of language during communicative activity. The meta-cognitive component of language instruction is emphasized in DA as a tester/teacher (or mediator) engages cooperatively with learners when they encounter tasks beyond their independent ability. DA draws specifically on the Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978), according to which the quality of support learners require to identify and overcome problems indicates the extent of their emerging capabilities. Thus, DA offers a diagnosis of the full range of development, including abilities that have fully formed and those that are just “ripening” (Vygotsky, 1986). Early research on L2 DA examined dialogic mediation during dyadic interaction (Poehner, 2007, 2008). Subsequent work has extended L2 DA to group and whole-class formats (Poehner, 2009; van Compernolle & Williams, 2012) as well as computerized testing (Leontjev, 2016). Finally, we turn to the preparation of L2 teachers, where significant advances are being made that build upon both cognitive and meta-cognitive mediation to reorient (student) teachers to teaching–learning activity by beginning with their existing knowledge and experiences and moving beyond them through the introduction of theoretical concepts and principles of developmental education (Esteve, 2018; Johnson & Golombek, 2016).

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is a widely recognized construct articulated by L. S. Vygotsky, whose scholarship inspires the approach to L2 research known as Sociocultural Theory (SCT). In a synthesis of North American L2 ZPD work, Kinginger (2002) outlined how the construct had been appropriated, focusing on three interpretations then permeating the field: skill mastery, scaffolding, and metalinguistic knowledge. Kellogg (2017) has argued that L2 research in general consistently misuses the ZPD construct and distorts its original meaning. Citing The Problem of Age (Vygotsky 1998), Kellogg claims that the ZPD was intended to model ontogenetic development from birth to around age 17. Consequently, for Kellogg, L2 research commits three fundamental errors: (i) recruiting adult learners (often undergraduate university students) rather...

This article reports on a pedagogical project aimed at helping second language (L2) learners of English develop the ability to detect and appropriately interpret spoken sarcasm. The study used a pre- and posttest procedure to assess the development of learners’ ability to both detect sarcasm and impute appropriate speaker intentions and attitudes conveyed through sarcastic utterances as result of a 10-week instructional program. The study also used interviews to gauge changes in learners’ conceptual understanding of English sarcasm. Beyond improving learners’ ability in the L2, a side effect of the project was that learners reported an enhanced awareness of the use and functions of sarcasm in their first language (L1), Korean.

We respond here to Pienemann's critique of our study that appeared earlier this year in the Language Learning Special Issue entitled “Orders and Sequences in the Acquisition of L2 Morphosyntax, 40 Years On” and guest edited by Jan Hulstijn, Rod Ellis, and Soren Eskildsen. Pienemann objected to our claim that the Teachability Hypothesis is a corollary of general Processability Theory; to our use of elicited imitation, one of the three tasks in our study, because only spontaneous speech can generate data that are relevant for assessing the predictions of Processability Theory and Teachability Hypothesis; and to our alleged departure from the requirements of Processability Theory with regard to what counts as evidence of a stage having been attained or not. We also address the issue of the relationship between morphological and syntactic development raised by Lenzing.

The current study was designed to assess the central claim of the Teachability Hypothesis (TH), a corollary of general Processability Theory (PT), which predicts instruction cannot alter posited universal, hierarchically organized psycholinguistic constraints behind PT's developmental sequences. We employed an interventional design, which adhered to instructional procedures of Systemic Theoretical Instruction, and we taught four university learners at Stage 2 (subject-verb-object) Chinese topicalization for Stage 4 (object-first, e.g., Pizza tā yě chī le, Pizza 他 也 吃了, ‘Pizza he also ate’). We believe the findings show that, under the instructional conditions utilized in the study, the predictions of TH do not hold. We conclude it is possible to artificially construct a developmental route different from the one predicted by natural developmental sequences, in agreement with the claims of Vygotsky's developmental education.

One of the difficult problems for language learners to master in English is verb+noun collocations, particularly with regard to verbs such as make and do. Using the educational framework informed by sociocultural psychology referred to as systemic theoretical instruction (STI), this chapter describes one aspect of a larger classroom study carried out in a Taiwanese college which addressed particularly problematic verb+noun collocations. This chapter deals with two of the five verbs addressed in the study: make and do. Instruction consisted of two major components: one focused on the meanings of the relevant collocations as derived from cognitive linguistic research; the other, involved students verbally and visually explaining their understandings of the meanings of the verb+noun collocations as a way of internalizing the appropriate meanings, as called for in STI. Student development is traced through their verbalizations and schematic drawings of the meanings of the verb+noun collocations.

