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Seminar Language Acquistition and Universal Grammar 13. December 2002 WS 02/03
PD Dr. Pius ten Hacken Kirstie Wäber, Wanda Czendlik
Second Language Acquisition and Theories of Universal Grammar
As the research of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is developing and becoming more theory oriented there is a need to
deal with two problems in the L2 acquisition theory, namely:
the Logical Problem: How do speakers come to know more than is present in the input (L2 competence
transcending the input)? A property theory explaining the components that constitute the system that is responsible
for LA to take place is needed.
the Developmental Problem: Why are some properties acquired earlier than others? A transition theory explaining
the processes of SLA is required is needed.
According to Atkinson, a valid acquisition theory must consist of a theory that explains what the properties of the
components of SLA are (solving the logical problem), how SLA is taking place and at what stage certain aspects of L2 are
acquired (solving the developmental problem) (Gregg 1996, 66-67).
A starting point to look at SLA is the principles and parameter setting model which is the most promising advancement in
L2 acquisition research. Flynn presents three hypotheses to explain role of UG in SLA ( logical problem):
“No Access” Hypothesis
UG is totally inaccessible to the adult L2 learner; learning takes place in terms of non-linguistic learning strategies
“Partial Access” Hypothesis
UG is partially available to the learner; only those parametric values characterising the L1 grammar are available,
the rest must be learnt in terms of non-linguistic learning strategies
“Full Access” Hypothesis
UG is fully available; differences in patterns of acquisition between L1 and L2 learners and the lack of
completeness can be accounted for in other ways.
Another approach is to think of UG as the theory of the language faculty but also of the initial state. Initial state is to be
understood as having a set of finite discrete principles available at any language specific ‘event’. This definition leads to two
possible models of LA:
Maturation Model: UG over time becomes the language specific grammar, i.e. UG and L1 are indissociable from
each other UG is only fully available until L1 is fully acquired.
Strong Continuity Hypothesis: UG remains distinct from the language specific grammar and remains constant
over time and is available continuously.
Revisions in linguistic theory, proposing a Minimalist Program, shed a new light on the role of UG in SLA. It seems though,
that this new theory is compatible with the approach to language acquisition embracing the principle and parameter setting
model (into which also the SCH fits in). Minimalist Theory proposes that languages are based on simple principles that
interact to form often intricate structures. The Language faculty is not redundant and can still be the basis for grammatical
mapping integration of UG principles in the grammar of the specific TL.
Bibliography:
Gregg, Kevin R. (1996):, “The Logical and Developmental Problems of Second language Acquisition”, in Ritchie & Bhatia (eds.): Handbook of Second
Language Acquisition, San Diego, Academic Press, ch.2, p. 49-81.
Hawkins, Roger (2001): Second Language Syntax: A Generative Introduction, Oxford, Blackwell, ch.1: “A Framework for Studying Second Language
Syntax”, p. 1-33.
Flynn, Suzanne & Lust, Barbara (2002): “A minimalist Approach to L2 solves a Dilemma of UG” in Portraits of the L2 User, Clevedon, Multilingual
Matters, ch.4, p.93-120.
Flynn, Suzanne (1996): “A Parameter-Setting Approach to Second Language Acquisition”, in Ritchie & Bhatia (eds.): Handbook of Second Language
Acquisition, San Diego, Academic Press, ch.4, p.121-158.
UG
Theory of the
human capacity
for language and
its acquisition
Parameters
Determine those properties
of language relevant to the
construction of a specific
grammar must be
learned
Parametric Values
Determine what forms
the variation can take.
Language Specific Universal
Principles
Universally invariant
properties of grammar
construction
innate
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Piaget was among other things, a psychologist who was interested in cognitive development. After observation of many children, he posited that children progress through 4 stages and that they all do so in the same order. These four stages are described below.
The Sensorimotor Period (birth to 2 years)
During this time, Piaget said that a child's cognitive system is limited to motor reflexes at birth, but the child builds on these reflexes to develop more sophisicated procedures. They learn to generalize their activities to a wider range of situations and coordinate them into increasingly lengthy chains of behaviour.
PreOperational Thought (2 to 6/7 years)
At this age, according to Piaget, children acquire representational skills in the areas mental imagery, and especially language. They are very self-oriented, and have an egocentric view; that is, preoperational chldren can use these representational skills only to view the world from their own perspective.
Concrete Operations (6/7 to 11/12 years)
As opposed to Preoperational children, children in the concrete operations stage are able to take another's point of view and take into account more than one perspective simultaneously. They can also represent transformations as well as static situations. Although they can understand concrete problems, Piaget would argue that they cannot yet perform on abstract problems, and that they do not consider all of the logically possible outcomes.
Formal Operations (11/12 to adult)
Children who attain the formal operation stage are capable of thinking logically and abstractly. They can also reason theoretically. Piaget considered this the ultimate stage of development, and stated that although the children would still have to revise their knowledge base, their way of thinking was as powerful as it would get.
It is now thought that not every child reaches the formal operation stage. Developmental psychologists also debate whether children do go through the stages in the way that Piaget postulated. Whether Piaget was correct or not, however, it is safe to say that this theory of cognitive development has had a tremendous influence on all modern developmental psychologists.
