Trainers: Piaget Jean, was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology".
Vygotsky Lev, was a Soviet psychologist, best known for his work on psychological development in children and creating the framework known as cultural-historical activity theory.
Piaget said: “Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely.”
Vygotsky said: “We are conscious of ourselves because we are conscious of others; and in an analogous manner, we are conscious of others because in our relationship to ourselves we are the same as others in their relationship to us. I am aware of myself only to the extent that I am as another for myself.”
The Run
Both born in 1896 are the fathers of what we may call socio-constructivism in human development. They managed to develop scientific truths about the cognitive and psychological processes children go through while they learn how to manipulate with knowledge and learning. Their seminal work is still under scrutiny and careful observation even in our days and some of their basic premises are the main aspects of our teaching and child development.
Piaget described the stages of mental development a child should go through to mature intellectually and this includes its cognitive and non-cognitive personality development. He showed that child’s development passes through 4 main stages. The sensorimotor stage (from birth to 2 years) when children experience the world via senses and movements. The preoperational stage (2 to 7) while children mainly are involved in plain play and symbolic play that builds up their personality and help them develop a theory of mind. The concrete operational stage (from 7 to 11) in which children develop the sense of logic and basic thinking skills and it is also the stage when children stop being egocentric and appreciate other people’s thinking. And the formal operational stage (11 to 16 onwards) when children are able to develop abstract thinking and metacognition. It is the stage that children can become better problem solvers through a guided process.
Vygotsky, on the other hand, described the psychological processes that help children become thinkers and learners. He insisted on the socio-psychological plane of the children’s development and explained how the use of the language and the various thought processes lead them to mental and intellectual maturity. For Vygotsky three concepts are of prime importance. The zone of proximal development (ZPD) that describes the level of assistance more capable peers may offer to new learners until they manage to reach conceptual thinking themselves. The socialization of learning and the emphasis on the way other people shape child’s thinking abilities, namely through the relationship of the people around them i.e. “the significant others”, parents, friends, and classmates. And last but not least, the process of internalization which describes the way learning is acquired. According to Vygotsky, learning is firstly mediated esoterically through a participatory process which is followed by a more interactive phase with the people around that allows the reshaping and correcting of the newly acquired “knowledge”.
Post-Run Recover Routine
These concepts and ideas have shaped our pedagogical approaches, or they are supposed to have done so. Pedagogically what these two educationists have offered us can be translated into several universals, common practice in other words.
- Children should not be exposed to abstract thinking or any metalanguage until well in formal operational stage. They are simply not ready to process any of these language aspects and definitely they cannot process language density at this level. The modern trend that wants language learners to sit exams of high levels (B2 even higher) in the age of 10 to 12 cannot be scientifically supported. These learners may not be able to understand the linguistic content of the target language, they learn the language mechanistically and attrition follows emptying their linguistic repertoire.
- Any idea of creativity should be deployed in the form of collaborative problem solving, even better in the form of a stand-alone or continuing project in the form of project-based learning (PBL). Vygotsky’s educational psychology insists on groupwork, and it lists the multiple benefits of “thinking together” which multiply the knowledge gains. It seems that the overemphasis on the individual intelligence, as it has been prescribed by the education authorities, is no longer a sustainable paradigm.
- Children’s play, symbolic or traditional, has been severely undermined and neglected. It has been systematically ousted from traditional syllabi and industrial curricula. As it is obvious two thirds of childhood are supported via play. Classrooms that use play in any form and in any way will be significantly benefited. The greater gains will come from learners unbiased and natural conceptual development that will also allow a more reasonable transition from one stage of development to the other. Again the (hypocritic) earnestness of many language classrooms and the overemphasis on their academic achievements lead to severe discrimination of the learners and discourages deep and unhindered learning.
- Scaffolding learning (chunking) through zone of proximal development is the suitable approach to build Chomskian competence. When tasks are scaffolded, and learners participate in collective thinking tasks, deep learning and understanding are witnessed. Tasks that promote drilling or require prescribed learning offer very little for very few in the process of communicative competence. These sorts of tasks are also simulated in language exams. This sort of assessment may lead to success, but this is not learning-oriented and long-lasting. There is also the problem of exam validity, in other words, whether the exam corresponds the targeted level of performance.
We need to study and research Piagetian and Vygotskian science much deeper. Above all, we need to remember that classrooms are social-psychological and epistemological laboratories where life is an in-vivo development.