Packer pointed out that when Vygotsky's works first appeared in English, cultural-historical psychologists observed a connection with Marx's analysis of capitalist society; however, before long, extensive mention of Marx's influence disappeared from their scholarship. In what follows, the author addresses specific features of Vygotsky's general methodological framework grounded in Marx's analytical approach and implications of this framework for how Vygotsky conceived of concrete research procedures and what counted as scientific explanation. Vygotsky recognized that crisis in psychology constituted two interrelated problems-one ontological and the other epistemological. Marx argued that "reality may be in one piece when lived, but to be thought about and communicated it must be parceled out". Modern psychology, along with AL, highly values quantification as the sine qua non of scientific research. While qualitative research has attained a modicum of cachet, it is still seen as narrow, anecdotal, and lacking in generalizability. Hence, the gold standard of AL research is controlled quantitative experimental research that seeks generalizability.

For some, research in learning and teaching of a second language (L2) runs the risk of disintegrating into irreconcilable approaches to L2 learning and use. On the one side, we find researchers investigating linguistic-cognitive issues, often using quantitative research methods including inferential statistics; on the other side, we find researchers working on the basis of sociocultural or sociocognitive views, often using qualitative research methods including case studies and ethnography. Is there a gap in research in L2 learning and teaching? The present article developed from an invited colloquium at the 2013 meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics in Dallas, Texas. It comprises nine single-authored pieces, with an introduction and a conclusion by the coeditors. Our overarching goals are (a) to raise awareness of the limitations of addressing only the cognitive or only the social in research on L2 learning and teaching and (b) to explore ways of bridging and/or productively appreciating the cognitive-social gap in research. Collectively, the nine contributions advance the possibility that the approaches are not irreconcilable and that, in fact, cognitive researchers and social researchers will benefit by acknowledging insights and methods from one another.

In this article we argue that figurative language, specifically realized as metaphor, must become an essential aspect of any pedagogical program. The ability to understand and produce appropriate metaphors in a second language can no longer remain on the margins of linguistic proficiency; on the contrary, without such ability a speaker cannot effectively express him or herself or comprehend fully what a native interlocutor may be intending to communicate. That is, to genuinely achieve an advanced level of proficiency it is necessary that a speaker develop a metaphorical capacity in the second language. We begin the article with a discussion of the theory of metaphor proposed by Lakoff and his colleagues. We explain the principal concepts of the theory that we believe to be relevant to second-language pedagogy. We then present some examples of materials from a pedagogical program that we have developed to teach metaphors that commu-nicate emotions and that use colors, animals and sports as source domains. ...

Dynamic Assessment (DA) derives from Vygotsky’s (1987) insight that the use of mediation, attuned to learner needs, enables learners to perform beyond their current level of functioning, thereby providing insights into emerging capabilities. The instructional quality of mediation means that this process simultaneously creates possibilities for development, even over the course of a single session, a phenomenon referred to as ‘microgenesis’ (Wertsch, 1985). An important feature of DA is transfer, or transcendence: the process of tracking learner development as it unfolds not only with regard to control of tasks included in an assessment but also more complex and difficult tasks that build on those included in the original instrument (Campione, Brown, Ferrera, & Bryant, 1984; Feuerstein, Rand, & Hoffman, 1979; Poehner, 2007). The present study reports on the use of DA principles in tests of second language (L2) listening and reading comprehension delivered through an online format. The tests, which incorporate mediation, include transfer items to determine the extent to which learner development is supported during the test. This process generates three scores: actual (to capture unmediated performance); mediated (reflecting responsiveness to assistance provided on each test item); and a learning potential score (based on gain between actual and mediated performance) that indicates how much investment in future instructional activity is likely required for development to move forward.

This paper considers dynamic assessment (DA) as it relates to second language (L2) development. DA is grounded in Vygotsky's (1987) sociocultural theory of mind, which holds that human consciousness emerges as a result of participation in culturally organized social activities where mediation plays a key role in guiding development. In DA, the evidential basis for diagnosing and promoting development includes independent as well as mediated performance. Unlike in conventional testing, objectivity derives not from standardization, which treats everyone in precisely the same manner; rather, objectivity is argued on the grounds that mediation is guided by a viable theory of mind. Fairness in assessment is thus reframed with the understanding that the quality of support offered may vary across individuals. The paper illustrates how this transpires in the case of classroom-based and formal testing applications of DA with L2 learners.

