Activity theory: A framework for analysing intercultural academic activity

This article suggests that Activity Theory (AT) can be applied as a holistic framework to analyse the complex sociocultural issues that arise when academics wish to engage in collaborative activity across institutional and cultural boundaries. Attention will initially focus on how Activity Theory, first formulated in the 1930s by Leont’ev (1978), and subsequently developed into a second generation by Engeström (1987), can help to analyse and illuminate the inherent complexity within any one community of practice. A more elaborate model of AT (Engeström, 2001) is currently being developed and applied to analyse and illuminate collaborative activity across institutional boundaries, so as to transform discourse communities into speech communities of practice through expansive learning. It is suggested that this ‘third generation’ model can be further refined to analyse specific contact zones, within and between activity systems, as a precursor to undertaking collaborative activity. It is suggested that, when discourse communities deriving from different culturally diverse traditions seek to work together, such an a priori analysis would enable potential areas for miscommunication and misconstrual to be identified and possibly resolved before collaborative activity actually commences

Sinking or swimming in the New Zealand mainstream: Four young Asian learners in a new languaculture

New Zealand schools are increasingly diverse in terms of language and culture, and many immigrant school children are faced with the ‘languacultural’ (Agar, 1994) challenge of learning not only a new language but a new culture of learning – to learn new classroom interaction skills (Barnard, 2005) as a route from Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills to Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (Cummins 1981, 2000). This paper explores the challenges by referring to four young Asian learners in an upper primary school classroom (Barnard 2002, 2003, 2007). Brief profiles of each of these children are given and then transcript data of their classroom interactions are presented and interpreted. In conclusion, questions are raised about the respective responsibilities of teachers and school and parents and students, to ensure that new immigrant learners swim rather than sink in the mainstrea

Isolated learners from diverse language backgrounds in the mainstream primary classroom: A sociocultural perspective

This paper focuses on the linguistic and cultural (‘languaculture’, Agar, 1994) challenges faced by learners from diverse language backgrounds (DLB) in New Zealand schools. It describes the typical learning context in primary classrooms terms of interactional, instructional, and cognitive dimensions. It then presents vignettes of four DLB learners and explains their relative competence in terms of Cummin’s (1981) distinction between BICS and CALP (Basic Interactional Communication Skills and Cognitive-Academic Language Proficiency). It goes on to discuss the extent to which such proficiency is the result of linguistic and cultural distance, and how that distance might be bridged by applying key constructs from sociocultural theory, and the implementation of Individual Languaculture Plans for DLB learners. The paper concludes with discussing the issue of where responsibility lies for coping with the challenges face by DLB learners

Review: Encyclopedia of linguistics

The two volumes of this new encyclopedia contain over five hundred self-contained essays, each between 1000 and 3000 words, covering a very wide range of topics. They have been written by some three hundred specialists from 34 countries (including several from New Zealand) who were invited to write for readers with no specialist knowledge of the subject by the reader, and without going into considerable theoretical detail. The essays are all very clearly written, and each provides a succinct introduction to the subject. In all cases, suggestions for further reading are provided, as are cross-references to related topics elsewhere in the encyclopedia

Review: Conversational interaction in second language acquisition: A collection of empirical studies.

This new book edited by Alison Mackey provides a clear overview of the state of research into the role of interaction in SLA, and includes 16 new studies especially written for this book. Altogether, 27 university-based authors contributed to these studies - two in New Zealand (Rod Ellis and Rebecca Adams), two in Japan, and the rest in the USA or Canada, which were also the settings for 10 of the 16 studies, while two others were carried out in Japan, two in South Korea, and one each in Thailand and New Zealand. All of the participants were adults, and the majority university students (most often, it seems, in the same sites as the researchers)

Book review: The politics of language education: Individuals and institutions.

This article reviews the book: “The politics of language education: Individuals and institutions”, edited by J.C. Alderson

Book review: Linguistic imperialism continued.

This article reviews the book “Linguistic imperialism continued”, edited by Robert Phillipson

Review: Learning vocabulary in another language

Review of the book: Learning vocabulary in another language

Sociocultural theory and the teaching of process writing: The scaffolding of learning in a university context

This paper considers how independent and interdependent learning can be fostered through a process approach to the teaching of writing. It does so by presenting the theoretical rational which underlies a university academic skills programme. Drawing on reports of this programme which have been published elsewhere (e.g., Brine & Campbell, 2002), it is a case study illustrating how scaffolding can be effected by teachers and students. The paper begins by briefly reviewing three central concepts of sociocultural theory: the zone of proximal development, scaffolding, and appropriation. Attention is then turned to a consideration of writing as a collaborative process rather than as a product of solitary endeavour. Details are provided about a university course which applies sociocultural concepts to the adoption of a process approach to EAP writing. Attention is then given to the ways by which six principles of scaffolding (Van Lier, 1996) are applied throughout the course. Firstly, various forms of tutor scaffolding are outlined, and then a short sample of transcript data illustrates how students on this course can work collaboratively to co-construct texts and scaffold each other's learning. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the broader pedagogical implications of sociocultural theory to the teaching of writing

Final thoughts

In our introduction to this volume, we pointed out that many academic journals do not have enough space to enable the authors of empirical studies to discuss important methodological details of their projects