Scaffolding Revisited: Sociocultural Pedagogy within the Foreign Language Classroom.

This paper examines the pedagogical implications of ascribing to sociocultural theory in the classroom, reviewing commonplace terms and concepts that may have lost their true meaning and intent through interpretation and misuse. The paper returns to the initial focus of sociocultural theory, cognition and the mind. Through transcripts of a literature-based college Spanish classroom, it examines the idea of scaffolding while highlighting the development of new knowledge through meaningful interaction, presenting dialogue from the classroom. The paper reviews the following: the development of cognition, language, and literacy understanding in foreign language classrooms; the mind; tools; signs; meaning; social speech; ongoing discourse; co-construction of meaning; heteroglossia; activity setting; goal directed action; the place of language; classroom communication patterns; the foreign language instructor's role; expectations and interpretations; exploratory talk; and coherence and cohesion. Finally, it discusses opportunities for language learning, applying the methodology for discourse analysis in the classroom. The paper concludes that because of various constraints, instructors should use dialogue as verbal scaffolds into discourse. However, because scaffolding has become another "buzzword" in education, it loses some of its original meaning and intention. (Contains 50 bibliographic references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Scaffolding Revisited: Sociocultural Pedagogy within the Foreign Language Classroom PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY