Social Cultural Theory And Chinese International Education

Sociocultural theory was put forward by Lev Semyonnovich Vygotsky,a psychologist from Russia.The theory has four core branch theories: Mediation,Activity theory,Internalization theory and Zone of proximal development.Since from the 1980 s,Sociocultural theory has been introduced into the field of Second language teaching and has reached a lot of achievements.The author believes that it is possible and feasible to apply the theory into the field of Teaching Chinese as Second Language to Foreigners,and it would embrace a lot of superiorities.Therefore,through questionnaire and interview,the author deeply analyzed the application situations of Teaching Chinese as Second Language to Foreigners from the perspective of sociocultural theory.Through the research,the author draws the following conclusions: 1.The three stages of mediation— mediation by artifacts,interpersonal mediation and mediation by self —is not the same with the learning stages of Chinese learners.2.It is beneficial for students to learn Chinese by attending social activities which is related to Chinese culture,but different activities have different effects.3.Cooperative learning and interactive learning both have positive influence to teaching Chinese,and students are more willing to accept help from teachers and students who are better than them.4.Zone of proximal development can guide the development of teaching and learning,therefore,in order to explore students’ potential,teaching should advance the actual levels of students.What’s more,students’ ability of Chinese is ever changing,so the zone of proximal development is also constantly changing.5.The procedure of internalization is intangible and unconscious,but there are some elements could speed up the progress of internalization,such as attending collective activities and interactive communication,summarizing and introspecting the learning process and results.Based on these conclusions,the author put forward several suggestions from the perspective of sociocultural theory: 1.Teachers have many roles,and these roles are constantly changing.2.Zone of proximal development could help teachers and students to set up teaching and learning targets.3.Internalizing knowledge of Chinese could be a driving force which can drive students to learn.