A sociocultural perspective on second language writing teacher cognition a vietnamese teacher’s narrative

A sociocultural perspective on second language writing teacher cognition: a
Vietnamese teacher’s narrative
Abstract
Despite increased attention to social and historical dimensions in language teacher cognition
research, the second language writing teacher cognition literature remains dominated by the
cognitivist tradition that separates teachers’ beliefs from their practices. To address this
mismatch, this paper proposes to view second language writing teacher cognition through the
lens of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, especially its genetic method and concept of
mediation. Based on these frameworks, the study aims to reveal the major shifts in a
Vietnamese English language teacher’s cognition about second language writing and the
mediating resources involved. Following the narrative design, the participant’s professional
life story was first constructed with data from a series of interviews and various national and
institutional documents. Her narrative was then subject to thematic analysis guided by the
sociocultural theory concepts. It was found that her cognition changes followed a complex,
non-linear trajectory, and there were dialectical interrelationships between these shifts.
Moreover, these shifts were mediated by humans, concepts, and artifacts, whose influence
was simultaneous and dialectical. Via analytic generalization in case studies, the paper
proposes two models to illustrate firstly the chronological developments and secondly the
socially mediated and dialectical nature of second language writing teacher cognition.
Key words
Second language writing; language teacher cognition; sociocultural theory; narrative inquiry;
Vietnam


A sociocultural perspective on second language writing teacher cognition: A Vietnamese
teacher’s narrative

1. Introduction
The field of second language (L2) writing, which includes research on “second and
foreign language writing and writing instruction” (Journal of Second Language Writing,
2018, p.1), has increasingly acknowledged the importance of studying teacher cognition

(Belcher & Hirvela, 2018). This stems from the consensus that understanding teachers’
beliefs and practices is essential for effective teacher education (Lee, 2018). Studies in this
subfield have revealed insights into teacher cognition about L2 writing pedagogy (Reichelt,
2009; Lee, 2008; Lee, 2014), feedback (Ferris, 2014; Guenette & Lyster, 2013; Junqueira &
Payant, 2015; Min, 2013), and assessment (Crusan, Plakans, & Gebril, 2016). They have also
shed light on factors that influenced teacher cognition such as teacher education programs
(Gebhard et al., 2013; He & Prater, 2014; Lee, 2013; Xiao, 2014), previous learning
experiences (Reichelt, 2009; Worden, 2015), and contexts (Lee, 2008).
Despite their contributions as shall be elaborated in Section 2, many of the above
papers remain largely informed by the cognitivist view which sees teacher cognition
narrowly as “what teachers think, know and believe” (Borg, 2003, p.81). This situation is in
sharp contrast to the broader field of language teacher cognition where studies have
increasingly shifted towards views that account for the socially embedded nature of teacher
cognition (Burns, Freeman, & Edwards, 2015). One such view regards language teacher
cognition as “emergent sense making in action” (Kubanyiova & Feryok, 2015, p.436).
Different from the cognitivist perspective, this definition is participation-oriented, or
emphasizes the need to study “the contexts of participation in practice” (Kubanyiova &
Feryok, 2015, p.438) in language teacher cognition research. This participation-oriented view


also connects rather than separates practices from beliefs and subsume both in the language
teacher cognition ecology (Kubanyiova & Feryok, 2015). It is this participation-oriented view
of language teacher cognition that the current article will adopt since it is more compatible
with current trends in language teacher cognition scholarship (Burns et al., 2015) and allows
for “the larger vision of language teacher cognition” (Kubanyiova & Feryok, 2015, p.437).
Informed by this view and motivated by the need to bridge the gap between the L2 writing
teacher cognition research and the broader field of language teacher cognition, this paper will
adopt the sociocultural theory to examine a Vietnamese English language teacher’s L2
writing cognition developments.
2. Second language writing teacher cognition

As stated in Section 1, L2 writing researchers have paid increasing attention to
teacher cognition in recent years, and several themes have emerged from this burgeoning
literature. In terms of pedagogy, it was found that teachers’ views of writing and writing
instruction did change over time (Lee, 2013), and instructors working in different countries
held distinct perspectives on L2 writing (Reichelt, 2009). Regarding feedback, teachers were
shown to prefer direct over indirect correction (Guenette & Lyster, 2013) and attend more to
such local issues as grammar and vocabulary rather than global aspects of writing (Junqueira
& Payant, 2015). Dissonance between beliefs and practices was also a prominent theme in
the feedback literature, but findings have been rather mixed. While many teachers in Lee
(2009) exhibited mismatches between their feedback beliefs and practices, those in more
recent studies (Ferris, 2014; Min, 2013) demonstrated high levels of consistency. Another
important line of inquiry in L2 writing teacher cognition concerns assessment, which,
however, remains seriously under-explored (Crusan, Plakans, & Gebril, 2016). Crusan’s et al.
(2016) large-scale survey found that participating teachers were better trained than previous

