[xmca] Dynamic Assessment in L2

["James P. Lantolf" <jpl7@psu.edu>]

We appreciate the discussion that has been swirling around our MCA 
article. It has been informative for us and we would like to offer, 
perhaps a bit belated, some commentary on what people have said so 
far. We are not able to respond to all of the comments but will 
address some of the major points that have caught our attention. 
Neither of us is able to follow all of the contributions to each 
thread. The list below is not in any particular order of importance.

1. SCT-CHAT. When Frawley and Lantolf began to look at L2 learning 
from the perspective of Vygotsky's writings back in the early 1980s 
the common term used was SCT. We were faced with the task of 
confronting a research culture that had little or no appreciation for 
"mediation" and what this could mean for learning and teaching of 
language (L1 or Lx). It was a tough slog to get the field of applied 
linguistics/SLA to pay attention to our arguments. Every time we 
submitted a manuscript or gave a talk at a conference, we had to 
spend a great deal of time explaining the theory, leaving little time 
or space to consider the data we were addressing. Often issues such 
as differences between mediation and input (in the very popular 
input-processing views of L2 learning) or the ZPD versus i+1 (in the 
work of Stephen Krashen) required repeated explanation. Eventually 
some of the more mainstream SLAers (e.g., Merrill Swain, Rod Ellis, 
Lourdes Ortega) began to find our work appealing and began themselves 
to explore the implications of the theory for L2 learning and 
teaching. We no longer had to spend as much time and space explaining 
the theory and could make some assumptions of shared knowledge with 
the audience. When CHAT became the coin of the realm outside of 
applied linguistics we considered switching from SCT to CHAT, but 
decided against it (perhaps a mistake, but so be it). We did not want 
to have to re-explain things to the applied linguistics audience, 
which was finally beginning to accept SCT as a legitimate approach to 
understanding L2 learning. As Chris and Luis point out in their 
introductory piece to the special issue, there was resistance from 
publishers to introducing a new term, to be sure, but this was not 
our reason for sticking with SCT. Our continued use of SCT in no way 
implies a rejection or criticism of the term CHAT. Indeed, Lantolf 
and Thorne's 2006 book addresses 'activity' throughout and dedicates 
two chapters to activity theory.

2. With regard to the 11th Thesis and the centrality of praxis in 
Vygotsky theory, we are not suggesting that theory/philosophy is 
unimportant or should be abandoned. Indeed, many of us in applied 
linguistics are rooted in the humanities as much (or perhaps more) 
than in the social sciences. We continue to read and rely on modern 
philosophers, especially philosophers of language to inform our work. 
Lantolf and Thorne (2006) integrate Wittgenstein's notion of 
"language game" as well as Voloshinov's notion of utterance and sign 
in theorizing language. Most recently, the new monograph by Searle 
"Making the Social World" has some very important things to say about 
the role of language in social formation that we think resonates well 
with Vygotsky's views on thinking and speaking. Having said this, we 
don't agree with Andy's comment to the effect that practice is the 
truth criterion of theory is not Marxism. Rather than launch into a 
lengthy explanation, we will mention some interesting works written 
in the 1970s that address the topic far better than we could here: 
Adolfo Sanchez Vazquez (1977). "The Philosophy of Praxis." Richard 
Bernstein (1971). "Praxis and Action." Alan Buss (1979). "Dialectic 
Psychology." We also find support for our position in the more recent 
writing of Anna Stetsenko.

The early research on SCT and L2 primarily used the theory as a lens 
for investigating L2 learning and use inside and outside of classroom 
settings. However, more recently research has focused on changing 
pedagogical practice to enhance the learning process. Several 
studies, including doctoral dissertation in particular, have 
demonstrated that following principles of the theory, especially as 
reflected in the work of Galperin and Davydov, it is possible to 
significantly improve learning of languages beyond the first both in 
terms of learners explicit understanding of how specific features of 
a language function and in their performance in various communicative 
(written and oral) activities. A searchable bibliography is available 
for those interested the topic: http://language.la.psu.edu/ (at the 
moment our server is down).

3. Dualisms in SLA might indeed be valid, as Andy points out; 
however, they might equally be invalid. The point we are trying to 
make is that it is important to question them and to examine 
potential consequences of thinking dialectically. SLA has worried a 
great deal, for instance, about whether implicit teaching of a 
language is more effective than explicit teaching and has spent a 
great deal of time and effort in trying to answer the question, only 
to come to the conclusion that maybe explicit teaching is somewhat 
more effective than implicit teaching in some circumstances. The 
position that we proposed - proceeding from a dialectical perspective 
based on our reading of Vygotsky on the ZPD - in a 1994 article 
(Aljaafreh and Lantolf) is that both forms of instruction are 
necessary for any given learner depending on their level of ability 
in the L2. Similarly, the areas of language testing and language 
teaching remain separate sub-fields within applied linguistics, and 
members of both fields regard these as distinct and perhaps even 
incommensurable activities. Again, this may be the case, particularly 
in some instances such as high-stakes standardized testing, but our 
work in Dynamic Assessment has followed a commitment to viewing 
teaching and assessing as together forming a dialectic unity. The 
paper under discussion reports the consequences of this perspective 
in classroom practice, although we are also currently exploring the 
use of DA in a more formal testing situation (see below).

