| Who was Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)? | Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who provided an alternative view to Piaget's theory that suggested developing children as busy and self-motivated individuals -who on their own- explore, form, and test ideas with their experiences.
Vygotsky proposed his sociocultural theory of development which emphasises the role of social interaction, language, and culture on the child's developing mind. |
| Provide a brief overview of Vygotsky's theory. | Vygotsky's theory suggests that cognitive development occurs when learners, with the support of more knowledgeable others (MKO) -usually parents, teachers, or other adults- acquire the knowledge and skills unique to a particular culture through the use of social interaction and language.
Adults and other MKOs gauge learner's readiness for new tasks and provide the support needed to acquire more developmentally advanced knowledge and skills through language-rich social interactions. |
| What did Vygotsky believed to be central to development? | Vygotsky (1978, 1986) believed that social interaction is key to and directly promotes development. The development of a child's thinking is the direct result of communication and interaction between children and MKOs. |
| According to Vygotsky, when children interact with MKOs, what forms in their minds? | In this interaction between children and MKOs, the children develops new understanding that they wouldn't have been able to acquire on their own.
This understanding exists in the form of COGNITIVE TOOLS, the concepts and symbols (numbers & language) together with the real tools that allow people to think, solve problems, and function in a culture. |
| Provide an example of how culturally embedded ideas, along with physical tools can help a developing child's understand their world. | For example, the Yu'pik people, who live in the Bering Sea (west of Alaska), have 99 different ways to describe ice. There are concepts describing wavy ice, shoreline broken ice, small cakes of ice, and thin ice overlapped like shingles (Block, 2007).
These ideas and also physical tools; such as harpoons and nets, are introduced to the child by their parents or elders which helps him/her function in their immediate environment.
Similarly, concepts like freedom of speech and managing money, together with real tools, like computers and the Internet, help us function in ours. |
| In relation to Vygotsky's theory, what is internalisation? | Vygotsky suggested that children need not reinvent the knowledge of a culture on their own rather, this knowledge has accumulated over thousands of years and should be appropriated (internalised) through social interaction (Leontiev, 1981).
Internalisation is the process through which learners incorporate external, society-based ideas into internal cognitive structures. |
| According to Vygotsky, does the cultural development of children appear socially or individually first? | Vygotsky (1978, p. 57) firmly believed that "every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later on the individual level... All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals."
Vygotsky states that developmental process first occurs at the social level and is later internalised by individuals, and he believes in applies to all forms of development. |
| Vygotsky sociocultural theory suggests that language plays 3 important roles in development. What are they? | 1. Language gives leaners access to knowledge others already posses.
2. It is a cognitive tool that people use to help make sense of their environment. For example, learning a new word and how it's pronounced, its attributes and its real-life application.
3. Language is a means for regulating and reflecting on our own thinking (Winsler & Naglieri, 2003). |
| According to Vygotsky, what is private speech observed in people, especially children? | Observing that children often talk to as they complete various tasks, Vygotsky believed this free-floating speech is the precursor of internal, private speech, or self-talk that guides thinking and action (cakap dalam hati). |
| What is the purpose of private speech in individuals? | Private speech proves an executive function. For example, the ability to maintain attention, monitor thoughts and steer them in productive directions, which become increasingly important as we learn complex ideas and solve sophisticated problems.
Private speech forms the foundation for cognitive skills such as remembering and problem solving (Winsler, Fernyhough, & Montero, 2009).
Private speech provide the tools for children to examine their thinking, help with problem solving and other higher order functions, and control emotions and actions, all of which mark the beginnings of self-regulation. |
| Do children with private speech learn better than those who don't? | As development advances, private speech becomes silent and internalised but still remains important. Children who use private speech achieve more than their peers, enjoy learning more, and learn complex tasks more effectively than those who don't.
The absence of private speech, which helps monitor learning, such as during reading, math, and complex thinking in other areas, may also be a factor in the problems encountered by students with learning disabilities (Friend, 2011) |
