Second Language Classroom Reading: a Social Constructivist Approach

Social constructivist approaches to learning, based on the work of Vygotsky and others, are gaining momentum in the field of second and foreign language learning. However, social constructivist rhetoric often seems remote and even irrelevant to practicing teachers. In this paper, we will briefly explain the constructivist approach to teaching reading to students of English as a foreign language. We will show how a dialogic approach to reading empowers readers to position themselves as participants in making meaning together with the text and its authors, rather than remaining as mute outsiders to the reading process. This shift in constructing reader-roles means that our students need to take a strategic approach to their reading, and will need careful scaffolding to help them develop effective, independent reading strategies and dispositions. We will suggest ways in which such scaffolding can help transform the rhetoric of social constructivist discourse into classroom realities.