ABSTRACT
According to the late Soviet semiotician and psychologist L. S. Vygotsky (1896–1934), play enables a child to become what he or she is not; it creates a zone of proximal development (ZPD) in which the child explores not-yet-acquired adult roles and values that are socioculturally appropriate (1978). As such, play precedes development. In the following pages, I invite all of us to “play,” to explore our individual and collective zones of proximal development for the teaching of second languages in the hope that we can collaboratively reenvision the second language classroom. By reexamining the purpose of second language teaching and learning—specifically the roles of teachers and students and the relationships between them—we can, in turn, better understand the nature of activity that needs to exist both within the classroom and beyond.