4. By talking about cultural concepts and social interaction as 
different forms of mediation, we were not attempting to justify our 
use of SCT. We are also not trying to "back door" a dualism. We do 
say in the paper that concept-based instruction in school does 
involve social mediation by a teacher. We do want to stress that not 
all interaction will necessarily involve scientific concepts. We also 
want to point out that cultural concepts can mediate an individual 
without social interaction, at least, without overt social 
interaction, as we normally construe it in something like a dialogue 
between two interlocutors. This happens, in our view, for example, 
when someone is engaged in intramental activity as when independently 
working through a problem. We of course acknowledge that this can be, 
and should be understood as social, and we have argued this in 
several places in our own writing. But it is a different kind of 
social dialogue from the "I-You" dialogue that most people consider 
to be social interaction. It is, as Donna Vocate (1994) posits, an 
"I-ME" dialogue that of course has its origins in "I-You" interaction.

5. Our reference to Vygotsky's characterization of education as "the 
artificial development of the child" is not intended as a negative 
stance on education. We interpret V's use of "artificial" (assuming 
the translation from the Russian is accurate) here as a way of 
distinguishing development through participation in cultural 
activities and through the appropriation of (cultural) concepts from 
natural processes of growth. Indeed, we believe that it might be 
possible to construe V's use of Education in the passage we cite as 
referring not only to formal education but to all forms of education 
provided by a society whether in or out of places recognized as 
school.

6. We want also comment on Mike's recent remark with regard to the 
need to come to grips with "the impact of computation on conceptions 
of mind".  While it might be useful to model things on computers, we 
would not want to argue, as some have, that the mind itself is a 
computational device. Frawley in a 1997 book entitled "Vygotsky and 
Cognitive Science" attempts to reconcile SCT/CHAT with a 
computational model of the mind.  A recent book by Evan Thompson, a 
philosopher, at U of Toronto, entitled "Mind in Life" makes a very 
nice case against the computational theory of mind that has been the 
received view in cognitive science for several decades. While we are
not sure if DA can be automated, we would like to mention that we are 
in the final year of a grant project that is developing an on-line DA 
in Chinese, Russian and French reading and listening ability. We have 
had to make some important compromises in the kinds of DA procedures 
reported in our article when designing the instruments; most notably, 
this has involved construing mediation as scripted prompts that 
learners can access while engaged in the language tests, and it goes 
without saying that the flexibility of dialogic mediation (as in the 
paper under discussion) is sacrificed. Nonetheless, we see it as a 
first step in what is likely to be a lengthy process of working out a 
viable way of achieving a modicum of efficiency (i.e., enabling large 
numbers of students to be assessed, perhaps simultaneously and 
perhaps repeatedly) while remaining committed to the notion that 
learner responsiveness to mediation is a crucial feature to 
diagnosing development.

7. Acquiring a second language can in our view result in development 
if we focus not on the acquisition of new forms but on the 
development of new conceptual knowledge. This extends from new 
vocabulary to new ways of profiling events in the world to 
metaphorical concepts and even to the dialectic of speaking and 
gesturing, as proposed in the world of David McNeill. To date, most 
of SLA research, including much of our early work, has addressed the 
acquisition of form and has paid precious little attention to meaning 
and conceptual knowledge. For the past five or six years, however, we 
have shifted our attention to what learning another language means 
for mediating an individual's thinking process. Currently, we are 
focusing on metaphor ability (and metaphors of course vary from one 
language/culture to another and draw attention to certain features of 
experience and phenomena while backgrounding others) and the 
interface between speech and
gesture. We do not believe that the learning exhibited by the 
learners under study in our paper was "inert". The fact that in some 
cases they were not only able to function independently following 
mediation but were able to extend control of the relevant feature to 
new communicative activities shows that they have indeed developed 
real control over the feature.


Jim & Matt

--
James P. Lantolf, Greer Professor in Language Acquisition & Applied 
Linguistics http://lals.la.psu.edu/
Director of the Center for Language Acquisition http://language.la.psu.edu/
Co-Director CALPER http://calper.la.psu.edu/publications.php
305 Sparks Building
Penn State University
University Park, PA 16802
814-863-7038
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