Reexamining motive in L2 oral proficiency development: An activity theory perspective
Issue: Vol 2 No. 1 (2015)
Journal: Language and Sociocultural Theory
Subject Areas: Writing and Composition Linguistics
Abstract:
This article investigates the construction and transformation of motive in L2 oral proficiency development. Taking a longitudinal, genetic and case study approach, this study followed a Chinese EFL undergraduate throughout the second semester of her first college year in the class of English Public Speaking. Sources of data include interviews, audio tape recordings of oral data in and out of the classroom, and weekly reflective journals. The study examines the learner's developmental process as constructed by the changing motive, on the one hand, and the learner's motive as shaped by forces of learner history, the mediated learning process, and the institutional context in which the learning was situated, on the other. When development occurred, the learner demonstrated a shift in motive, changes in the quality of independent speech as well as the amount and quality of mediation provided to her partner in collaborative dialogues, and a higher level of self-regulation. The article concludes by discussing its contribution to the ongoing research on learner motive as a socially-mediated construct by showing the mutually constitutive, co-evolving relationship among learner motive, the mediated learning process, and L2 development.
Author: Lu Yu
References :
Cole, M. (1995). Socio-cultural-historical psychology: Some general remarks and a proposal for a new kind of cultural-genetic methodology. In J. V. Wertsch, P. Rio and A. Alvarez (Eds), Sociocultural Studies of Mind, 187–214. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Coughlan, P. and Duff, P. A. (1994). Same task, different activities: Analysis of a SLA task from an Activity Theory perspective. In J. P. Lantolf and G. Appel (Eds), Vygotskian Approaches to Second Language Research, 173–193. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Donato, R. (2000). Sociocultural contributions to understanding the foreign and second language classroom. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by Expanding: An Activity Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit.
Engeström, Y. (1999). Activity theory and individual and social transformation. In Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen and R. L. Punamäki (Eds), Perspectives on Activity Theory, 19–38. New York: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511812774.003
Engeström, Y. (2001). Expansive learning at work: Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization. Journal of Education and Work 14 (1): 133–156. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639080020028747
Firth, A. and Wagner, J. (1997). On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. The Modern Language Journal 81 (3): 285–300. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1997.tb05480.x
Gillette, B. (1994). The role of learner goals in L2 success. In J. P. Lantolf and G. Appel (Eds), Vygotskian Approaches to Second Language Research, 195–213. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Guerrero, M. C. M. de, and Villamil, O. S. (2000). Activating the ZPD: Mutual scaffolding in L2 peer revision. The Modern Language Journal 84 (1): 51–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0026-7902.00052
Hu, W. Z. and Sun, Y. Z. (2006). Strengthening humanistic education in the English language curriculum. Foreign Language Teaching and Research 38 (5): 243–247.
Jin, L. M. (2010). Transforming the English curriculum for humanistic education. Foreign Language Teaching and Research 42 (3): 176–183.
Johnson, K. E. and Golombek, P. R. (2011). The transformative power of narrative in second language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly 45 (3): 486–509. http://dx.doi.org/10.5054/tq.2011.256797
Lantolf, J. P. (2007). Sociocultural theory: A unified approach to L2 learning and teaching. In J. Cummins and C. Davison (Eds), International Handbook of English Language Teaching, vol. 2, 693–700. New York: Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-46301-8_45
Lantolf, J. P. and Genung, P. B. (2002). ‘I’d rather switch than fight’: An activity-theoretic study of power, success, and failure in a foreign language classroom. In C. Kramsch (Ed.), Language Acquisition and Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives, 175–196. London: Continuum.
Lantolf, J. P. and Pavlenko, A. (2001). (S)econd (L)anguage (A)ctivity theory: Understanding second language learners as people. In M. P. Breen (Ed.), Learner Contributions to Language Learning: New Directions in Research, 141–158. London: Longman.
Lantolf, J. P. and Thorne. S. L. (2006). Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Leont’ev, A. N. (1978). Activity, Consciousness and Personality. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Leont’ev, A. N. (1981). The problem of activity in Soviet psychology. In J. V. Wertsch (Ed.), The Concept of Activity in Soviet Psychology, 37–71. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Lucas, S. E. (2007). The Art of Public Speaking. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative Research and Case Study Application in Education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Newman, F. and Holzman, L. (1993). Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary Scientist. London: Routledge.
