What I want to know, Bob, is why you think my last
message or the Gee article I cited had anything to
do with L2. I AM talking about L1. We are talking
across lots of very different assumptions -- which
is interesting! but hard to do.

Vygotsky had a lot to say about the development of
systematicity in thinking, the kind of thinking
often associated school-based literacy, and he saw
language as the primary means by which systematic
("scientific") thought is developed.

Judith


t 04:46 PM 1/13/99 -0600, you wrote:
>I thought this discussion list was about L1 teaching and learning about
>the nature of language.  I am will to discuss teaching L2 learners.  I
>know the L2 literature is filled with claims, very unconvincing, that
>learning a second language should be like learning a first language.
>
>When I responded to Johanna about "explicit grammar instruction," I
>really don't know what kind of teaching she was referring to.  Within
>the L2 field, there is a growing interesting in focus-on-form in the
>classroom.  Several years ago there was an entire number in Studies in
>Second Language Acquisition devoted to it and there is the recent
>Cambridge U. P. volume edited by Doughty and Williams.
>
>Without some focus-on-form I don't think an L2 learner can move beyond
>what Klein and Perdue have called the Basic Variety.
>
>So, I am not sure what Judy Diamondstone is referring to when she refers
>to the following article:
>
>> Jim Gee has a nice article on this controversy over explicit/implicit
>> instruction, which many of you must know:
>>
>> "First language acquisition as a guide for
>> theories of learning and pedagogy" in _Linguistics & Education
>> 6_ (331-354) 1994
>
>I am aware of the increasing interest in L2 teaching circles in
>Vygotsky, but I have never been able to figure out why.  (The best use
>of Vygotsky I know of is in Linda Flower's "Writer-based prose"
>article.  This is about L1 writing. )
>
>> Vygotsky is also very useful for conceptualizing the role of language
>> in learning & development.
>
>What are the problems that researchers in L1/L2 learning are concerned
>with which a Vygotsky perspective seems to provide insights about?
>
>Would someone direct me to a specific issue for which a Vygotskyan
>perspective has been shown to be particularly insightful?
>
>Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University
>


Judith Diamondstone  (732) 932-7496  Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183

Eternity is in love with the productions of time - Wm Blake