The paper describes how sociocultural discourse analysis was used to analyse talk in the primary classroom, which focuses on language and the social mode of thinking
This paper describes a methodology for the analysis of classroom talk, called sociocultural discourse analysis, which focuses on the use of language as a social mode of thinking ñ a tool for teaching-and-learning, constructing knowledge, creating joint understanding and tackling problems collaboratively. It has been used in a series
of school-based research projects in the UK and elsewhere and its use is illustrated with data from those projects. The methodology is expressly based on sociocultural theory and, in particular, on the Vygotskian conception of language as both a cultural and a psychological tool. Its application involves a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and enables the study of both educational processes and learning outcomes.
Interest: private speech
When we communicate socially, we appropriate patterns and meanings of this speech and utilise it inwardly to mediate our mental activity, this is what is meant by private speech. Private speech need not be fully syntactic in its form, utterances are not intended to be interpreted by others; they are addressed by the learner to himself - links to the idea that each psychological function appears twice - once interpersonally and then again intra-personally; this intrapersonal processing is private speech. Private speech is a way of internalising linguistic features available in the speaker's environment, often achieved through imitation. we do this when we learn anything new???
This article describes how scaffolding can be successful and goes into conclude that there are 6 key ingredients for scaffolding learning: recruitment, reduction in the degree of freedom, direct maintenance, marking for critical features, frustration control, demonstration
In this article Halliday, questions the approach of language acquisition (syntax)with construction/semantics. He highlights that language is learnt through meaningful interaction with other people and making sense of the world in which we live is achieved through language. They key goal of interaction/making meaning is functional and communicative.