processes as a consequence of internalizing what others say to them and what they say to others” (Lightbown & Spada, 2013, p. 118). Interactional and cognitive models have also placed a great deal of emphasis on the elevated role of native speakers and have portrayed non-native speakers to be their subordinates (Firth & Wagner, 1997, 2007). Sociocultural research, however, has rejected the notion that language learners are defi- cient communicators striving to reach the level of an idealized native speaker, but rather sees them as learners who succeed at communication by using every competency and strategy they have at their disposal (Firth & Wagner, 1997, 2007).8 A new attitude toward learners and what they do, rather than what they do not do, derives from the perspective of the learner as creatively managing language resources rather than struggling to find a strategy to compensate for a gap in knowledge.
You have seen how sociocultural theory provides the impetus for language teach- ers to develop a classroom setting in which learners collaborate with each other, receive scaffolded help from the teacher, work within their ZPDs, use mediational tools to make sense of the target language and progress in their language development, and creatively manage language resources they have at their disposal. Through a sociocultural approach to classroom instruction, teachers will become more familiar with the language levels of their students and consequently will be able to provide more effective support for their language development.
Interactional Competence
As seen in the previous section, sociocultural theory focuses on the social nature of language learning and development and the role of learners’ interaction in the class- room setting. Within this framework, as early as 1979, Mehan stressed the importance of “interactional competence” (see earlier definition), which includes the ability to manage discussions in relevant ways. Hall (1995) expanded on Krashen’s i + 1 concept by illus- trating that input is a necessary but insufficient condition for acquisition to occur; that is, input must also occur within meaningful contexts and be situated within real com- munication. Hall points out the significance of interactive practices, “recurring episodes of purposeful, goal-directed talk,” in the establishment and maintenance of a community (p. 38). Providing interactive classroom environments that help facilitate the development of learners’ interactional competence in the TL involves more than the use of simplified syntax, repetition, and clarification requests (Hall, p. 56). It involves initiating topics that students develop through a shared understanding of what the purpose of the interac- tion is, what counts as relevant topics, when the talk is oriented to them, how they are to engage in turn-taking to unfold the interaction, and what inferences they might make about the nature of subsequent talk in the interaction (Hall). Competent participation in these practices requires the development of interactional competence, as learners and teachers participate in “real” conversations. Characteristics of “real” conversational mod- els, as adapted from Hall, are:
● Opening utterances establish the topic and frame the rhetorical structure: “So, how was your vacation?”
● Ellipsis—that is, not repeating information that is already known—makes clear the distinction between new and old information. As the conversational exchange continues, already established information is generally not repeated. For example, in response to a question such as, “When do you leave for class today?” one might give the short answer, “Ten o’clock,” rather than the complete sentence, “I leave for class today at ten o’clock.”
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