Limitations of Social Interaction in Second Language Acquisition: Learners’ Inaudible Voices and Mediation in the Zone of Proximal Development

Abstract

This chapter considers the oral and literacy skills development of language learners via analysis of interviews about the zone of proximal development (ZPD), and how this construct relates to language-learning experiences. This study is grounded in a sociocultural approach to L2 learning, where learning is defined as a process by which the L2 becomes a tool for the mind and for social interaction. Researchers may access learning processes by observing changes in participation, regulation patterns, how learners use mediational tools and access (or not) various supportive resources, or, as in this chapter, through self-report. Data analysis from a sociocultural perspective provides a holistic view of human development that considers cognition, social interaction, interactive settings and learner histories from an integrated perspective (Lantolf and Thorne 2006; van Lier 2004). Here, learning in the ZPD is examined via the perspectives of 17 learners of Asian languages who were interviewed regarding the ZPD and how it applies (or does not apply) to their own language learning. In this chapter, learning in the ZPD is defined as progress in L2 use in other contexts, with the understanding that growing independence retains a stamp of the learning processes through which it developed. This chapter focuses on three limitations of social interaction for language learning that were reported by interviewees, considering how learners overcame these limitations.KeywordsSocial InteractionProximal DevelopmentChinese TeacherAsian LanguageLearner HistoryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.