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Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934) studied at the University of Moscow to become a teacher of literature. His first research as a young scholar focused on artistic creation. It was only from 1924 on that his career changed dramatically as he started working in the areas of developmental psychology, education and psychopathology. He pursued these interests at a highly productive pace until he died of tuberculosis in 1934 at a very young age (Murray Thomas, 1993). In his brief life-span he acquired vast knowledge not only of psychology but also of the social sciences, philosophy, linguistics and literature.
Due to different factors, including those related to the particular political relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, Vygotsky's work remained unknown in the Americas for decades. When the Cold War ended, the incredible wealth of Vygotsky's work began to be revealed. Nowadays, it is difficult to exclude Vygotsky from any serious discussion of learning processes.
The origins of thought and language according to Vygotsky
Like in animals, thought and speech have different roots in humankind, thought being nonverbal and language being nonintellectual in an early stage. But their development lines are not parallel - they cross again and again. At a certain moment around the age of two, the curves of development of thought and speech, until then separate, meet and join to initiate a new form of behavior. That is when thought becomes verbal and speech becomes rational. A child first seems to use language for superficial social interaction, but at some point this language goes underground to become the structure of the child's thinking.
Word meaning and concept formation
... a problem must arise that cannot be solved otherwise than through the formation of new concepts. (Vygotsky, 1962:55)
Once the child realizes that everything has a name, each new object presents the child with a problem situation, and he solves the problem by naming the object. When he lacks the word for the new object, he demands it from adults. The early word-meanings thus acquired will be the embryos of concept formation.
Vygotsky's social constructivism
According to Vygotsky, all fundamental cognitive activities take shape in a matrix of social history and form the products of socio historical development (Luria, I 976). That is, cognitive skills and patterns of thinking are not primarily determined by innate factors, but are the products of the activities practiced in the social institutions of the culture in which the individual grows up. Consequently, the history of the society in which a child is reared and the child's personal history are crucial determinants of the way in which that individual will think. In this process of cognitive development, language is a crucial tool for determining how the child will learn how to think because advanced modes of thought are transmitted to the child by means of words (Murray Thomas, 1993).
Thought and language, and intellectual development
To Vygotsky, a clear understanding of the interrelations between thought and language is necessary for the understanding of intellectual development. Language is not merely an expression of the knowledge the child has acquired. There is a fundamental correspondence between thought and speech in terms of one providing resource to the other; language becoming essential in forming thought and determining personality features.
Zone of proximal development
One essential tenet in Vygotsky's theory is the notion of the existence of what he called the "zone of proximal development". Zone of proximal development is the difference between the child's capacity to solve problems on his own, and his capacity to solve them with assistance. In other words, the actual developmental level refers to all the functions and activities that a child can perform on his own, independently without the help of anyone else. On the other hand, the zone of proximal development includes all the functions and activities that a child or a learner can perform only with the assistance of someone else. The person in this scaffolding process, providing non-intrusive intervention, could be an adult (parent, teacher, caretaker, language instructor) or another peer who has already mastered that particular function.
An interesting analogy comes to my mind when I think of zone of proximal development. In mechanics, when you adjust the timing of an engine, you set it slightly ahead of the highest compression moment in order to maximize power and performance.
Vygotsky's zone of proximal development has many implications for those in the educational milieu. One of them is the idea that human learning presupposes a specific social nature and is part of a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them (Vygotsky, 1978). According to Vygotsky (1978), an essential feature of learning is that it awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is in the action of interacting with people in his environment and in cooperation with his peers.
Therefore, when it comes to language learning, the authenticity of the environment and the affinity between its participants are essential elements to make the learner feel part of this environment. These elements are rarely predominant in conventional classrooms.
Vygotsky's influence on 's second language acquisition theory
Although Vygotsky and Krashen come from entirely different backgrounds, the application of their theories to second language teaching produces similarities.
Influence or coincidence, Krashen's input hypothesis resembles Vygotsky's concept of zone of proximal development. According to the input hypothesis, language acquisition takes place during human interaction in an environment of the foreign language when the learner receives language 'input' that is one step beyond his/her current stage of linguistic competence. For example, if a learner is at a stage 'i', then maximum acquisition takes place when he/she is exposed to 'Comprehensible Input' that belongs to level 'i + 1'.
Krashen's acquisition-learning hypothesis also seems to have been influenced by Vygotsky. Although Vygotsky speaks of internalization of language while Krashen uses the term language acquisition, both are based on a common assumption: interaction with other people. The as defined by Krashen and its importance in achieving proficiency in foreign languages, can be a perfect application of Vygotsky's view of cognitive development as taking place in the matrix of the person's social history and being a result of it.
Even the distinct concepts in Krashen's acquisition theory and Vygotsky's sociocultural theory are not conflicting but complementary in providing resources for language teaching methodology.
By explaining human language development and cognitive development, Vygotsky's theory serves as a strong foundation for the modern trends in applied linguistics. It lends support to less structured and more natural, communicative and experiential approaches and points to the importance of early real-world human interaction in foreign language learning
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Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development
Amid Vygotsky's best known contributions to developmental and cognitive psychology was his various explanations to the question of how development came about as a outgrowth of learning. Due to space limitations, I will feature here only one of his explanations, namely his concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (or, for short, 'ZPD'). Most simply defined for here, Vygotsky referred to the distance between the abilities displayed independently and with social support as the ZPD; his thesis being that this "zone" was created by learning. To cite directly from Vygotsky, this most widely known concept of his theory represented "the distance between the actual level of development as determined by independent problem solving [without guided instruction] and the level of potential development as determined by problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers". Measurement would thus be achieved by comparing the student's performance on both tasks.
