ABSTRACT
While studies of Vygotskian concept-based L2 instruction have generated notable outcomes, they have tended to leave unreported the manner in which learners come to view concepts and accompanying materials as psychological tools (Kozulin, 1998). This chapter discusses an interactional framework, termed mediated development (MD) (Poehner & Infante, 2015, 2016), for systematically integrating mediator-learner dialogue to promote learner symbolic tool understanding and use within a Vygotskian concept-based program. Informed by the work of Feuerstein and his associates (e.g., Feuerstein, Hoffman, Jensen, & Rand, 1985), MD serves as a dialectical counterpart to dynamic assessment (DA), as mediator-learner interaction is oriented toward the teaching function of zone of proximal development activity, without losing sight of diagnosing learner emergent abilities. Detailed analysis of transcribed mediator-learner interactions taken from a larger study (Infante, 2016) documents how the sequencing of structured activities organized around select cognitive processes promoted learner appropriation of a specialized concept-based curriculum associated with the English tense-aspect system.