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studies suggested; however, they remained insecure about their assessment literacy especially
in designing marking rubrics.
Similar to language teacher cognition scholars in other subfields, L2 writing
researchers also sought to examine factors that influenced teacher cognition. In contrast to the
conflicting accounts in teacher education (Borg, 2011), most L2 writing teacher cognition
studies have supported the considerable and positive role of teacher education programs in
expanding participants’ view of writing and formation of new identities (Lee, 2013),
especially when such programs involved innovative features such as the genre-based
pedagogy (Gebhard et al., 2013), community service projects (He & Prater, 2014), and
guided reflection (Xiao, 2014). In addition, previous learning experiences were found to
substantially affect how pre-service teachers learned to teach concepts such as parallelism
(Worden, 2015). This source of influence continued to be evident in in-service teachers’

cognition especially when they received limited training in L2 writing pedagogy (Reichelt,
2009). Finally, contextual factors have also been shown to shape teachers’ views of what
constitutes proper writing instruction and their practice. For example, East Asian teachers
shared strikingly similar views about the importance of teaching explicit strategies and
conventions (Lee, 2014). Likewise, teachers in Lee (2008) attended more to errors in their
feedback, which could be traced back to Hong Kong’s exam culture.
Significant as their findings might be, most papers reviewed above share a common
problem as previously indicated: they adopted a predominantly cognitivist view of teacher
cognition and hence represented the individualist generation of language teacher cognition
literature (Burns et al., 2015). In other words, most have not paid adequate attention to the
social dimensions of language teacher cognition. This is noticeable even in quite recent
papers such as Min’s self-study (2013), which highlights the complex decision-making
process of an individual teacher but shows little regard for the wider sociocultural context.

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Likewise, in Lee (2009), Ferris (2014), and Junqueira and Payant (2015), the focus was on
identifying and resolving the dissonance between teachers’ feedback beliefs and practices,
which can be linked to the cognitivist view of cognition as “mental constructs … unavailable
for direct observation” (Kubanyiova & Feryok, 2015, p.437). Another problem is that many
reviewed studies have yet to properly account for the temporal dimension of teacher
cognition. In fact, most L2 writing teacher cognition studies have employed cross-sectional
data (Crusan et al. 2016) or covered a restricted timeframe such as a teacher preparation
course (Lee, 2013) or one semester (Min, 2013). This inadequate coverage of teacher
cognition’s chronological developments is clearly problematic because it does not reflect the
contemporary view of language teacher cognition as “a function of place and time operating
through interaction or negotiation” (Burns et al., 2015, p.592).
To bridge these gaps, an L2 writing teacher cognition study will need to adopt a
theoretical framework that reflects both the socially embedded nature and temporality of

teacher cognition. This explicates why Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, a theory of mind that
emphasizes cognition’s social origins and the necessity of examining mental phenomena’s
chronological developments (Wertsch, 1985), has been adopted in the current research. Based
on the sociocultural theory, this study aims to reveal the major shifts in a Vietnamese English
language teacher’s cognition about L2 writing and the resources that mediated those
developments over time. To lay the foundation for the research, the sociocultural theory’s
view of cognition and two sociocultural concepts deemed relevant for this paper, namely the
genetic method and the concept of mediation, will be presented in the next section.
3. Theoretical frameworks
In the sociocultural theory, cognition is seen as socially mediated and “the
internalized result of social interactions” (Vygotsky, 1981, p.147). In other words, the
sociocultural theory emphasizes the social origins of cognition, arguing that these higher

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mental functions initially emerge on the inter-psychological plane (i.e. between people) when
they participate in sociocultural activities (Johnson, 2015). These functions are then
transformed onto the intra-psychological plane via the process of internalization, which is not
“a direct transfer of concepts, knowledge or skills from the outside in, but a transformative
process whereby a person’s cognitive structure is changed” (Johnson & Golombek, 2011a,
p.489). Placed in the language teaching context, the sociocultural theory suggests that it is via
their participation in teaching and learning activities that teachers’ beliefs emerge. Clearly,
this is compatible with the metaphor of language teacher cognition as “emergent sense
making in action” (Kubanyiova & Feryok, 2015, p.436) as mentioned in Section 1. However,
the sociocultural theory’s contribution is that it also underscores “the dialectic between
thinking and doing with the socially and culturally constructed contexts” (Cross, 2010,
p.438), or put simply, “changes in social activity effect changes in individual cognition”
(Johnson, 2015, p.516) and vice versa.
In human cognition research, Vygotsky (1978, 1981) advocates the use of genetic

analysis, affirming that an understanding of advanced mental phenomena must be predicated
on a thorough comprehension of its origins and developments (i.e. its genesis). A major
benefit of this developmental approach, he argues, is that it can provide an explanatory rather
than merely descriptive account of studied phenomena (Cross, 2010). This emphasis on
studying the history of cognition forms the core of Vygotsky’s genetic method together with
several other key tenets as follows (Wertsch, 1985). First, Vygotsky (1981) rejects the notion
that developments occur only in quantitative increments and highlights the role of “sudden,
qualitative, revolutionary shifts” (p.144). Second, he posits that these developmental leaps
often coincide with the introduction of new forms of mediation (tools and signs) (Wertsch,
1985). Third, the genesis of higher mental functions must be studied as part of “a larger,
integrated picture involving several genetic domains” (Wertsch, 1985, p.27), namely the

