The present article argues for a conceptual distinction between corrective feedback and mediation that emphasizes the status of the latter not as an instructional practice but as a defining feature of human psychology (Vygotsky, 1987) that has direct implications for how instruction might be approached. Specifically, Sociocultural Theory (SCT)…

The author suggests the brain's cerebellum and cerebral cortex are the origin of culture and considers the cerebellar models that came to constitute culture to be derived specifically from play. He summarizes recent research on the behavioral, cognitive, and affective evolution of the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex that shows the development…

In this position paper, the author argues for the re-conceptualization of English language teaching (ELT) through the socio-cultural and context-based approach (SCA). For a typical English as a foreign language (EFL) situation, SCA takes as a point of departure a thorough understanding of the macro-level components e.g., local classroom…

Feedback is a key component of teaching second language writing. As the field of second language writing instruction has recently placed greater emphasis on sociocultural considerations, issues related to the nature, negotiation, and delivery of feedback need to be re-examined. The present paper sought to provide a sociocultural basis for such a…

The aims of this article are to address how learning is constituted and can be studied as a phenomenon in interaction and to discuss how teaching and learning are related. Theoretically, the article argues for and discusses constraints and affordances for relating sociocultural understandings of learning as changing participation to "conversation…

In this paper, I focus on a prevalent and controversial practice in English instruction, namely corrective feedback or repair. While the pros and cons of this practice have been rigorously debated by language scholars for many years, the issue is mostly approached from a cognitive point of view with the focus being on the individual learner and…

This response to Azar (this volume) intends to discuss from an academic's perspective the main points raised in her paper (i.e., grammar-based instruction and its relation to focus on form and error correction) and, to encourage a more concept-based approach to grammar instruction (CBT). A CBT approach to language development argues that the…

A discussion of the practice of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teaching calls for an instructional strategy integrating traditional methods and the communicative approach. Components of traditional teaching methods (grammar instruction, correction, dictation, dialogue, and native language use) are linked with communicative questioning…