Sociocultural Theory and the Teaching of Second Languages - James P. Lantolf

Sociocultural Theory and the Teaching of Second Languages - James P. Lantolf

10 A Concept-based Approach to Teaching: Writing through Genre Analysis

Sociocultural Theory and the Teaching of Second Languages - James P. Lantolf

Marilia M Ferreira [+-]
FFLCH-University of São Paulo
Department of Modern Languages FFLCH-University of São Paulo
James P. Lantolf [+-]
School of Foreign Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong University; The Pennsylvania State University, Emeritus
James P. Lantolf is George and Jane Greer Professor of Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics, Director of the Center for Language Acquisition, and Co-director of Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research at The Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include Sociocultural Theory, second language acquisition, metaphor and conceptual knowledge. His is co-author, with S.L.Thorne, of Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development (2006) and edits the Equinox journal Language and Sociocultural Theory

Description

The fourth chapter that deals with Concept-based Instruction is by Ferreira and Lantolf, ‘A Concept-based Approach to Teaching Writing through Genre Analysis.’ It is, however, not based on Gal’perin’s theory of instruction, but on the second important pedagogical interpreter of Vygotsky’s theory, V. V. Davydov, who designed a more flexible model for educating students in scientific concepts. One of the differences between Davydov and Gal’perin is that Davydov asks students to draw their own models of the concept under study, whereas Gal’perin presents them with a finished model to follow. The idea here is that through self-generated modeling of the concept, learners come to a deeper understanding of the concept; in addition, their understanding is open to observation by the instructor, who can then interact with the learners in order to help them modify their understanding when necessary. The chapter reports on a 16-week university ESL writing course in which the guiding concept was the System-Functional concept of genre as developed in the work of James Martin and his colleagues working in Australia. The chapter traces the performance of a subset of the students who participated in the course in terms of the models they produced to represent their understanding of three concrete genres: invitations, job application letters and argumentative/expository texts. The authors then attempt to link changes in learners’ understanding of the genre as reflected in their models with improvement in their writing performance as assessed by a team of independent raters.

Notify A Colleague

Citation

Ferreira, Marilia; Lantolf, James P. . 10 A Concept-based Approach to Teaching: Writing through Genre Analysis. Sociocultural Theory and the Teaching of Second Languages. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 285-320 Jul 2008. ISBN 9781845532505. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=29311. Date accessed: 28 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.29311. Jul 2008

Dublin Core Metadata