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phylogenesis (human beings’ physical evolution as a race), cultural-history (the broad
sociocultural advances), ontogenesis (the developments of an individual across time), and the
microgenesis or “the moment-to-moment time of lived human experience” (Cole &
Engeström, 1993, p.19). Placed in this study, Vygotsky’s genetic method implies that an
examination of L2 writing teacher cognition must involve studying its historical
developments (genesis). Moreover, while it is logical to foreground the ontogenesis,
ontogenetic facts should be examined in light of data from the other domains especially the
cultural-historical and micro-genetic domains. As for the phylogenetic domain, it will not be
featured in this paper since the domain’s natural forces assume a static rather than a dynamic
role in the developments of higher mental functions (Wertsch, 1985). Additionally, in keeping
with this method’s spirit, revolutionary shifts in L2 writing teacher cognition need to be
highlighted together with the mediational means that have afforded such developments.
The final point in the preceding paragraph makes it essential to discuss the concept of
mediation and mediational resources here. Mediation is a core concept in the sociocultural
theory and can be defined as “the process through which humans deploy culturally

constructed artifacts, concepts, and activities to regulate the material world or their own and
each other’s social and mental activity” (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006, p. 79). Key to this
definition is the role of mediating resources, which are comprised of tools and signs, both
physical and psychological (Vygotsky, 1981). Vygotsky (1978) himself views tools (e.g. a
hammer or a handsaw) as having an external orientation and helping human beings master
nature. In contrast, signs (e.g. language, numbers, music, etc.) are regarded as “internally
oriented … acting as means of internal activity” (Vygotsky, 1978, p.55) so that humans can
master themselves. However, this distinction apparently does not appeal to contemporary
sociocultural theory scholars, who tend to refer to tools and signs collectively as artifacts. In
papers such as Johnson (2009) and Johnson & Golombek (2011b), “tools” is used as an

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umbrella term and synonymous with mediational resources or means which are further
divided into cultural artifacts, social relations and concepts. Concepts, as Johnson (2009)
defines, “are not fixed objects but develop dynamically through use, so they are learned over
time and formed through the processes of synthesis and analysis, while moving repeatedly
between engagement in activity and abstract reasoning” (p. 20). Concepts can further be
classified into everyday and scientific concepts (Vygotsky, 1963). Placed in second language
teacher education (SLTE), everyday concepts can be seen as views originating from teachers’
learning and teaching experiences, whereas scientific concepts result from “theoretical
investigation of a specific domain”, and have the potential to mediate teachers’ cognition
developments by empowering them “to move beyond the limitations of their everyday
experiences and function appropriately in a wide range of alternative circumstances and
contexts” (Johnson, 2009, p.21). In addition to cultural artifacts and concepts, mediation can
also be provided by other human beings or via social relations. Rogoff (1995) argues that
human mediation may occur in form of apprenticeship, where human beings’ cognition
development is mediated by their participation as active members of a community, and
guided participation, where the mediation comes from their interactions with other

individuals (both experts and novices). The result of such mediation is that “individuals
change and handle a later situation in ways prepared by their own participation in the
previous situation” (p.142), a concept referred to as participatory appropriation in Rogoff
(1995).
4. Methods

4.1. Research questions and design
This study aims to reveal the major shifts in a Vietnamese English language teacher’s
cognition about L2 writing and the resources that mediated those developments through the

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lens of Vygotsky’s genetic method and concept of mediation. In other words, it focuses on
answering the two following questions.
1. How did the participant’s cognition about L2 writing develop?
2. What sociocultural resources mediated her L2 writing cognition developments?
The narrative design was adopted to address the two above questions firstly because it
is suited for conducting studies that focus on the contexts of language teacher cognition
(Kubanyiova & Feryok, 2015), at both micro and macro levels (Barkhuizen, 2007).
Moreover, narrative inquiry can offer a longitudinal account (Bell, 2011), and is hence suited
for uncovering the temporal dimension of language teacher cognition. Furthermore, as
participants are involved in crafting their life histories, they are afforded mediational space to
reflect on their experiences (Johnson & Golombek, 2011b) and the opportunity to raise their
voice and exercise their agency (Pavlenko, 2007). Finally, despite its increased popularity in
language teacher education literature, the presence of narrative inquiry in L2 writing
scholarship remains limited as my examination of this subfield’s bibliographies in the past
decade has revealed. Hence, by employing the narrative design, this study, in addition to its
main objective of offering insight into L2 writing teacher cognition, can also expand the
methodological diversity of L2 writing literature.

4.2. Context & participant
The study was conducted in Vietnam, a developing country in South East Asia, where
English is by far the most popular foreign language, and despite receiving serious public
attention and resources, the quality of English teaching and learning in the country remains
low by international standards (Pham, 2014). To remedy the situation, the Vietnamese
government launched Project 2020 by issuing Decision 1400, which highlights the major
strategies and goals for the sector from 2008 to 2020 (Vietnamese Government, 2008).

