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Vygotsky's Theory (This theory comprises three major components namely…
Vygotsky's Theory
This theory comprises three major components namely:
2) Language and thinking
With Language and thinking, Vygotsky focused attention on elements that are easily explained and that has a deep connection between speech and the development of mental concepts and cognitive awareness.
Vygotsky believed that inner speech developed from external language through a process of internalisation which merely meant to ‘think out loud’ in the case of children.
Here we deal with the relationship between language and thinking.
He further postulated that inner speech in adults would be unintelligible to anyone besides the thinker (because a person understands their own thinking) – it is too abstract and compressed to express in spoken language.
Vygotsky found that thinking developed in the social interactions of a child.
3) The Zone of proximal development (ZPD)
The ZPD is Vygotsky’s term to describe tasks that are difficult for learners; tasks that they would not be able to do alone.
With the guidance of a teacher/adult/more-skilled learner other learners can master tasks.
ZPD comprises of a lower level and a higher level.
The lower level represents the stage where a learner does not need assistance and the higher level represents the stage where the learner needs assistance from someone to master a task.
The ZPD captures the cognitive skills of a child in the process of development getting more complex as the person matures.
According to ZPD, the development of cognitive skills from childhood to adulthood only occurs with the assistance of more skilled person.
Scaffolding is an example of ZPD.
1) The social/cultural context and thinking
• Vygotsky’s research focused on child development and how culture as well as interpersonal communication influenced child development.
• He observed that humans within the cultural group became more intellectual as they grew up.
• He was also interested in how the intellectual abilities of a human developed more and more through their interaction with influential people. The child started to learn thinking patterns that is indigenous to their culture, as well as how they talk, how they write and how symbols represented knowledge which gave meaning to the child.
• In this way, the way in which the child constructed knowledge was influenced and this is called, ‘Cultural mediation’.
• The knowledge a child represents is seen as shared knowledge of their cultural group, called ‘Internalising’.