Activity Theory: My Exploration

This is my opinion after reading this article:

AN ACTIVITY THEORY PERSPECTIVE ON STUDENT-REPORTED CONTRADICTIONSIN INTERNATIONAL TELECOLLABORATION
Olga K. Basharina
University of New Mexico

http://llt.msu.edu/vol11num2/basharina/default.html

After I attended Steven L.Thorne's presentation at School of Language Studies, Massey University Palmerston North on 19th November 2007, I couldn't think of anything else to read but 'activity theory' in the area of sociocultural framework.

I know that this framework has something to do with my research...

I am trying my best to digest it (not literally ---)

I have come up with a new presentation topic about

"EFL teacher cognition research: from the sociocultural perspective"

How does it sound to you?

Well I know now what to talk in the next meeting with supervisors...

Let me tell you some key ideas that I have been up to in the last couples of weeks...

What is ‘activity theory’?

“Same task is implemented differently by means of available tools across different socio-cultural contexts.”

Activity theory is based on the premises that cognitive development has a cultural and social origin (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006); Vygotsky, 1978). Nardi (1996) argues that “consciousness is located in everyday practices: you are what you do. And what you do is firmly and inextricably embedded in the socio-cultural matrix of which every person is an organic part.”

Activity framework (Basharina, 2005; Cole&Engestrom, 1994; Engestrom 1987, 1999; Lantolf, 2000; Lantolf & Genung, 2002; Leont’ev, 1974, 1987, 1981; Mantovani, 1996; Nardi, 1996; Thorpe, 2002; Vygotsky, 1978, 1934/86) with its key notions of mediation, contradictions, community culture and cognition, which provides n additional avenue to explore intercultural tensions.

Thorne’s concept of “culture of use” of an artifact (2003) draws from the extensive explorations of activity theorists of a tool-mediated, goal-oriented, culturally and historically situated collaborative activity as applied to any human activity including human-computer interaction.

Thorne (2003): the learners’ relationship with physical context and computers may facilitate contradictions. He argues that online and other activities emerge on the “intersection of histories of use with the contingencies of emergent practice” and represent the culture-of-use: of an artifact (p.40). He found that the activity of online interaction was different for a group of learners is different from another group of learners, in part because the Internet communication was used differently in each case. Thorne concludes that radically different cultures-of –use of Internet communication was one of the major reasons for the tension between groups of learners.

Welll - let me put all of those in my own words---

It means that if we get students from different educational cultures participate in the same online task, they may execute it differently because they hold different views of online telecollaboration.

Students who are from the culture that 'value' or 'facilitates' online interaction may have positive view on the technology use in language learning. Whilst students who have limited exposure or access to online communication may feel awkward to initiate interaction in the wired world. Students are likely to bring along their past experience of language interaction, current interests, contextual values (i.e. using formal language in EFL classroom assignement) into the online context as well.