The thesis behind this "zone" is that at a certain stage in development, children can solve a certain range of problems only when they are interacting with people and in cooperation with peers. Once the problem solving activities have been internalized, the problems initially solved under guidance and in cooperation with others will be tackled independently. The notion here seems to be that one's latent, or unexpressed ability could be measured by the extent to which one profits from guided instruction.
To frame what I have just stated, within a practical educational example, let us take two students. Assume that both of their chronological ages (CA) are ten (10) years and that both of their mental ages (MA) are eight (8) years. Ask whether one can characterize them as being of the same age mentally. On the face of it, of course, one would respond in the affirmative. But this means that both students can deal with tasks up to the degree of difficulty characterized by what eight (8) year olds can typically do. One could say that the actual developmental level for the two learners is the same.
My most recent readings on Vygotsky suggests that he is asking an additional and deeper question here: Can one thereby ascertain that the subsequent course of their mental development and their special school learning will be the same, because both depend on their intellect? Naturally, there are non-intellectual factors that may influence their school learning or their mental development. But for the time being, let us simply consider these non-intellectual factors as being comparable for our two (2) idealized students. Most people would assume that one could make comparable predictions about each of the students. If Vygotsky were alive today, that is, in 2002, I believe that he would argue that this initial view is incorrect.
Suppose that I, the examiner, provide guided assistance to each of the two students in order to help them solve some given ill-defined problem. It turns out that, with this guided assistance, the first student can deal with ill-defined problems up to the level of a twelve (12) year old, whereas the second student can only deal with ill-defined problems up to the level of a nine (9) year old. Would I still want to conclude that the two students are mentally the same? I believe that Vygotsky would postulate a firm no, for the first student has shown to be better able to profit from instruction than the second. Hence, it is reasonable to suppose that with regard to future as opposed to past development (as traditionally measured using normalized, formalized, or standardized IQ-type instrument), the first student is superior to the second and thus has a stronger prognosis.
To sum the immediate above three paragraphs, the difference between mental age twelve (12) and mental age eight (8), for the first child, and mental age nine (9) and mental age eight (8), for the second child, is what I believe Vygotsky refers to as the ZPD. That is, the ZPD is the distance between the "actual" developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of "potential" development as determined through problem solving under teacher guidance or in collaboration with more capable (in this case) school aged peers. As a former state-funded public school classroom teacher and school principal, I surely do appreciate Vygotsky's interpretation because there may be many pupils, especially within the underachieving gifted student population, who are not identified because, although they have the potential, they have yet to realize it. This is why I enjoy read the writings of Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky.
CHAPTER 10. THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
FOR LEARNING AND TEACHING
There can be little doubt that, in the English-speaking world at least, it is the "zone of proximal development" that has been Vygotsky's most important legacy to education. Indeed, it is the only aspect of Vygotsky's genetic theory of human development that most teachers have ever heard of and, as a result, it is not infrequently cited to justify forms of teaching that seem quite incompatible with the theory as a whole. This centenary conference therefore seems an appropriate occasion to review Vygotsky's exposition of the zpd and to consider the ways in which this seminal concept has been modified and extended in subsequent work.
Although the zpd is often said to be a central concept within his theory, its explicit formulation appeared quite late in Vygotsky's writings and then in two rather different contexts. One version, translated into English as "Interaction between Learning and Development" (chapter 6 of Mind in Society, 1978), occurred in a posthumously published collection of essays entitled Mental Development of Children and the Processes of Learning (Vygotsky, 1935). Here, the immediate context in which the concept of the zpd is presented is that of the assessment of children's intellectual abilities and, more specifically, as a more dynamic conception of intellectual potential than that represented by an IQ score. Vygotsky defines the zone of proximal development as "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers" (1978, p.86). In other words, operationally, it is the zone defined by the difference between a child's test performances under two conditions: with or without assistance.
The second version occurs in Vygotsky's last major work, Thinking and Speech (1934/1987), and is embedded in chapter 6, in which he discusses "The Development of Scientific Concepts in Childhood". Here, the emphasis falls more heavily on instruction and, in particular, on its role in relation to the development of those higher mental functions that are characterized by conscious awareness and volition. In this context, the significance of the zpd is that it determines the lower and upper bounds of the zone within which instruction should be pitched. "Instruction is only useful when it moves ahead of development" (p.212), "leading the child to carry out activities that force him to rise above himself" (p.213). How instruction is conceived to operate in practice is briefly sketched in a description of the hypothesized processes leading to the child's solving of a test problem involving a causal relationship in the social sciences. Vygotsky writes: "The teacher, working with the school child on a given question, explains, informs, inquires, corrects, and forces the child himself to explain. All this work on concepts, the entire process of their formation, is worked out by the child in collaboration with the adult in instruction. Now, [i.e. in the test situation] when the child solves a problem ... [he] must make independent use of the results of that earlier collaboration" (pp.215-216).
