ABSTRACT

A sociocultural perspective by definition links the individual with the social, assuming that learning and development are always socially situated. If the goal of L2 teacher education is to prepare the individual teacher to function in the professional world of L2 teaching, then it is critical to account for how an individual’s activities shape and are shaped by the social, cultural, and historical macro-structures which constitute that professional world. Activity theory, an extension of Vygotskian sociocultural theory first put forth by Leont’ev (1978, 1981) and more recently taken up others (Engeström, 1987, 1999; Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Thorne, 2004), attempts to do just that. According to Thorne (2004), activity theory attempts to tie together individual development and the social-material conditions of everyday life. As an analytical framework rather than a theory per se, it maps the social influences and relationships involved in networks of human activity. In other words, to fully understand the activities that L2 teachers and their students engage in, it is essential to understand the broader social, cultural, and historical macro-structures that shape those activities.