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The research site was a public university called Lingua (pseudonym), a leader in
training foreign language teachers in northern Vietnam with the English faculty where the
participant, Jara (pseudonym), worked being its largest unit. Jara was selected for the current
study first because of her willingness to participate, a crucial requirement for narrative
research (Pavlenko, 2007). Moreover, she possessed extensive experience in writing
instruction as elaborated below, which promises the richness of narrative data to be collected.
Finally, she was highly regarded by both her colleagues and students as an effective teacher
in all four skills including writing. Thus, an examination of her cognition developments and
the resources that mediated those shifts will potentially offer useful implications for training
of effective teachers like Jara.
Regarding her qualifications, Jara earned a bachelor’s degree in teaching English with
distinction from Lingua’s fast-track program, an advanced stream reserved for its top 10%
students. She also held a master’s degree in applied linguistics with high distinction from a
prestigious Australian university. Additionally, she possessed the highest level of English
proficiency (C2) on the European Common Framework of Reference scale according to her
International English Language Testing System (IELTS) exam results. Since graduating from
her bachelor’s course, Jara had been in continuous employment with Lingua for eight years,
delivering writing courses every semester besides other language skill classes. Before taking
a sabbatical leave for her master’s program in Australia, she taught writing III and IV, two

consecutive courses that covered different types of paragraphs (descriptive, narrative,
comparison - contrast, cause - effect, and argumentative). Upon her return, the entire English
curriculum was overhauled and re-divided into three distinct streams (English for academic
purposes - EAP, English for standardized exams - ESE, and English for general purposes EGP) in which writing was integrated with reading in each session rather than being taught
separately. Initially, she was assigned to teach an EAP course (EAP 3), where three types of

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academic essays (cause - effect, comparison - contrast, and argumentative) were featured.
However, in the next semester, she was promoted to coordinator of two exam preparation
courses (ESE 3 and 4), whose writing components focused on letter and essay writing
respectively.
Her students were second-year English majors, and according to Jara’s observation,
despite being supposed to attain Level B2 (CEFR) when they enrolled on her classes, their
proficiency varied from one cohort to the other, depending primarily on the university’s
annually adjusted admission score. Regardless of their entry levels, her students were
required to pass international or national standardized English tests at Level C1 to earn their
bachelor’s degrees according to Decision 1400 (Vietnamese Government, 2008).
4.3. Data collection
Central to narrative research is the participant’s life story (Murray, 2009), so various
sources of data were collected to facilitate the composition of Jara’s narrative on her lifelong
engagement with writing both as a student and as a teacher. The most important data source
was a series of recorded face-to-face interviews between the researcher and Jara conducted
over five months. An unstructured interview was first used to make the participant feel more
comfortable and willing to open up; this was then succeeded by a series of semi-structured
interviews whose predefined questions ensures that critical information can be obtained
within the time constraint, whereas their flexible nature allows the chance to clarify and
explore emerging themes (Dörnyei, 2007). The language used during all the interviews was
Vietnamese, the mother tongue of both the researcher and the participant in accordance with

her preference; nevertheless, she was encouraged to code-switch between L1 and L2
(English) whenever necessary. As the depth of narrative research is possible thanks to a
privileged access to the otherwise personal and secretive world of the researched (Pavlenko,
2007), considerable attempt was made to establish close rapport between the researcher and

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the participant. Nevertheless, the reminder of Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) of the need to
balance between the coolness and closeness was also heeded to ensure the study quality. To
supplement and triangulate the interview data, policy documents, media reports, and
academic papers on the Vietnamese EFL industry were obtained by the researcher himself,
whereas the participant was asked to provide relevant institutional documents such as course
guides, textbooks and exam papers as well as her students’ writing scripts.
4.4. Data analysis
Initially, the data were prepared and analyzed for narrative construction as
recommended in Murray (2009). All interviews were transcribed in full as a precaution
against biases stemming from selective transcription. Subsequently, the transcripts were sent
back to the participant for her feedback, and upon her approval of the scripts, categorical
content analysis and the constant comparative method were employed to detect patterns in
her professional life. This laid the foundation for the composition of her narrative which
included the three dimensions of narrative space (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). The life story
was then returned to the participant for her comments and approval.
In the second stage, her narrative was thematically analyzed guided by both the
sociocultural theory and L2 writing literature. Following the genetic method (Vygotsky,
1981), the major shifts in her cognition were identified together with the sociocultural
resources that mediated such developments. These mediational means were classified into
social relations, concepts and artifacts based on Johnson (2009), and attempt was also made
to link these resources to the cultural-historic, ontogenetic and microgenetic domains. An
excerpt from Jara’s narrative, which covers her master’s program in Australia, is provided

below to illustrate the thematic analysis.
After three years of working at Lingua, Jara won a scholarship and spent a year and a half pursuing a
master’s program in applied linguistics at a top-ranking Australian university. She took nine courses in
total, and among them, only two courses touched upon writing, the first one being language testing and
assessment and the other in general applied linguistics. However, she found the lessons generally not

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well delivered and could barely recall the lessons that concerned the writing skill in both courses. What
struck her most was her extensive exposure to the literature on corrective feedback and learner
language when she had to complete assessment tasks in other courses. As Jara affirmed, it changed her
perception of learners’ writing, making her view it as a form of communication in which personal and
cultural values were revealed rather than merely a paper full of errors to be corrected. Accordingly,
besides offering corrective feedback, she drew her students’ attention to expressions that may lead to
communication breakdown if they were to talk to native speakers.