Written at about the same time, these two expositions have several common features, including the emphasis on learning leading development, and on the role of adult assistance and guidance in enabling the child to do in collaboration with more expert others what he or she is not yet able to do alone. These are memorably summed up in the contrast Vygotsky makes between development in animals and humans: "animals are incapable of learning in the human sense of the term; human learning presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them" (1978, p.88). In this sentence, one can see how the zpd was probably destined to play a pivotal role in the larger theory that Vygotsky was constructing. Unfortunately, however, he did not live to work out the implications of what is here only sketched. Instead, what we have in the work that was completed is, on the one hand, some provocative and generative metaphors and, on the other, two rather specific applications of the concept of the zpd that may appear to be rather out of keeping with contemporary Vygotskian-inspired educational practice.
On the basis of these two texts alone, therefore, there remain a number of questions about how the concept should be understood. For example, did Vygotsky consider that, at any particular point in a child's development, the zpd was a fixed and quantifiable attribute of that particular child? And did it apply only to intellectual development? Was the assistance that could be given by others restricted to deliberate instruction of the kind described above? And did it necessarily have to be given in face-to-face verbal interaction? And, perhaps most important, should the account he offered of learning-and-teaching in the zpd be taken as universal and normative or as merely descriptive of the practices of a particular stratum of the society in which he lived?
It is a central tenet of cultural historical theory, however, that tools - including cognitive artifacts - are created at a particular moment in the historical trajectory of a culture, in response to the demands of the activity in which they are used, and that they continue to be modified, in use, by those who continue the activity. The concept of the zone of proximal development is just such a cognitive artifact/tool. As Wertsch (1985) suggests, it was formulated by Vygotsky to tackle two specific problems, as these were construed at a particular moment in his ongoing construction of a more general theory of development; moreover, as well as being incomplete, his exposition of the concept bears the stamp of the more general intellectual and practical concerns of his generation in post-revolutionary Russia. However, since its first formulation, the zpd has continued to serve a valuable role as a tool for thinking about human development by theorists and researchers in other cultural and historical contexts. Not surprisingly, therefore, it has itself undergone considerable modification in the process. In the remainder of this paper, I shall offer a brief overview of what I see to be the main trends in this development.
Assessment
Some of the earliest attempts to apply Vygotsky's concept occurred in the context of testing. Picking up his concern with appropriate assessment, attempts were made to use the concept of the zpd in the administration of tests under two conditions: without and with assistance. Typically, the aim of such assessment was, and continues to be, the categorization of individual students with a view to their appropriate placement in educational programs, often of a remedial kind (Campione and Brown, 1987; Feuerstein, 1979). In these applications, the tests used have typically been 'standardized' in form and administered on a single occasion in a setting removed from ongoing classroom or home activities. However, it could be argued that, although compatible with Vygotsky's (1978) discussion of the value of the concept of the zpd for diagnostic assessment, the practice of administering such decontextualized tests is at variance with the requirement that assessment be related to the cultural activities in which the tested subject habitually engages. Certainly, this seems to be the implication of Cole's (1985) criticism of cross-cultural research that fails to embed testing in activity contexts familiar to those who are tested.
Since the purpose of assessment of the zpd is to enable the provision of appropriate instruction, such assessment, it might be argued, is more appropriately carried out in the context of particular students' engagement in an educational activity (Allal and Ducrey, 1996). Here, the aim is the diagnosis of the student's ability to cope with the specific task and of the nature of the difficulties that he or she is experiencing so that, when the teacher intervenes, the intervention is tailored to the student's actual needs rather than to the assumed needs of students in general at that age or grade level. This mode of diagnostic assessment has been employed at two levels, corresponding to the distinction that is frequently made between summative and formative assessment. At the summative level, a student's performance on an end-of-unit test or assignment can be made the basis on which the teacher then works with the student individually or in a small, relatively homogeneous group. The practices of "reciprocal teaching", developed by Palincsar and Brown (1984) would seem to fit into this category. The assistance given under these conditions can be seen as 'remedial', designed to enable the student to master some specific skill or those parts of the unit with which he or she had not been successful under normal instruction. While such practices are certainly compatible with Vygotsky's theory, they might in many cases equally be characterized as a regular feature of good traditional pedagogy.
A more dynamic conception of diagnostic assessment can be found in a number of pedagogical approaches that explicitly make appeal to the concept of the zpd. Here, the assessment is both formative and informal, and occurs as the teacher, either as a co-participant or as a bystander, observes how students are tackling particular tasks and, on this basis, attempts to intervene in a manner that is both responsive to the students' needs and intended to assist them to achieve mastery of the task (Schneuwly and Bain, 1993). Although geared to the responses of a group, rather than of an individual student, this dynamic use of assessment to guide teaching is also the basis of what Tharp and Gallimore (1988) refer to as "instructional conversation". It is this latter, situated, use of assessment that Allal and Ducrey (1996) consider best fulfills Vygotsky's concern to use assessment to guide instruction.
Instruction
All the above assessment practices are undertaken with a view to providing appropriate instruction. However, the judgments that they lead to are of quite different orders of specificity with respect to the nature of the instruction that is deemed appropriate. In introducing the notion of the zpd in relation to the assessment of children with "delayed development", Vygotsky (1978) was essentially arguing for appropriate placement based on the child's learning potential. His chief concern was that the placement should ensure that the child had the opportunity for "good learning", i.e. learning that is in advance of his or her development. What form of instruction might best provide such opportunities was not addressed on that occasion.