Ohta, A. S. (2001). Second Language Acquisition Processes in the Classroom: Learning Japanese. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Parks, S. (2000). Same task, different activities: Issues of investment, identity and use of strategy. TESL Canada Journal 17 (2): 64–88.
Reichert, T. and Liebscher, G. (2012). Positioning the expert: Word searches, expertise, and learning opportunities in peer interaction. The Modern Language Journal 96 (4): 599–609. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2012.01397.x
Roebuck, R. (2000). Subjects speak out: How learners position themselves in a psycholinguistic task. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, 79–95. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stetsenko, A. (2005). Activity as object-related: Resolving the dichotomy of individual and collective planes of activity. Mind, Culture, and Activity 12 (1): 70–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327884mca1201_6
Stetsenko, A. (2010). Standing on the shoulders of giants: A balancing act of dialectically theorizing conceptual understanding on the grounds of Vygotsk’s project. In W. M. Roth (Ed.), Re/Structuring Science Education: Reuniting Sociological and Psychological Perspectives, 69–88. London: Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3996-5_6
Stetsenko, A. and Arievitch, I. M. (2004). The self in cultural-historical activity theory: Reclaiming the unity of social and individual dimensions of human development. Theory & Psychology 14 (4): 475–503. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959354304044921
Storch, N. (2002). Patterns of interaction in ESL pair work. Language Learning 52 (1): 119–158. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9922.00179
Storch, N. (2004). Using activity theory to explain differences in patterns of dyadic interactions in an ESL class. The Canadian Modern Language Review 60 (4): 457–480. http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.60.4.457
Swain, M. (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, 97–114. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Swain, M. (2006). Languaging, agency and collaboration in advanced second language proficiency. In H. Byrnes (Ed.), Advanced Language Learning: The Contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky. 95–108. London: Continuum.
Swain, M., Kinnear, P. and Steinman, L. (2011). Sociocultural Theory in Second Language Education: An Introduction Through Narratives. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Swain, M. and Lapkin, S. (1998). Interaction and second language learning: Two adolescent French immersion students working together. The Modern Language Journal 82 (3): 320–337. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1998.tb01209.x
Swain, M., Lapkin, S., Knouzi, I., Suzuki, W. and Brooks, L. (2009). Languaging: University students learn the grammatical concept of voice in French. The Modern Language Journal 93 (1): 5–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00825.x
Swain, M. and Watanabe, Y. (2013). Languaging: Collaborative dialogue as a source of second language learning. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, 3218–3225. Wiley-Blackwell.
Thorne, S. L. (2005). Epistemology, politics, and ethics in sociocultural theory. The Modern Language Journal 89 (3): 393–409. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2005.00313.x
Thorne, S. L. and Lantolf, J. P. (2007). A linguistics of communicative activity. In S. Makoni and A. Pennycook (Eds), Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages, 170–195. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky, Volume 1. Problems of General Psychology. New York: Plenum.
Wen, Q. F. and Zhou, Y. (2006). Cognitive development of undergraduates in college and university foreign language departments. Foreign Language Research 5: 76–80.
Wertsch, J. V. (1981). The concept of activity in Soviet psychology: An introduction. In J. V. Wertsch (Ed.), The Concept of Activity in Soviet Psychology. 3–36. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Yin, R. K. (2003). Case Study Research: Design and Methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Yu, S. and Lee, I. (2014). Understanding EFL students’ participation in group peer feedback of L2 writing: A case study from an activity theory perspective. Language Teaching Research. Published July 30, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1362168813541713
Zhang, L. X. (2006). Teaching English in China: Language, literature, culture, and social implications. Foreign Language Teaching and Research 38 (5): 248–253.
Zhu, W. and Mitchell, D. A. (2012). Participation in peer response as activity: An examination of peer response stances from an activity theory perspective. TESOL Quarterly 46 (2): 362–386. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tesq.22