This piece of data, although brief, contains significant information pertaining to both
research questions. As shall be elaborated in Section 5.3, it reveals a major change in Jara’s
cognition about learner writing (“as a form of communication … rather than a paper full of
errors…”), so this portion was coded as “major shift - learner writing”. However, it was later
observed that her altered view of learner writing resulted in changes in her feedback
cognition (“she drew her students’ attention to expressions that may lead to communication
breakdown”), so another code “major shift - feedback” was also added. To understand the
mediational resources that afforded this shift, the researcher conducted follow-up interviews
and managed to trace back “the literature on corrective feedback and learner language” that
Jara referred to, especially her favorite book (Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005). A close examination
of this book and her narrative against Johnson’s (2009) mediational means led the researcher
to assign the codes “concept mediation” and “artifact mediation” to the data portion.
Additionally, regarding the fact that the change in Jara’s feedback cognition was not within

the book’s aims, another code “artifact appropriation” was added to this extract.
4.5. Research ethics
Ethical issues were taken seriously throughout the research, and recommendations in
Dörnyei (2007) were closely observed. In the absence of a formal ethics committee, approval
was sought from the management board of both the participant’s and the researcher’s
institutions, and Jara herself was provided with sufficient information about the study and the
voluntary nature of her participation in both written and oral modes. Additionally, only nonsensitive personal information is provided, and pseudonyms were consistently used to ensure

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the confidentiality of and prevent harm to the participant and other people and institutions
mentioned. Finally, all drafts of this paper were subject to the participant’s consent before
submission.
5. Findings
In line with narrative inquiry literature (Bell, 2011), this section will present Jara’s
major cognition developments chronologically and sociocultural resources that mediated
those shifts. In brief, the study has found that Jara’s L2 writing cognition experienced four
major shifts, which were far from linear.
5.1. From initial confusion to emerging views of L2 writing
As Jara admitted, although she was exposed to essay writing early, these initial
encounters left her confused about what constituted “good writing” and how it should be
taught. Following is Jara’s own description of her second encounter with essay writing when
she was part of her high school’s selected English team.

It was not really learning … [I] was thrown a topic and told to write … no instruction whatsoever on
how to write an essay … The day after that, he [the instructor] returned it, and the only thing I saw [on
my paper] was a score of 6 … not sure 6 out of 9 [IELTS nine-band score system] or 10 [the
Vietnamese 10-point score system]… so I was exposed to writing quite early… but I didn’t learn
anything.

The leaps in her cognition, or her “first decent writing lessons” came when she took
an academic paragraph writing course with Ms. Sophia (pseudonym) in Semester 3 and the
other on academic essay writing with Ms. Hailey (pseudonym) in Semester 4 at university.
For the former teacher, Jara was deeply impressed because:

She [Ms. Sophia was]… very methodological … like she would always start with a lead-in activity …
Then she would show us how to write a certain type of paragraph… provide us with a handout that
listed key words and phrases… she followed the course book closely … generally she was very
thorough in her approach … step by step …

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Ms. Sophia was also praised by Jara for providing feedback both orally in front of the
whole class and in written form despite the fact that “she [Ms. Sophia] did not correct much
of my[Jara’s] word choice”. In contrast, Ms. Hailey did not adopt an official textbook but
instead provided a list of recommended readings, and routinely requested Jara and her
classmates to report and discuss the features of different academic essay genres based on their
previously conducted Internet research. In addition to her rather unique approach, Ms. Hailey
also provided Jara with “the most helpful feedback” since “she [Ms. Hailey] could see the
bigger picture … bigger flaw in my writing … about reasoning and how I handled the writing
task…”.
It is evident from Jara’s narrative that her emerging views of L2 writing were mainly
mediated by social relations, especially via her interactions with Ms. Sophia and Ms. Hailey.
With her “step-by-step approach”, Ms. Sophia presented Jara with a working model of the
process approach (Racelis & Matsuda, 2013), whereas Ms Hailey drew Jara’s attention to the
need to read extensively about target genres, hence facilitating her learning of genre
pedagogy (Hyland, 2007). Likewise, their feedback practices were also internalized by Jara,
who was later shown to attend to both content and language aspects in her own comments on

student writing (see Figure 1 in 5.4). The human mediation was also provided, although in
another direction, by the other writing teachers whose unsuccessful interactions with Jara
raised her awareness of ineffective writing instructional approaches. However, the human
mediation would not have been effectively internalized without the cultural artifacts. For
example, Ms. Sophia’s textbook and handouts contributed to Jara developing knowledge
about writing strategies and linguistic resources for each paragraph type. Another crucial
artifact was clearly the Internet, from which Jara obtained extensive information and
numerous samples of different essay categories. Looking beyond these microgenetic

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elements, it can also be maintained that Jara’s cognition was facilitated by her country’s
international integration and economic growth (Pham, 2014). Thanks to this, many
Vietnamese EFL teachers, such as Jara’s two favorite teachers, had the chance to study
abroad and bring home with them innovative language teaching methods. Likewise, the
Internet, which mediated Jara’s development of academic essay knowledge, could be
considered a cultural-historical artifact reflecting Vietnam’s economic and technological
progress at the time.
5.2. Student writing: from a paper to be corrected to “evidence of thinking”
Another major shift occurred during Jara’s master’s course in Australia when she had
the chance to engage extensively with learner language literature. Thanks to this,

My view of student writing was changed… Previously [before Jara did her master’s course] I assessed
student writing in terms of grammar, vocabulary, content and stuff like that … but after the MA course,
I see it as … evidence of their thinking… I mean it reveals so much about their cultural values … and
their thinking … that made me more interested in student papers. Before that my view was a bit …
mechanical… now it’s partly cultural… partly personal… so it was more meaningful communication.