In the chapter in Thinking and Speech in which Vygotsky focuses more directly on instruction, the emphasis is on enabling the mastery of scientific concepts, which are seen as psychological tools that mediate higher mental functioning. The zpd is used in this context to identify the window for instruction: "instruction is maximally productive when it occurs at a certain point in the zone of proximal development" (1987, p.212). However, although he emphasizes the "decisive influence" that instruction has on the course of development (p.213), Vygotsky does not treat the nature of instruction itself as problematic, seemingly accepting the current practices with which he was familiar as adequate, provided they were appropriately in advance of development.
The one place in which Vygotsky gives a clearer indication of the form that "good instruction" might take is in his discussion of the Montessori approach to the early stages of literacy learning. The passage is worth quoting at some length.
... teaching should be organized in such a way that reading and writing are necessary for something. If they are used only to write official greetings to the staff or whatever the teacher thinks up (and clearly suggests to them), then the exercise will be purely mechanical and may soon bore the child; his activity will not be manifest in his writing and his budding personality will not grow. Reading and writing must be something the child needs ... writing must be "relevant to life" - in the same way that we require a "relevant" arithmetic. .A second conclusion, then, is that writing should be meaningful for children, that an intrinsic need should be aroused in them, and that writing should be incorporated into a task that is necesssary and relevant for life. (1978, pp.117-8)
Vygotsky is here writing about children of preschool age and, as he says elsewhere, "instruction takes on forms that are specific to each age level" (1987, p.213). We cannot be certain, therefore, whether he considered that the meaningfulness of educational activities to the learner and their relevance to life were essential characteristics of instruction at all ages and stages of development. However, recent commentators have for the most part assumed that this is what is implied by his theory as a whole.
As a result of Vygotsky's lack of specificity about the nature of instruction - at least in the context of his discussion of the zpd - there is considerable diversity in the instructional approaches that have been developed on the basis of his ideas. One crucial difference is in the role that students are given in shaping the goals of learning activities. On the one hand, there are approaches in which the zpd is appealed to only in determining the level at which instruction is pitched. Here, it is assumed that it is possible to establish the zpd of the class as a whole and to modify instructional input and task demands accordingly (Hedegaard, 1990). A further refinement might involve the formation of groups within the class, with tasks of different levels of difficulty being assigned according to the group's zpd. In neither case, however, would the students' interests and goals typically play a significant role in determining the teacher's pre-established instructional plans.
An alternative view places much greater emphasis on the importance of educational activities being meaningful and relevant to students at the time that they engage in them (Wells, 1995). Adopting this approach involves the teacher in negotiating the curriculum and in accepting that the most valuable learning opportunities are often those that emerge when students are encouraged to share the initiative in deciding which aspects of a class topic they wish to focus on and how they intend to do so. In such a context, the concept of the zpd is interpreted very differently. Not only is it assumed that the zpd applies to individuals rather than to collectives, such as a group or class, but, more importantly, it is treated as an attribute, not of the student alone, but of the student in relation to the specifics of a particular activity setting. In other words, the zone of proximal development is created in the interaction between the student and the co-participants in an activity, including the available tools and the selected practices, and depends on the nature and quality of that interaction as much as on the upper limit of the learner's capability. A corollary of this view is that, while it may be possible to determine, in general terms, what activity settings and modes of interaction are likely to be conducive to effective learning and, on that basis, to propose the goals for class or group activities, the teacher always has to be responsive to the students' goals, as these emerge in the course of activity, and by collaborating with them in the achievement of their individual goals, to enable them to extend their mastery and at the same time their potential for further development. From a teacher’s perspective, therefore, one is always aiming at a moving target.
Semiotic Mediation
Learning and teaching in the zpd is clearly dependent on social interaction and, in educational settings, this most typically involves face-to-face interaction mediated by speech. The development of the higher mental functions, as envisaged by Vygotsky, is largely achieved through the construction on the intramental plane of the discourse practices that are first encountered on the intermental plane of activity-related social interaction. As Leont'ev puts it, summarizing Vygotsky's fundamental insight:
higher psychological processes unique to humans can be acquired only through interaction with others, that is, through interpsychological processes that only later will begin to be carried out independently by the individual. When this happens, some of these proceses lose their initial, external form and are converted into intrapsychological processes." (1981, p.56)
Indeed, the final chapter of Thinking and Speech is essentially an expansion of this last sentence as, tracing the differentiation of the child's initial "social speech" into speech for others and "egocentric" speech for self which, in turn, becomes converted into the intrapsychological activity of "inner speech", Vygotsky charts the development of the medium in which individual thinking is realized. As he puts it, "thought is born through words" (1987, p. 282).
There is no doubt that, in Vygotsky's view, speech played a critical role in the child's learning in the zpd and, hence, in the associated processes of instruction and collaborative assistance. However, as is increasingly being recognized, to focus exclusively on face-to-face interaction mediated by speech is seriously to limit our understanding of the range of modes of semiotic mediation that play a role in both interpersonal and intrapersonal thinking and problem solving; it also limits our understanding of the variety of ways in which learning in the zpd is facilitated (Smagorinsky, 1995).
In his exposition of the concept of psychological tools, Vygotsky himself made clear that the means of semiotic mediation are not limited to speech. He also included: "various systems for counting; mnemonic techniques; algebraic symbol systems; works of art; writing; schemes, diagrams, maps and mechanical drawings; all sorts of conventional signs; and so on" (1981, p.137). To these, we might also wish to add the various modes of artistic expression, such as dance, drama and musical performance. All these modes of representation are simultaneously means of communication and tools for thinking with, both when with others and when alone (John-Steiner, 1987). To recognize this is to enlarge considerably the range of applicability of the concept of learning and teaching in the zpd.
