English Language Teaching in its Social Context

266 PAULINE GIBBONSnotion of the ‘ZPD’ is significant here.Vygotsky suggests that learning occurs, with supportfrom those more expert, in the learner’s ‘zone of proximal development’ (Vygotsky 1978),that is, at the ‘outer edges’ of a learner’s current abilities. In 1.2, Hannah appears to havereached her own zone of proximal development for this task, since she hesitates for aconsiderable time, and can presumably go no further alone. The recasting and support shereceives from the teacher (1.3) then appears to be precisely timed for learning to occur andto assist Hannah to continue.As Text 2 illustrates, the reporting context also gives students opportunities to producelonger stretches of discourse which are more written-like than those which occurred in thesmall group work. Often this required the teacher to increase ‘wait time’, on occasions foras long as eight seconds. Research suggests that when teachers ask questions of students,they typically wait one second or less for the students to begin a reply, but that when teacherswait for three or more seconds, there are significant changes in student use of language andin the attitudes and expectations of both students and teachers (Rowe, 1986). We cansurmise that the importance of wait time is increased for students who are formulatingresponses in a language they do not fully control. Perhaps equally important, students wereable to complete what they wanted to say and as a result were positioned as successfulinteractants and learners. In addition, since it is the immediate need of the learner whichis influencing to a large extent the teacher’s choice of actual wording, it would seem likelythat this wording will be more salient to the learner - more likely to be noticed ~ than if ithad occurred in a context which was less immediate. (For discussion of the significance of‘noticing’ in second language development, see Ellis, 1994).Another significant mode shift occurred towards the end of most reporting sessions,where the teacher used children’s personal knowledge to show how generalisations mightbe generated. Her questions at this point included, for example: can you see something incommon with all these experiences? what’s the same about all these experiments?Such questions rcquirc the students to do more than simply produce a personal recountof what they did; they must now recontextualise this in terms of the teacher’s question.What they say is now characterised by a shift towards generalisation, an increased use offield specific lexis, and the thematisation of field-related participants; the children themselvesare no longer the ‘actors’ in the text:the north pole .f the magnet sticks . . . attracts . . . the second magnet . . . the south pole .fthe second magnet.$you put the south and north together then t hy will . . . attract but $you put north and northor south and south . . . together . . . t hy won’t stick . . . attract.Thus the teacher again mediates between children’s individual experiences and the broaderknowledge and discourse into which they are being apprenticed, locating these experienceswithin a larger framework of meanings. Stage 2 texts, then, both in the way language isused, and in the kinds of knowledge which is constructed, serve to create a ‘bridge’ forlearners between personal experiential ways of knowing and the public discourse of sharedand socially constructed knowledge.Stop 3 textsMany of the journals reflected what had been said in the teacher-guided reporting sessions.Students included wording which they had used in interaction with the teacher, or which