This study examined whether consciousness-raising (C-R) in synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) fosters grammatical development; specifically, development of por/para and ser/estar . In order to determine the efficacy of C-R in SCMC, two groups were analyzed; one group was designated as form-and-meaning focused while the other was meaning-focused. Each group engaged in weekly chats and addressed the same discussion topics. Three pre- and post-tests (Elicited Imitation/Sentence Repetition Testing, Grammaticality Preferences Component, and oral examinations) were administered. It was determined that: (1) there were statistically significant differences on the outcomes of the EI/SRT and GPC post-tests in favor of the FFMF group, (2) the FFMF group produced greater quantities and more accurate quantities of language, (3) the FFMF group demonstrated higher levels of syntactic maturity with statistically significant results, did not employ a default form of the copular verb, and actively engaged in corrective feedback strategies, (4) the FFMF and MF groups performed equally well, statistically, on both the post-test orals and in terms of semantic range but the social dynamic that surfaced in each group were distinct, (5) the MF group did not ignore form but employed ser as a default, (6) the instructor exercised the same feedback practices for both groups. It was concluded that C-R on por/para, ser/estar in SCMC most likely fostered the development of those grammatical features to a greater degree than in chat without specific instructions to focus on form. When held responsible for its own C-R in SCMC, consciousness was raised for the FFMF group but students were unable to limit the scope of their focus to por/para, ser/estar alone. Overt evidence reveals that they did focus on ser/estar but there is no such evidence for por/para. However, the global approach to C-R assumed by the FFMF positively impacted development, por/para included. In terms of the MF group, it is concluded that the lack of focusing on por/para, ser/estar did not impede upon development, and that unintentional focus on form was insufficient to facilitate growth to the same degree as deliberate focus, although the MF participants demonstrated awareness to form in SCMC.

This paper examines multimodal conceptual metaphors in a corpus of 32 American and Ukrainian beer commercials. The dominant metaphor in both cultures is HAPPINESS IS DRINKING BEER, with a secondary metaphor BEER IS A PERSON. The Ukrainian commercials exhibit a third metaphor that appears in a very subtle way in the American commercials: LOVE FOR THE MOTHERLAND IS DRINKING BEER. The analysis reveals cross-cultural variation in the mappings and entailments of the metaphors. We argue that this variation is not just a matter of divergent advertising strategies but is a manifestation of differences in the conceptual understandings of happiness, beer drinking, friendship, and patriotism in both cultures. Este estudio investiga las metaforas conceptuales multimodales en un corpus de treinta y dos anuncios publicitarios de cerveza estadounidenses y ucranianas. La metafora principal en ambas culturas es LA FELICIDAD ES TOMAR CERVEZA, y una metafora secundaria es LA CERVEZA ES UNA PERSONA. Los comerciales ucranianos manifiestan una tercera metafora que aparece de una manera sutil en los comerciales estadounidenses: EL AMOR A LA PATRIA ES TOMAR CERVEZA. El analisis revela una variacion transcultural en las proyecciones e inferencias de las metaforas. Proponemos que esta variacion no solo se debe a estrategias de publicidad divergentes, sino que revela diferencias en la comprension conceptual de la felicidad, tomar cerveza, la amistad y el patriotismo entre las dos culturas.

This paper presents and discusses quantitative recall data from a longitudinal study that investigated the effects of Dynamic Assessment (DA) on diagnosing and promoting listening comprehension in ...

This article reports the efforts of an elementary school teacher of Spanish as a second language to implement principles of dynamic assessment (DA) in her daily interactions with learners. DA is neither an assessment instrument nor a method of assessing but a framework for conceptualizing teaching and assessment as an integrated activity of understanding learner abilities by actively supporting their development (Poehner, 2008). DA is based on Vygotsky’s (1987) proposal of the zone of proximal development (ZPD), which underscores the developmental importance of providing appropriate support to learners to help them stretch beyond their independent performance. The particular approach to DA that the teacher followed reflected her interpretation of the ZPD as well as her knowledge of her instructional context and was arrived at through consultation with the present authors. In other words, her use of DA represents a unification of theory and practice, as advocated by Vygotsky, whereby theory offers a basis to guide practice but at the same time practice functions to refine and extend theory. Examples of the teacher’s interactions with learners in her classroom are discussed with regard to the opportunities for development they create.

This article concerns a particular application of Vygotsky's concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) wherein conventional assessment situations are reorganized to allow for cooperation between assessor and learner as they jointly complete assessment tasks and work through difficulties that arise. This approach, known as Dynamic Assessment (DA), a term coined by Luria (1961), derives from Vygotsky's own work in the area of “defectology” and aims to reveal abilities that have fully developed as well as those that are still forming. Several models of DA have been developed and pursued in countries around the world, primarily in contexts of intelligence and abilities testing and in work with learners with special needs (Haywood & Lidz, 2007). We argue that DA in fact has profound implications not only for formal testing but for educational practice more generally, and for language education in particular, given that it posits a dialectical relation between instruction and assessment. Specifically, j...