Broadening the range of modes of semiotic mediation considered also leads to the recognition that there are other sources from which learners can receive assistance in the zpd, in addition to deliberate instruction or the assistance of others who are physically present in the situation. As has been pointed out, all artifacts - both material and symbolic - are embodiments of the knowing that was involved in their production (Wartofsky, 1979) and can thus, in appropriate circumstances, make that knowing available to others, provided that the learning that is required is within the potential user's zpd. While this is certainly the case with material artifacts, as when a new and more efficient tool becomes available for carrying out a familiar task, it is even more true of symbolic artifacts, such as written texts, charts and mathematical formulae. For those who are able to read them, such texts can provide a powerful means of self-instruction, as the reader appropriates the thoughts of others and makes them his or her own. However, as Lotman (1988) makes clear, texts are not only valuable when read "univocally", in an attempt to reconstruct the author's intended meaning; treating the text "dialogically" can be even more productive, as the reader uses it as "a thinking device" to develop meanings that are new not only for the reader but perhaps also for the culture as a whole. By the same token, it is probably through the dialoguing with real or imagined others that is an essential part of the process of textual composition that even the most knowledgeable others are able to continue to learn in the zpd.
Internalization: From Intermental to Intramental
The concept of "internalization" played a central role in Vygotsky's theory of learning and development; in fact, it might be said to be the end for which interaction in the zpd was conceived as the means. As he put it: "all higher mental functions are internalized social relationships" (1981, p.164). Yet, central though the concept is, it is probably the aspect of his theory that has been the most hotly contested. For some, the concept simply lacks explanatory power; for others, it is the implied mind/body dualism that is unacceptable. But whatever the specific objection, the general thrust of this line of argument has been to question, and even to reject, the sharp distinction that Vygotsky seems to draw between internal and external, and between social (intermental) and individual (intramental) functioning.
It is not that individuals do not develop more complex (higher) modes of functioning with respect to the activities in which they engage, as they increasingly bring their actions under semioticized self-control, but that these modes of functioning are not independent of the social practices in and for which they develop. Neither in learning nor in use after mastery does it therefore seem appropiate to talk of a movement between inner and outer, such as is implied by the terms 'internalization' and 'externalization'. This position is forcibly stated by Lave and Wenger in setting out their alternative theory of "legitimate peripheral participation":
In a theory of practice, cognition and communication in, and with, the social world are situated in the historical development of ongoing activity. ... First, the historicizing of the processes of learning gives the lie to ahistorical views of "internalization" as a universal process. Further, given a relational understanding of person, world, and activity, participation, at the core of our theory of learning, can be neither fully internalized as knowledge structures nor fully externalized as instrumental artifacts or overarching activity structures. Participation is always based on situated negotiation and renegotiation of meaning in the world. (1991, p.51)
More will be said below about Vygotsky's ahistorical universalizing tendencies but, in the present context, the issue that most needs to be addressed is the sharp distinction that he appears to draw between social and individual and, perhaps even more important, the temporal sequence in which functions are said to appear on the two planes.
From a strictly ontogenetic perspective, it is not inappropriate to argue, as Vygotsky does, that higher mental functions are first social and external, in the sense that they are already implicated in ongoing social activity before any particular individual enters into the activity and gradually becomes able to organize his or her participation in terms of an individual construction of the relevant cultural practices. It is also true that, from the same perspective, an individual's participation changes, over time, from a stage in which assistance and guidance are needed to a stage in which the same individual is generally able to function 'autonomously' and even to provide assistance and guidance to others. However, in using the term "internalization" to describe this transformation in and of participation, Vygotsky also appears to be proposing a temporal sequence on the microgenetic plane, such that, in learning, there is a stage at which the higher mental functions are external to the learner and a subsequent stage at which they are internal. The problem with this latter proposition is that it also implies a spatial movement in which what is learned passes from outside to inside the skin of the learner. And it is this that many commentators find objectionable.
The root of the problem seems to lie in Vygotsky's tendency to focus on the process of learning solely from the perspective of the inner transformation that takes place as a result of the learner's participation. And this leads him to set up an opposition between individual and social that seems to lose sight of the fact that, at every stage, the learner is necessarily a participant in, and therefore a part of, the community whose practices he or she is learning (Rogoff, 1990). The distinction between individual and social is thus not to be understood as a spatial separation between two distinct entities, such that functions can pass between them, but rather as the adoption of one or other of two different analytic perspectives on an individual's participation in activity, where the activity is inherently social and cultural, although carried out at any time by particular individual participants. In other words, the ongoing activity can be seen either from the perspective of the individual participants acting with mediational means, or from that of the social practices in which they and the mediational means are involved (Wertsch et al., 1995). And this remains the case whether the component actions are undertaken solo or in collaboration with others. Both perspectives are equally valid, although which perspective is foregrounded will vary with the purposes of the analysis.
The value of the concept of the zpd is that it enables us to adopt both of these perspectives simultaneously. For what it highlights for us is, on the one hand, the reciprocity with which the participants adjust their manner of participation to take account of each other's current levels of knowledge and skill in carrying out the activity and, on the other, the transformation that takes place, in the process, in their individual potential for participation. It is also important to add that, as a result of the ways in which new participants take part, both the purposes and the means of joint action are themselves constantly undergoing transformation.