Arguably, these developments were mediated by scientific concepts with Jara herself

claiming to be particularly influenced by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005). Interestingly, this
publication, a cultural artifact, is intended to “serve as an introduction to SLA [second
language acquisition] research”, offering methodological and theoretical guidelines as well as
practice tasks to “develop readers’ ability to undertake analysis of samples of learner
language” (p.ix). However, its content was appropriated and internalized by Jara, making her
“more tolerant with language issues” and not to “be obsessed with errors”, and instead pay
more attention to instances when her students’ expressions potentially caused “serious
miscommunication”. It is worth noting that these positive changes, however, did not fall
within Ellis and Barkhuizen’s (2005) intended goals.

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5.3. EAP writing: “irrelevant and too demanding”
The third milestone happened when Jara was briefly engaged with EAP 3 (see Section
4.3), and as a consequence, her views on EAP writing started to emerge. As a background
note, for the writing skill in EAP 3, students were expected to write 300 – 500 word essays of
different types and use references to support their main points without any time pressure, then
compile their best writings as a portfolio. However, for Jara, this task was simply “too
demanding”:
The textbook teaches how to write essays by synthesizing materials from various sources … but its
materials [topics and texts] are too academic for my students … also, synthesizing materials requires a
lot of self-study time … it must be done over hours, not something to be taught in several class periods.
So teaching students how to write an essay based on the synthesis of materials in class alone is
impossible.

Therefore, to assist her students, she decided to implement her own pedagogical and
assessment agenda, changing the prescribed topics and providing reading materials instead of
requiring them to search on the Internet. More significantly, despite the course guide’s
requirement for the writing task to be completed in groups, Jara asked her class to do it

individually, confessing that “deep down inside” she always believed writing was an
individual activity. Furthermore, she reasoned that this change would improve fairness
because her students tended to make very unequal contribution in such a group assignment.
Apparently, Jara’s cognition about EAP writing emerged firstly from apprenticeship
mediation (Rogoff, 1995) when she started participating actively in a culturally organized
activity group whose aim was to develop students’ ability to use English in the academic
environment. However, no mediational resource was provided to facilitate her mastery of
relevant scientific concepts (Vygotsky, 1963) such as EAP writing’s nature and instructional
strategies. Hence, Jara naturally drew on her everyday concepts of general EFL writing which
was shaped by her ontogenetic experiences. As these everyday concepts involved writing
only short paragraphs and essays with no requirement for formal academic citations, it was

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natural that she found the above task “irrelevant and too demanding”. The mediating role of
everyday concepts was also striking in Jara’s beliefs in the individualist nature of writing, the
unfairness of group work, and her action of changing the task requirement from group to
individual submission. In fact, during our interviews, she more than once complained about
“the hassle of doing group work” and having to “shoulder the responsibilities of lazy
members” as a student.
5.4. writing as a response to an exam prompt
As mentioned in 4.2, a major turn in Jara’s teaching life was when she was promoted
to ESE 3 and 4 coordinator. Although conceived as supplementary courses, ESE 3 and 4 drew
special attention from Lingua’s management at all levels who expected that they would
“determine whether students can meet the graduation requirements". To complicate matters
further, ESE 3 and 4 were “in a crisis” at that time as there were neither textbooks nor course
syllabi, so to remedy the situation, Jara first referred to teacher’s reference books such as
Burgess and Head (2005) to formulate a list of important test-taking skills and question types
and then browsed the materials of major international exams such as Cambridge Main Suite,

IELTS and TOEFL to compile a textbook following this list. Regarding her teaching
approach, ESE 3 and 4’s exam-oriented nature made Jara less motivated to provide lead-in
activities, although she still attempted to implement the process approach. However, unlike in
writing III and IV, she insisted on timing her ESE 3 and 4 students when she guided them
through the brainstorming, planning, writing, and editing stages for different types of letters
and essays in the target exams. ESE 3 and 4’s writing assessment consisted of mid-term and
end-term exams which were rated against the IELTS marking rubric (public version). She
argued that:

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For the time being, I think it’s OK to use it [the IELTS rating scale] because it’s familiar … that’s why I
adopted [it in 3E and 4E] … because I couldn’t create one myself … and among those available, the
IELTS scale is rather detailed and it’s familiar … and it applies to what I’m teaching … that is essays…
so I find it OK to do so.

In these exam preparation courses, teachers were not explicitly required to comment
on students’ writing; however, Jara did try to offer as much feedback as possible during class
time. As she observed, her students were more motivated to write under time pressure
because they knew that those completing the task first would receive immediate teacher
feedback. A sample of her comments can be found in Figure 1. Evidently, Jara adopted an
eclectic approach, using both direct and indirect techniques; her comments were also very
comprehensive, covering almost all linguistic errors, and concerning both form and content.
Jara admitted that in ESE 3 and 4, she attended more to serious grammar issues such as verb
forms, not for fear of communication breakdowns, but because these problems would be
heavily penalized in standardized tests.
[INSERT FIGURE 1 HERE]
Figure 1. Jara’s comments
Clearly, when Jara joined the community of exam teachers in ESE 3 and 4, her view

of writing narrowed to the production of essays and letters under exam conditions, and her
main object was to ensure her students’ optimal performance in writing tests, which reflected
in her instructional and feedback behavior. This can be regarded as a form of mediation by
apprenticeship (Rogoff, 1995) which entails a new member actively participating in a shared
goal-directed activity and in the process adopting the community’s values and beliefs
(although the apprentice was placed in a leadership position here). Guided participation also
featured in this case because her interactions with students or more precisely students’
enthusiasm about receiving her comments clearly mediated her feedback cognition,
motivating her to respond to their writing as frequently as possible. Moreover, Jara’s
interactions with her supervisors made her more aware of the need to teach to the test, or to