Second language acquisition (SLA) research informed by sociocultural theory (henceforth, SCT) began in earnest with the publication of Frawley & Lantolf's (1985) article on L2 (second language) discourse (described in the timeline proper). Since then, well over 300 journal articles, book chapters and doctoral dissertations have appeared in the research literature. Although the term ‘sociocultural’ is often applied to a wide array of approaches to research that seeks to understand what it means to be a human being, in the present timeline, we restrict its interpretation to refer to the specific theory of psychological development proposed by Vygotsky (1986). Other approaches that have appropriated the term, such as those emanating from the writings of Bakhtin (1981), while compatible in many respects with Vygotskian theory, have a different focus and are not strictly speaking psychological or psycholinguistic theories. To be sure, Vygotsky rarely used the term ‘sociocultural’, preferring instead ‘cultural psychology’ or ‘cultural-historical psychology’ to refer to his theory. Wertsch (1985) is generally credited with having coined the term ‘sociocultural’ as a way of capturing the notion that human mental functioning results from participation in, and appropriation of, the forms of cultural mediation integrated into social activities.

This presentation is situated within the general framework of Vygotsky's educational theory, which argues that development in formal educational activity is a fundamentally different process from development that occurs in the everyday world. A cornerstone of Vygotsky's theory is that to be successful education must be sensitive to learners' zone of proximal development. This requires the dialectical integration of instruction and assessment into a seamless and dynamic activity. The presentation includes a discussion of how the integration is systematically achieved in the process known as dynamic assessment and illustrates through analysis of data from advanced learners of French how this functions in second language education.

In this article, we extend Firth and Wagner's (1997) call for an ontological perspective that (re)unites the individual and the social by proposing some fundamental implications that this call has for second language (L2) classroom praxis and teacher education. We propose that the (re)unification of language and culture (re)establishes the unity between people and language, and thus reorients the focus of language instruction to feature centrally how meaning is situated in concrete human activity rather than in the language itself. From this stance, the goal of L2 classroom praxis is for learners to develop a conceptual understanding of how meaning gets expressed through the L2 in concrete everyday activity, and to build their capacity to make choices about how to function in and potentially alter that activity to suit their needs and goals. To make our proposal concrete, we draw on two classroom case studies: on verbal aspect in Spanish and learning to read L2 literature, as illustrations of conceptualizing learning and use as dialectically intertwined. We also focus on how foregrounding the meaning that results from the reintegration of language and culture reorients both L2 classroom praxis and how L2 teachers come to think about language, language learning, and language teaching.

The focus of this paper is on the implementation of Dynamic Assessment (henceforth, DA) in the L2 classroom setting. DA is an approach to assessment and instruction derived from Vygotsky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal Development (henceforth, ZPD). In what follows, we will first discuss briefly the concept of the ZPD and its realization in DA procedures; next we will briefly discuss the work of Reuven Feuerstein, whose work on DA is most directly relevant to the goal of the present article (for a discussion of other models of DA, see Lantolf and Poehner, 2004; Sternberg and Grigorenko, 2002); finally, we will compare DA to Formative Assessment (henceforth, FA) and will suggest how FA might be reconceptualized according to DA principles. In the language testing literature, FA is usually contrasted with Summative Assessment on the grounds that the former is intended to feed back into the teaching and learning process while the latter reports on the outcomes of learning (Bachman, 1990: 60-61). Moreover, FA procedures are generally considered to be less systematic and not as high-stakes as summative assessments. Following Rea-Dickins and Gardner (2000), however, we suggest that FA is not necessarily low-stakes and that it can be carried out quite systematically, yielding results that may be more systematic and revealing with regard to learner development than summative assessments.

This article examines Slobin's concept of thinking for speaking (TFS) in the gesture/speech interface of advanced L2 speakers of English and Spanish. The focus is on the use of motion verbs in the respective languages. English, a satellite-framed language, encodes manner of motion in the verb and indicates path of motion on satellite phrases (e.g. The frog leaped out of the boy's pocket). Spanish, a verb-framed language, encodes path, and only rarely manner of motion, in the verb. If manner is encoded at all, it is done either through lexical phrases (e.g. Tarzan salto de liana a liana‘Tarzan jumped from vine to vine’) or gesture. Using McNeill's notion of growth point, the study suggests that L2 speakers, even at advanced levels, have difficulties manifesting L2 TFS patterns and continue to rely on the patterns internalized in their L1. Shifting from an L1 to an L2 TFS is particularly vexing for the L1 English speakers, because their L1 is richly endowed with manner verbs, while Spanish, their L2, is not. Spanish L1 speakers in L2 English, on the other hand, can rely on the English equivalents of basic manner verbs in Spanish. The analysis also suggests the need for reconsidering how manner verbs are categorized.