Elsewhere (Wells, 1993 a), I have proposed that learning to dance is a particular case that can serve as an analogy for what is involved, more generally, in learning and teaching in the zpd. Dancing is a cultural activity that is far older than any individual participant and, although new forms emerge and are, in turn, replaced by still newer, the basic patterns tend to persist from one generation to the next. In learning to dance, therefore, the newcomer is joining an ongoing community of practice. To begin with, as the novice takes the first faltering steps, he or she is carried along by the rhythm of the music and guided by the movements of the other dancers (and even, in some, characteristically Western, genres, quite forcibly 'led' by his or her partner). Before long, however, the novice begins to get a feel for the dance and is soon able to participate on equal terms, both creating new variations that are taken up by others and adapting easily to those that they introduce.
In explaining this learning process, talk of internalization seems unnecessary; no knowledge passes explicitly to the novice from the more expert participants, as they move together with increasing synchrony. Rather, within the framework provided by the structure of the activity as a whole, of which the entraining movements of the other participants are just one part, the novice gradually constructs the organizing cognitive structures for him or herself and brings his or her actions into conformity with the culture-given pattern. In the words with which W.B. Yeats concludes his poem, Among School Children: " How can we know the dancer from the dance?"
The Significant Other
Much of the discussion of the zpd has assumed that, in order to learn, the young novice needs the assistance of a more expert person who participates with him or her in the activity. Certainly, parents and teachers are the most important providers of guidance and assistance in relation to the child's learning, in early childhood and even beyond. But they are not the only significant others in this respect. Vygotsky made this clear when he wrote: "learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is interacting with people in his environment and in cooperation with his peers" (1978, p.90). Indeed, the current emphasis on 'cooperative learning' in North America can be attributed, in part, to the significant role that Vygotsky, as well as Piaget, attributed to peer group activities in fostering learning.
On page 86 of the same text, Vygotsky actually specifies "more capable peers" but, as has become apparent from a range of studies of group work (Forman and McPhail, 1993; Tudge, 1990), it is not necessary for there to be a group member who is in all respects more capable than the others. This is partly because most activities involve a variety of component tasks such that students who are expert in one task, and therefore able to offer assistance to their peers, may themselves need assistance on another task. But it can also happen that in tackling a difficult task as a group, although no member has expertise beyond his or her peers, the group as a whole, by working at the problem together, is able to construct a solution that none could have achieved alone. In other words, each is "forced to rise above himself" and, by building on the contributions of its individual members, the group collectively constructs an outcome that no single member envisaged at the outset of the collaboration.
Educators have typically had little faith in the potential for learning inherent in tackling problems to which no-one knows the answer. However, it must have been through the 'pooling of ignorance' in the face of new ecological challenges that our ancestors gradually developed the cultural resources of tools and practices that provided the basis for subsequent generations' common knowledge. And still today, outside the classroom, it is often in conditions where no one member of the group has a clear idea of how to proceed that many of the most significant advances in understanding are made. It seems, therefore, for learning to occur in the zpd, it is not so much a more capable other that is required as a willingness on the part of all participants to learn with and from each other.
Telos: the End-Point of Development
Implicit in Vygotsky's discussion of the "awakening" role of instruction in relation to development there seems to be an assumption that the development that results from learning can be treated unequivocally as progress. This is most apparent in the chapter on spontaneous and scientific concepts (Vygotsky, 1987, chap.6), where the mastery of scientific concepts is clearly presented as making possible a higher mode of mental functioning than is possible with spontaneous concepts alone. Here, "higher" appears not simply to denote later in the sequence of ontogenetic development, but evaluatively to connote a superior mode of functioning. The same assumption, transferred to the plane of cultural history, can also be seen to underlie the studies conducted by Luria in Central Asia in the 1930s in collaboration with Vygotsky. The presupposition on which these studies were apparently based was that mastery of the abstract and decontextualized modes of thinking made possible by the use of scientific concepts would provide a criterion for distinguishing between "primitive" and "advanced" societies (Luria, 1976) and, hence, for the planning of educational interventions designed to bring all societies to the advanced level of intellectual functioning of which they were potentially capable.
As Bruner (1996) and Wertsch and Tulviste (1991), among others, have argued, such a view can be seen as consistent with Vygotsky's evolutionary approach to culture, and also with the revolutionary ideological spirit in which he conceived his task of reconstructing psychology as a basis for emancipatory action and as a more adequate foundation for the study of human behavior. In the decades since his death, however, there have arisen a number of grounds for challenging what many now consider to be an over-optimistic belief in the universal superiority of scientific rationalism and an unquestioning acceptance of the progressive and benign consequences of schooled instruction. Here I shall consider three that have, in recent years, increasingly been voiced.
The first problem concerns the assumption of the superiority in all situations of thinking based on scientific as opposed to everyday concepts. Habermas (1971), for example, writing from the perspective of social theory, criticizes the increasing hegemony of technical rationality in Western societies, arguing that, although it has a crucial role to play in contemporary life, it must be complemented by both practical and critical-emancipatory modes of knowing. A somewhat similar challenge has come from cultural anthropologists, whose studies of non-Western cultures have led them to reject the view that treats the trajectory of European cultural history as the point of reference for evaluating other cultures. Within Western societies, too, the influx of immigrants from a wide range of different cultures has led to a de facto multiculturalism that is demanding a reevaluation of the assumed superiority of white, male, middle-class values and, hence, also of the technical rationality on which it is based.