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approach writing as exam products rather than a process. Jara’s everyday concepts of the
process and genre pedagogy which dated back to her ontogenetic experiences at university
remained influential but were appropriated by the participant herself. For example, instead of
simply guiding her students through the writing process, she took them through the process of
responding to exam prompts under time pressure; likewise, the teaching of writing genres
was modified into the introduction of genres of exam writing tasks.
In addition to human and concept mediation, various artifacts also contributed to this
qualitative shift in Jara’s L2 writing cognition. These ranged from reference books on
teaching for exams to test preparation materials that enabled Jara to compile in-house ESE 3
and 4 textbooks and in the process developed her knowledge about writing test coaching
strategies. The IELTS writing rating scale also deserves to be mentioned since it mediated her
cognition about qualities of good writing. Furthermore, her exam-centered cognition can also
be linked to Project 2020’s mandatory testing policy. This national policy, as a culturalhistorical artifact (Cross, 2010), was apparently internalized by different levels of Lingua’s
management, then externalized by them in form of two new exam courses (ESE 3 and 4)
before finally restructuring Jara’s cognition.
6. Discussion

The paper has corroborated previous L2 writing teacher cognition studies such as Lee
(2013) by revealing the dynamic nature of Jara’s cognition. Additionally, it has highlighted
the participating teacher’s test-centered cognition at the end of the study despite her initial
communication-oriented view of L2 writing, a finding comparable to Lee (2008) and Lee
(2014). Despite focusing on both content and language, the participant also devoted more
attention to linguistic issues in her feedback similar to the teacher in Junqueira and Payant
(2015). Jara’s dependence on the IELTS rating scale also showed her lack of confidence
about designing assessment rubrics, which resonates with Crusan et al. (2016).

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More significantly, this paper has utilized the sociocultural lens to uncover the
dialectical nature of L2 writing teacher cognition developments. This means that one
development lays the foundation for the next one, in which the initial development is both
negated and existing. The dialectical interrelationships of the participating teacher’s four
major cognition shifts are depicted in Figure 2.
[INSERT FIGURE 2 HERE]
Figure 2. Jara’s dialectical SWL cognition shifts
As can be seen from this model, the first milestone in Jara’s L2 writing cognition
occurred when she developed the view of writing as a process, an initial understanding of
genre-based pedagogy, and an appreciation for both form- and content-focused feedback. Her
cognition subsequently experienced an upward trajectory when her view of learner writing
was expanded, resulting in her greater tolerance with grammar mistakes and increased
attention to “potential communication breakdowns”. However, this was followed by a
negative view of EAP writing, and finally a confinement of writing to the standardized
testing context. Hence, the last two shifts have been positioned below Shift 1 and 2. The
dialectic between the four major shifts is indicated by multiple lines with arrowheads at both
ends. Notably, the dialectical relationships existed not only between two immediate shifts but
also across all four major ones. However, the relationships between two non-immediate shifts

(for example, Shift 1 and 3, or 2 and 4) were not always obvious, and hence are indicated by
dash lines. For example, Jara’s priority given to linguistic errors in Shift 4 could be seen as a
negation of her communication-oriented view of L2 writing in Shift 1 and 2. Simultaneously,
the traces of Shift 2 and even Shift 1 still existed in Shift 4, evidenced by her consistent
attention to content problems in student writing.
Regarding the mediators, the study has confirmed the benefits of teacher education
programs similar to Lee (2013), He and Prater (2014), and Xiao (2014). However, the

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mediation in Jara’s case came from her exposure to the scholarly literature rather than from a
specific course such as in Lee (2013). This difference was to be expected, given that there
was no course devoted to L2 writing pedagogy in the participant’s case and neither was she
afforded the chance to engage in guided reflection (Xiao, 2014) or innovative teaching
projects (He & Prater, 2014). Furthermore, the influence of language learning experiences on
L2 writing teacher cognition (Reichelt, 2009; Worden, 2015) can also be detected in Jara’s
narrative.
However, based on the sociocultural theory, this paper has reconceptualized teachers’
ontogenetic experiences as the source of two types of mediation. The first type was human
mediation which played presumably the most significant role in Jara’s cognition shifts. For
instance, it was the guided participation provided by Jara’s favorite teachers that mediated her
own L2 writing belief and practice developments. Likewise, apprenticeship mediation
(Rogoff, 1995) contributed considerably to Shift 3 and 4 in Jara’s cognition (Figure 2) since
these shifts coincided with her participation in communities of EAP and ESE teachers
respectively. The second type of mediation stemming from Jara’s ontogenesis was offered by
concepts, both everyday and scientific, but everyday concepts were apparently more
influential than scientific ones. Nevertheless, while the mediation of scientific concepts such
as learner language literature was generally positive, helping Jara develop a balanced
feedback cognition, everyday concept mediation could be negative, a phenomenon that

echoes with Johnson (2009). For instance, Jara’s internalization of her own interactions with
peers during her undergraduate program led to her notion of group work as being unfair and
motivated her to avoid this work arrangement even when it was specified in EAP 3 course
guide. Another pattern is that scientific concepts were appropriated by Jara in light of her
everyday concepts, which explains why Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005) could mediate Jara’s
feedback cognition towards a more communication-oriented approach (see 5.2).

