English Classroom Interaction From Sociocultural Theory Perspective

From 1970 s, researchers in the field of second language acquisition(SLA) have concerned the importance of interaction in language learning. However, the nature of the role of interaction and the ways in which it relates to SLA are interpreted from different perspectives. The traditional linguistics are concerned more about learners’ internalization of external language knowledge than the influence on learning process from social and cultural environment in which the language is produced. The present thesis which addresses the same fundamental question of the relationship among teachers, students and knowledge provides a sociocultural perspective to focus on the foreign language learning according to empirical study in a Chinese educational context. By contrast with the previous theories, the sociocultural theory indicates that the social environment in which the language learning occurs should not be separated from the mental process and the socialization as well as language acquisition should not cut apart from interactive environment. The cognitive development of human being is rather a social cultural phenomenon than an individual one according to the sociolcultural theory. The majority of Chinese students’ SLA mainly situate in the classroom which is a micro social unit from the perspective of sociocultural theory. Thus, it’s comprehensive to understand the second language acquisition from the sociocultural perspective.The study aims at the function of the classroom interaction, including teacher-learner interaction and peer-peer interaction, on SLA based on the theories such as mediation, zone of proximal development, scaffolding and internalization from the sociocultural theory. The main functions of classroom interaction are mediating and scaffolding, which aim to create an environment of negotiation and finally provide more opportunities for learners’ language practice. The learners’ internalization of the target language ability should be seen as the ultimate goal of SLA.The researcher conducted the check experiment in a rural middle school in Shaanxi province by choosing the whole learners in Grade Seven who were divided into two groups named as experimental group(EG) and control group(CG). By contrasting classroom discourse from both learner-centered in EG and teacher-centered in CG classrooms, the study makes an attempt to examine the role of learner-centered discourse in cognitive development. Besides, the researcher also adopts the methods of survey and interview to support the results of class observation. All the data is dealt with by the software SPSS.According to qualitative and quantitative analysis, the following valuable findings are obtained. Firstly, in whole class instruction, when learners are involved in negotiation with their teacher, the functions of scaffolding are achieved through the teacher’s adoption of such discursive strategies such as teacher questions, error correction, and repetition so as to provider the learners effective assistance within the ZPD. Secondly, when peers have collaborative dialogues about language form, they explicitly or implicitly ask for help from their partners. During the co-construction of language content, several communicative strategies are deployed by the learners when they involved in discussions. Thirdly, the cognitive development of human being is intimately tied to the environment with which we interact. In this study, a learner-centered classroom successfully transfers the learning responsibility from the teacher to the learner and creates an interactive environment for second language learning. However, in a learner-centered classroom, as learners absorb knowledge from the teacher passively, their motivation is largely reduced and participation dramatically lessened.