Re: Not too way off thread - SLA

From: Mike Cole (lchcmike@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Apr 09 2005 - 03:41:31 PDT


May you could organize us a mini-summer course/discussion, Phil. Perhaps we
can get enough
coordinated effort to get over threshold.
mike

 On Apr 7, 2005 7:33 PM, Phil Chappell <philchappell@mac.com> wrote:
>
> Mike, Steven, Andrew, Dot, Kevin, Fern, et. al.,
>
> So later in the year it is. Perhaps in the meantime people might suggest
> some articles, book chapters that we could start collecting (the forthcoming
> Thorne and Lantolf must definitely be there ;-) I'd like to see if we
> couldn't get a couple of people from the Halliday/genre pedagogy group of
> applied linguists involved, too. There is some very interesting work on
> scaffolding interventions going on there at the moment.
>
> Cheers,
> Phil
>
> On Thursday, April 07, 2005, at 09:29PM, Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> ><<Original Attached>>
>
>
> Steven, Phil and other SLA advocates. Perhaps we can make this line of
> work one thread in the
> online CHAT class I am scheuling for December-March next year. As you can
> see, between the
> play discussion upcoming (see papers on xmca papers for discussion) and
> discussion of an
> article from MCA (see xmca discussions) I expect we will be struggling
> simply to pay attention
> to that and always-emerging other topics for the next several weeks.
> mike
>
>
> On Apr 7, 2005 12:27 AM, Steven Thorne <sthorne@psu.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > hi Phil and all -- there is indeed a strong and growing strand of
> applied and cognitive linguistics/SLA work rooted in vygotskian and chat
> frameworks. a colleague (jim lantolf) and i are finishing up a book length
> manuscript for OUP on this very theme. as you note, our group here in the US
> has been active, but as you correctly mention, most of our stuff has been
> praxiological, but not explicitly pedagogical (though of course we strive to
> "ascend to the concrete"!). in our forthcoming volume, we're trying to
> address this through some chapters that look specifically at concept
> development and the role of mediation, artifacts, and forms of participation
> that might foster the conditions of possibility (to rob a line from
> foucault) for learning, and potentially, development (i won't parse these
> terms here other than to revisit vygotsky's notion that learning precedes
> development, and development, especially in late-modern post-vygotskian
> theorizing, involves resolutions to contradictions > reorganization of
> mental processes > the dialectical becoming of a new kind of person
> (possibly in domain specific environments/performances).
> >
> >
> > lastly, i was a member of the old xlchc some years ago and only in the
> past week or so resubscribed -- why it took me so long is a mystery! but i'm
> very happy to be back.
> >
> >
> > steve
> >
> >
> > Sorry, All to open a counter-thread, but I have been doing some back
> reading of reviews etc, and came across this intriguing section of a review
> of a book devoted to second language (SL) learning and linguistic form and
> meaning (see below). I was intrigued by this section of the review
> (background: the field of SL "acquisition" is still dominated by
> psycholinguistic theories stemming from Chomskyian linguistic theory and
> conduit metaphors of communication, see Reddy's work of three decades ago).
> Like some others (both active and passive list members, based on the member
> list Mike mentioned earlier), I have been living the contradiction between
> the dominant platform in SL research and the one(s) that are more
> semiotically based and focused on human interaction and development. But
> should we always be in a position where we do not "fully agree" with the
> prevailing hegemonic views on aspects of human development when we have such
> exciting "counter views" based on the interests of many on this list? Views
> which have spurned their own debates between, for example, the strong
> socio-semiotic and interventionist, though somewhat inaccessible theories of
> the Australian SFL group based on Halliday, Martin, etc; the exciting group
> within the US that bases its work on sociocultural theory, albeit criticised
> for downplaying pedagogy (Lantolf, Wells, Thorne, Kramsch, etc); and the
> group of educational sociologists in the UK that have expanded and made more
> accessible the works of, for example, Bernstein. Apologies for the
> geographical divides here, but I am sure it is a little less in your face
> than religious analogies.
> >
> >
> > I'm young in this academic game, and I'd love some pointers on ways to
> foster cross-talk rather than cross!-talk.
> >
> >
> > Phil Chappell
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Steven L. Thorne
> > Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics
> > Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
> > and
> > Communication Arts and Sciences
> > Associate Director, Center for Language Acquisition
> > Associate Director, Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education
> and Research
> > The Pennsylvania State University
> > Interact > 814.863.7036 | sthorne@psu.edu |
> http://language.la.psu.edu/~thorne/ | IM: avkrook
>
>
>



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