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The paper has also affirmed the role of context, both micro and macro, in shaping L2
writing teacher cognition similar to Lee (2008), Lee (2014) and Reichelt (2009). However, by
viewing the micro context as the microgenetic environment where the teacher’s microgenesis
or “momentary instances of concrete, practical activity” (Cross, 2010, p.439) unfolds and the
macro context as the cultural-historical domain, the study has connected rather than separated
these two contexts and underscored their dialectical influence (Wertsch, 1985) on the
participant’s cognition. In other words, the context mediation both expanded and constrained
Jara’s L2 writing cognition. For example, Vietnam’s economic growth resulted in the import
of Western pedagogies both in form of textbooks and Western educated teachers and made
the Internet an accessible artifact, enabling Jara’s first cognition shift (Figure 2). In contrast,
the mandatory standardized testing policy, a cultural-historical artifact (Cross, 2010),
narrowed Jara’s L2 writing cognition and made it more exam-oriented.
Most importantly, this paper has highlighted two themes that have not been salient in
L2 writing teacher cognition literature. First, it has demonstrated that without artifacts,
teachers’ experiences, reconceptualized above as the source of human and concept mediation,
would not have led to cognition transformations. For instance, the human mediation in Shift 1
(Figure 2) could not have been internalized by the participant without textbooks, handouts
and the Internet. The other salient theme is that the resources (concepts, humans, artifacts)
worked in unison rather than in isolation to mediate the participant’s cognition. Their interrelationships are visualized in Figure 3.
[INSERT FIGURE 3 HERE]

Figure 3. Sociocultural resources mediating L2 writing teacher cognition
In this model, Jara’s cognition ecology which subsumed both her unobservable beliefs
and concrete practices (or microgenesis (Cross, 2010)) operated at the microgenetic level. As
such, it was evidently mediated by microgenetic artifacts such as language learning materials,

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and other humans in her immediate context (faculty staff and students). Nonetheless, her
cognition was also mediated by her past teachers and the concepts stemming from her
extensive language learning and teaching history. Such mediation at the microgenetic and
ontogenetic levels occurred on the broad canvas of the cultural-historical domain, which was
always present but not easily discernible, and hence is depicted by a dash circle. The culturalhistoric domain’s mediation might be direct (via a concrete artifact such as the mandatory
testing policy) or indirect (for example, Vietnam’s economic growth enabled Jara to receive
instruction from Western-educated teachers). Taken as a whole, the model suggests that L2
writing teacher cognition exists in the dialectic between three types of mediators (humans,
concepts, and artifacts) which originate from three genetic domains (cultural-historical,
ontogenetic, and microgenetic), an observation reminiscent of Cross’ (2010) comment on
language teacher agency. Because of their multi-level origins, these mediators do not always
work in harmony. For example, Jara’s ontogenetically derived concept of learner writing as a
process did not match the mandatory testing policy (a cultural-historical artifact) in which
writing was implicitly regarded as a product. The disharmony between the mediators partly
explicates why L2 writing teacher cognition is often unstable and filled with contradictions,
which Jara’s case clearly exemplifies.
7. Conclusion
In line with contemporary language teacher cognition literature, the paper has adopted
a participation-oriented view of cognition and Vygotsky’s genetic method and concept of
mediation to investigate the major shifts in a Vietnamese English language teacher’s L2
writing cognition and the mediating resources involved. It has demonstrated that her
cognition changes followed a complex, non-linear trajectory, and there were dialectical

interrelationships between these shifts. Concerning the mediators, the study has revealed that
human mediation, in form of apprenticeship and guided participation, assumed the most

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significant role, followed by the mediation by concepts, both everyday and scientific.
However, such mediation would not have been effectively internalized without artifacts such
as language learning materials and the Internet. Most importantly, these three types of
resources worked simultaneously and dialectically to mediate the participant’s cognition,
suggesting that it is in the space between their dialectic that L2 writing teacher cognition
resides (Figure 3).
The study has a number of limitations. First, as a single case study, its findings are not
statistically generalizable to EFL teachers in Vietnam and other countries. Nevertheless, it has
attempted to expand the language teacher cognition literature via analytic generalization
which entails “a carefully posed theoretical proposition ... [that] can take the form of a lesson
learned, working hypothesis, or other principle that is believed to be applicable to other
situations” (Yin, 2014, p. 68). In addition, it has adopted a theoretical framework to overcome
issues associated with simple thematic analysis (Pavlenko, 2007) so that the findings can be
interpreted beyond a specific context. Another problem is the lack of observational data,
which means little was known about the teacher’s actual pedagogical practices or
microgenesis. Nevertheless, this issue was partly mitigated thanks to other potential sources
of microgenetic data including institutional documents such as course guides and textbooks
as well as her students’ commented essays.
Despite its shortcomings, the study has made some important contributions. First, it
argues for a more expanded view of L2 writing teacher cognition and demonstrates how this
can be achieved by adopting a theory that accounts for both the social and historical
dimensions of language teacher cognition. Unlike Cross (2010) who calls for a unifying
framework, the paper is intended to showcase Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory as a viable
rather than the only option because I believe that the complexity of language teacher

cognition is best explored from multiple perspectives and limiting this field to one single

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