Cover not available
Part of
Learning Language through Task Repetition
Edited by Martin Bygate
[Task-Based Language Teaching 11] 2018
► pp. 255–278

Chapter 10
Mediating input-based tasks for beginner learners through task repetition

A sociocultural perspective

| Kobe Gakuin University
This chapter examines task repetition from a sociocultural perspective. I will report a study examining how the dynamics of teacher-student interaction change when the same task is repeated over time. I draw on sociocultural theory by viewing task repetition as one way of dynamically mediating learners’ participation in an input-based task. The task was a listen-and-do task consisting of a simple procedure – the teacher’s commands followed by students’ action – with no requirement that the learners speak in the L2 (English). The same task was repeated nine times over five weeks. The participants were a group of six children, aged six, who had no L2 knowledge or experience of formal language learning. The lessons were audio- and video-recorded. The transcribed interactions and the video-data were analysed in detail to explore how the teacher’s scaffolding changed over time and how the students shifted from other-regulation to self-regulation. The analysis showed that the teacher employed two different approaches: mediating the task commands in the early lessons to assist the students’ comprehension and then pushing learners towards self-regulation in later lessons by reducing the level of support. The teacher’s actions led to co-construction and enabled the students to move from other-regulation to self-regulation in both comprehending key items in the input and voluntarily producing them. Overall, the study shows how the nature of ‘activity’ changed as the task-as-workplan was repeated over time.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Language development in sociocultural theory
    • Regulation and internalization
    • Zone of proximal development (ZPD)
    • Activity theory
    • The study
    • Participants
    • Teaching materials and procedures
    • Data analysis
    • Findings
    • Mediating the learners’ completion of the task
      • Teacher’s action 1: Comprehension strategies
      • Teacher’s action 2: Elaborating a key word
      • Teacher’s action 3: L1 use
    • Pushing learners to self-regulate
      • Encouraging students to request clarifications using adjectives
      • Teacher’s action 2: Pushing students to comprehend the plural morpheme
      • Teacher’s action 3: Encouraging the students to use the L2
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 25 September 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tblt.11.10shi
References (25)
References
Aljaafreh, A. L. I., & Lantolf, J. P. (1994). Negative feedback as regulation and second language learning in the Zone of Proximal Development. The Modern Language Journal, 78(4), 465–483.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Athanasopoulos, P., & Kasai, C. (2008). Language and thought in bilinguals: The case of grammatical number and nonverbal classification preferences. Applied Psycholinguistics, 29(1), 105–123.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coughlan, P., & Duff, P. (1994). Same task, different activities: Analysis of SLA from an activity theory perspective. In J. P. Lantolf & G. Appel (Eds.), Vygotskian approaches to second language research (pp. 173–194). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
DiCamilla, F. J., & Antón, M. (2004). Private speech: a study of language for thought in the collaborative interaction of language learners. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14(1), 36–69.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Donato, R. (1994). Collective Scaffolding in Second Language Learning. In J. P. Lantolf & G. Appel (Eds.), Vygotskian approaches to second language research (pp. 33–56). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Hakuta, K. (1978). A report on the development of the grammatical morphemes in a Japanese girl learning English as a second language. In E. Hatch (Ed.), Second language acquisition (pp. 132–147). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Ishii, M. (1997). Kyooshitsu danwa no fukusuu no bunmyaku [Multiple contexts of classroom discourse]. Nihongogaku [Studies of Japanese Language], 16(3), 21–19.Google Scholar
John-Steiner, V. (2007). Vygotsky on thinking and speaking. In H. Daniels, M. Cole, & J. Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 136–152). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lantolf, J. (2000). Sociocultural theory and second language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lantolf, J., & Poehner, M. (2014). Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative in L2 education. New York, NY: Routledge.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lantolf, J., & Thorne, S. (2006). Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2007). Sociocultural theory and second language learning. In B. VanPatten & J. Williams (Eds.), Theories in second language acquisition (pp. 201–224). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Leontiev, A. A. (1981). Psychology and the language learning process. Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Leontiev, A. N. (1978). Activity, consciousness, and personality. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Markee, N. (2008). Toward a learning behavior tracking methodology for CA-for-SLA. Applied Linguistics, 29(3), 404–427.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCafferty, S. (1994). Adult second language learners’ use of private speech: A review of studies. The Modern Language Journal, 78(4), 421–436.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ohta, A. S. (2001). Second language acquisition processes in the classroom: Learning Japanese. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shintani, N. (2016). Input-based tasks in foreign language instruction for young learners. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shintani, N., & Ellis, R. (2014). Tracking ‘learning behaviours’ in the incidental acquisition of two dimensional adjectives by Japanese beginner learners of L2 English. Language Teaching Research, 18(4), 521–542.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Swain, M. (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 97–114). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M., Savage-Rumbaugh, S., & Kruger, A. C. (1993). Imitative learning of actions on objects by children, chimpanzees, and enculturated chimpanzees. Child Development, 64(6), 1688–1705.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Compernolle, R. (2015). Interaction and second language development: A Vygotskian perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, Vol. 1: Problems of general psychology. New York, NY: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Wertsch, J. V., Minick, N., & Arms, F. (1984). The creation of context in joint problem-solving. In B. Rogoff & J. Lave (Eds.), Everyday cognition: Its development in social contexts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Winsler, A., De León, J. R., Wallace, B., Carlton, M. P., & Willson-Quayle, A. (2003). Private speech in preschool children: Developmental stability and change, across-task consistency, and relations with classroom behavior. Journal of Child Language, 30, 583–608.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Moore, Paul J.
2022. Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) in Japanese EFL Contexts. In International Handbook on Education Development in Asia-Pacific, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Moore, Paul J.
2023. Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) in Japanese EFL Contexts. In International Handbook on Education Development in the Asia-Pacific, ► pp. 661 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.