Vygotskian Approaches to EFL Classroom Interaction at SIT

This paper describes an attempt to combine content-based intercultural communication and global issues with shared student and teacher ethnographies in the EFL classroom at SIT. It is a work in progress intended for those who are interested in issues of intercultural communication and multiculturalism as well as those who are interested in how cultural differences in communication and learning styles can be used to create new practices of learning. Influenced by the sociohistorical psychology of L.S. Vygotsky and A.R. Luria, the liberation pedagogy of Paulo Freire and the critical pedagogy of Ira Shor, it assumes that learning can best take place in group environments where students and teachers are encouraged to work together to share their social histories and build their own program of learning.This paper describes an attempt to combine content-based intercultural communication and global issues with shared student and teacher ethnographies in the EFL classroom at SIT. It is a work in progress intended for those who are interested in issues of intercultural communication and multiculturalism as well as those who are interested in how cultural differences in communication and learning styles can be used to create new practices of learning. Influenced by the sociohistorical psychology of L.S. Vygotsky and A.R. Luria, the liberation pedagogy of Paulo Freire and the critical pedagogy of Ira Shor, it assumes that learning can best take place in group environments where students and teachers are encouraged to work together to share their social histories and build their own program of learning