Sociocultural Theory and the Teaching of Second Languages - James P. Lantolf
6 Agency in the Classroom
Sociocultural Theory and the Teaching of Second Languages - James P. Lantolf
Leo van Lier [+]
Description
In the final chapter of this section, ‘Agency in the Classroom’ van Lier argues that appropriately interpreting and mediating learners as they exercise agency in various ways is in fact more important for their development than the content matter and teaching materials. Just as Poehner’s chapter introduces the notion of reciprocity to draw attention to learners’ active negotiation of mediation during DA, van Lier similarly points out that Vygotskian theory compels us to understand agency not as a quality of an individual but as a contextually situated way of relating to the world that is shaped by our developmental history as well as our potential future. Agency, then, emerges as individuals, groups and communities interact with various affordances while engaging in goal-directed activity. The challenge for pedagogy is to design learning environments and activities in which students are optimally agentive in taking responsibility for their own – and indeed their classmates’ – development. Van Lier illustrates some of the forms learner agency may take in the L2 classroom and suggests curricular approaches,such as project-based learning, that may be especially well suited to mediating agency.