Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introducing sociocultural theory; 1. Sociocultural contributions to understanding the foreign and second language classroom; 2. Rethinking interaction in SLA: Developmentally appropriate assistance in the zone of proximal development and the acquisition of L2 grammar; 3. Subjects speak out: How learners position themselves in a psycholinguistic task; 4. The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue; 5. Playfulness as mediation in communicative language teaching in a Vietnamese classroom; 6. Social discursive constructions of self in L2 learning; 7. Second language learning as participation and the (re)construction of selves; 8. Side affects: The strategic development of professional satisfaction; 9. The appropriation of gestures of the abstract by L2 learners; 10. Second language acquisition theory and the truth(s) about relativity; 11. From input to affordance: Social-interactive learning from an ecological perspective; Bibliography; Index

This book represents a major statement of the current research being conducted on the learning of second languages from a sociocultural perspective. The book is divided into a theoretical and an empirical part. Specific topics covered include: learning and teaching languages in the zone of proximal development; L1 mediation in the acquisition of L2 grammar; sociocultural theory as a theory of second language learning; gestural mediation in a second language; and constructing a self through a second language.