TY - JOUR
T1 - Oral language learning in a foreign language context
T2 - Constrained or constructed? A sociocultural perspective
AU - Niu, Ruiying
AU - Lu, Kailun
AU - You, Xiaoye
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to express our sincere thanks to the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. We also appreciate the four student informants' contribution and devotion to the study. The study has been supported by the Ministry of Education Project of the Centre for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, and the Bilingual Cognition and Development Lab, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GDUFS), China , and funded by the GDUFS Featured Innovation Project (No. 17TS14 ) as well as the GDUFS International Language-service-oriented Foreign Language and Literature Creative Construction Program (No. 101-GK17GS52 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018
PY - 2018/6
Y1 - 2018/6
N2 - This paper reports on an exploratory study which investigated English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ oral language learning experiences from a sociocultural perspective. The study involved four Chinese proficient English learners, and gathered data from interviews and written journals. With Activity Theory serving as the analytical framework, data analysis revealed that 13 sociocultural resources in relation to artifacts, rules, community, and roles mediated the participants’ oral English learning by providing and actualizing learning affordances, serving as learning goals, and generating motivation for learning. The findings delineate a picture of the social context in which learners make use of sociocultural resources, both instructional and extracurricular, to seek opportunities for oral language learning. The study suggests that EFL contexts can afford learners with diverse potential learning resources, the usefulness of which depends on learners’ agency in seeking and exploiting these resources.
AB - This paper reports on an exploratory study which investigated English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ oral language learning experiences from a sociocultural perspective. The study involved four Chinese proficient English learners, and gathered data from interviews and written journals. With Activity Theory serving as the analytical framework, data analysis revealed that 13 sociocultural resources in relation to artifacts, rules, community, and roles mediated the participants’ oral English learning by providing and actualizing learning affordances, serving as learning goals, and generating motivation for learning. The findings delineate a picture of the social context in which learners make use of sociocultural resources, both instructional and extracurricular, to seek opportunities for oral language learning. The study suggests that EFL contexts can afford learners with diverse potential learning resources, the usefulness of which depends on learners’ agency in seeking and exploiting these resources.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.system.2018.02.006
DO - 10.1016/j.system.2018.02.006
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85042311347
VL - 74
SP - 38
EP - 49
JO - System
JF - System
SN - 0346-251X
ER -