An application of Vygotsky's cultural-historical development theory to the conceptualization of the SLA (second language acquisition) process: An inquiry from reflections over twenty years of teaching ESL (English as a second language) in Henan of China (Lev Semenovich Vygotskii).

摘要

Second language acquisition (SLA) for international understanding has become a necessity with the irresistible trend of globalization, while dichotomous and nebulous theories and practices have misled many second language learners to ineffective learning strategies that frustrations and puzzlements and failures permeate in second language learning activities. This research applies Vygotsky's cultural-historical development theory to the conceptualization of the SLA process through constructing a three-stage Vygotskian-theory-based framework, which, revealing that those seemingly incompatible dichotomous competing theories and frameworks supposedly belong to different learning phases in the SLA process, organically integrates and accommodates them into a logical, systematic, and spirally developmental mechanism. Quantitative research methodology is adopted. Contextualized in a teachers' college in China, this research collected data with 108 ESL majors through a survey consisting of five stem questions with 49 items designed in a Likert scale, one stem question with fifteen items designed with a paired comparison grid, eight sets of multiple choices, and one invitation of comments regarding the stem research questions. Descriptive analyses, analyses of variance, reliability analyses, correlation analyses, cross-tabulation analyses, and paired comparison analyses were conducted. The results reflect deficiencies and inefficiencies existing in the dominant dichotomous SLA theories and practices and find their support to the integrated dynamics of the three-stage Vygotskian theory-based framework. This research provides implications for the SLA process understanding, SLA research, second language teacher education, L2 learner strategies, L2 curriculum design, and three further research interests.