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Information Processing & Skill Acquisition

Language learning is seen as similar to learning other complex skills (like playing an instrument).

Learners move from controlled processing (conscious, effortful) → to automatic processing (fluent use).

Repetition, practice, and meaningful use help “automatize” structures.

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Noticing Hypothesis

Learners must notice a linguistic feature in the input before they can acquire it.

Teaching techniques often aim to make target features “salient” (e.g., bolding verb endings in texts, corrective feedback).

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Input Processing (VanPatten)

Learners prioritize meaning over form when processing input.

Instruction should be designed to guide learners to notice and process grammatical forms without overloading cognitive capacity.

Focus is often on structured input activities that push learners to pay attention to grammar while understanding meaning.

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Focus on Form = Drawing learners’ attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally during meaningful communication.
For example:

During a discussion, the teacher briefly highlights a tense error and models the correct form.

Reading activities might include tasks that push students to notice and use specific structures.

Key points of FoF:

Occurs within communicative contexts

Is often reactive (e.g., corrective feedback), but can also be proactive (planned focus on specific features during meaningful tasks)

Aims to balance fluency and accuracy development

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Audiolingual Method (ALM)

This is the classic behaviorist method. Originating in the U.S. during WWII and popular through the 1950s–1970s, it was designed for quick, practical language training.

Key features:

Heavy use of drills and pattern practice

Teacher gives a model → students repeat (mimicry)

Focus on pronunciation, intonation, and structure

Grammar taught implicitly through patterns, not explanations

Errors are corrected immediately to avoid reinforcement

Typical activities:

Repetition drills – Students repeat sentences exactly.
e.g., Teacher: “I am going to the store.” → Students: “I am going to the store.”

Substitution drills – A word is replaced systematically.
e.g., “I am going to the store.” → “She is going to the bank.”

Transformation drills – Change sentence patterns.
e.g., “He is eating.” → “Is he eating?” (statement → question)

Chain drills – Students pass a sentence around the class, each modifying it slightly.

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Direct Method with Behaviorist Techniques

Although the Direct Method originally opposed translation and grammar-translation approaches, many classrooms blended it with behaviorist techniques. For example:

Teacher-led question–answer sessions where students drill complete sentences

Choral repetition and echoing to fix pronunciation

No explicit grammar explanation—students learn patterns through exposure + imitation

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Positive reinforcement (praise, approval)

Rewarding correct responses

Strengthens desired behavior

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Sociocultural Approaches to Language Teaching

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Sociocultural Approaches to Language Teaching

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Scaffolding

This is probably the most well-known Vygotskian application.

Definition:
Scaffolding is when teachers or peers temporarily support learners to perform tasks they couldn’t do alone, then gradually withdraw support as competence grows.

Classroom examples:

Modeling a language structure → then prompting students to try → then gradually fading prompts.

Giving sentence starters, frames, or cues during speaking activities.

Guided writing: teacher helps plan and structure the text, then students write independently.

Interactive read-alouds where the teacher pauses, explains, and checks understanding, then slowly reduces intervention.

The emphasis is on dynamic support, not just giving rules.

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Sociocultural Approaches to Language Teaching

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Sociocultural Approaches to Language Teaching

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Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)–Based Instruction

Teachers design activities that target the learner’s ZPD — not too easy, not too hard. This often involves:

Pairing less proficient students with more proficient peers (peer scaffolding)

Designing tasks that stretch ability but are achievable with help

Teacher feedback that pushes learners slightly beyond their current performance (e.g., recasts, prompts, elaborations)

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Sociocultural Approaches to Language Teaching

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Sociocultural Approaches to Language Teaching

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Collaborative Learning / Peer Interaction

From a Vygotskian view, learning happens through social interaction, not just teacher-student transmission.

Typical classroom techniques:

Pair and group work that involves negotiation of meaning and co-construction of output.

Jigsaw tasks, where each learner has part of the information and must communicate to complete the task.

Peer tutoring, where more advanced learners scaffold less advanced ones.

Collaborative writing tasks where students jointly plan, draft, and revise texts.

The idea is that through dialogue, learners internalize language and strategies.

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Sociocultural Approaches to Language Teaching

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Sociocultural Approaches to Language Teaching

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Mediated Learning

Mediation can be through:

Language itself (e.g., teacher questioning, prompts)

Tools (e.g., charts, visuals, bilingual dictionaries, digital tools)

Cultural artifacts (e.g., songs, authentic texts)

Example:
Using concept maps to mediate understanding of a reading text; or using sentence frames like “I agree with ___ because ___” to scaffold academic discussion.

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Dynamic Assessment

Traditional tests only measure what a learner can do independently.
Dynamic Assessment (DA), inspired by Vygotsky, measures what a learner can do with mediation, revealing their potential development.

Example:
Instead of just marking a writing error, the teacher gives a graduated series of hints (e.g., “Check your verb tense,” “Look at subject–verb agreement”) to see how much support the learner needs. This helps both assessment and instruction.

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Critical Pedagogy (Freire, Pennycook)

Encourages learners to analyze power, inequality, and language ideologies, not just learn linguistic forms.

Teachers act as co-learners, not authority figures.

Lessons include socially and politically relevant topics, linking language to learners’ lived realities.

Critical Language Awareness (CLA) & Discourse Analysis

CLA involves teaching students to analyze texts and discourses for how they construct identities and power relations.

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Identity Texts (Cummins & Early, 2011)

Students create texts (written, oral, multimodal) that reflect their identities, languages, and cultures.

The classroom becomes a space for affirming multilingual identities and negotiating hybrid selves.

Narrative Inquiry & Identity Work

Learners reflect on and share their language learning journeys through stories, interviews, or journals.

Teachers use these narratives to understand learners’ positioning, struggles, and aspirations.

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Multilingual & Translanguaging Pedagogies

Poststructuralist views challenge the monolingual bias in traditional TESOL.

Encourage learners to use their full linguistic repertoires (L1, L2, dialects, etc.) to make meaning.

View code-switching and translanguaging not as errors, but as resources.