Nevertheless, it is not clear that the ways in which Vygotsky used the terms "primitive" and "advanced" when explaining and comparing the development of mental functions in the three different contexts of general human history, contemporary preliterate cultures, and children in contemporary Western societies, really do lay him open to the charge of “Eurocentrism”, as Wertsch and Tulviste (1992) have suggested. As Minick (1987) points out, Vygotsky's theory was itself constantly evolving, as he read and critiqued the work of others and carried out his own research, with the result that his written oeuvre is not internally consistent in this respect; furthermore, as Scribner (1985) shows, Vygotsky was emphatic in rejecting a recapitulationist position. The intellectual development of a child in any contemporary culture through the appropriation of resources already in use in his or her social environment, he insisted, constitutes a very different kind of development from that which was involved in the gradual creation of these resources over many generations in the phylogenetic development of the species. In fact, Scribner argues, Vygotsky's habit of using the term "primitive" when comparing these different situations can best be understood, not as substantively equating them, but as a methodological heuristic that he used at various points in his theory-building procedure.
A second criticism is based on the primacy given to cognition in much of the Vygotskyan-inspired study of human development, and the consequent neglect of the social, affective and motivational dimensions. However, the responsibility for this imbalance should not be laid at Vygotsky's door; it is due much more to the 'cognitive revolution' of the 1960s and the central role that the metaphor of the mind as computer has played in recent work in cognitive science. That Vygotsky had a much more comprehensive and balanced conception of development is apparent from the final section of Thinking and Speech. “Thought has its origins in the motivating sphere of consciousness,” he wrote, "a sphere that includes our inclinations and needs, our interests and impulses, and our affect and emotion. ... A true and complex understanding of another's thought becomes possible only when we discover its real, affective-volitional basis" (1987, p. 282 ). To which he might have added the converse, namely that "feeling is forever given shape through thought", which is structured by our cultural forms of understanding (Rosaldo, 1984, p.143). A further indication of the holistic nature of Vygotsky's mature understanding of development is to be found in the extension of his ideas in the work of his colleague, Leont'ev (1978), on motivation, emotion aand personality.
The third, and most recent, reevaluation of Vygotsky's account of the zpd questions the assumption of inevitable progress at the level of ontogenetic development. Since the development of the individual is dependent on the tools and practices that are made available for appropriation in the activities in which he or she participates, it is just as possible for the learner's interpersonal experiences to constrain or even distort his or her development as to enable the development of a socially and emotionally balanced personality (Engeström, 1996). Clearly, many children do experience appalling deprivation and cruelty at the hands of others and the learned coping strategies and conflicted self-image that result have long-term harmful consequences for themselves and for society at large. Some have argued, too, that the coercion that is a pervasive characteristic of formal schooling in almost every culture constitutes an unrecognized but systematic limitation of the creativity and originality of which all human beings are capable.
In the light of these important reservations, it is now no longer possible to accept a conception of learning in the zpd that assumes either a single end in view or a developmental trajectory that is free of contradiction and conflict. Decontextualized rational thinking is not the inevitable apogee of intellectual development, nor is it necessarily optimal in all situations. Here, Tulviste's (1991) emphasis on the heterogeneity of semiotic mediational means is important, as is Wertsch's (1991) metaphor of the tool-kit, from which a selection is made according to the culturally construed demands of different activity settings. Gardner's (1983) theory of "multiple intelligences" represents yet another attempt to escape from too narrow a view of intellectual development. But the development that is fostered by learning and teaching in the zpd is, in any case, not unidimensionally cognitive. Because the whole person is involved in activity undertaken with others, interaction in the zpd necessarily involves all facets of the personality. This is the force of the current emphasis on the zpd as a site of identity formation, which, in turn, has led to the recognition that an individual's developmental trajectory is rarely, if ever, free of social encounters that may engender inner as well as outer conflict and contradiction (Litowitz, 1993). Finally, it is now increasingly recognized that what is taken to constitute the ideal end-point of development is itself a cultural construct; it varies from one culture to another and, in each culture, is implicated in the continuous processes of change that characterize cultural history everywhere.
Instead of viewing development as progress towards some ideal, therefore, there is an increasing tendency to focus on the transformative nature of learning in the zpd, with an emphasis on diversity rather than on improvement. This conceptualization of learning as transformation is already to be seen, at least embryonically, in Vygotsky’s formulation of the general genetic law of cultural development. Having stated the major proposition that, in development, any function first appears between people and only subsequently within the child, he goes on to add: "it goes without saying that internalization transforms the process itself and changes its structure and functions" (1981, p.163). However, it could be argued that more is involved than a transformation of the process alone. Whenever an individual engages, with the assistance of one or more others, in tackling and solving a problem that arises in the course of action, there are, potentially, multiple transformations. First, there is a transformation in the individual in terms of his or her capacity to participate more effectively in future actions of a related kind and, hence, a transformation of his or her identity; second, where the problem demands a novel solution, the invention of new tools and practices or the modification of existing ones transforms the culture's toolkit and its repertoire for problem solving; and third, there is the transformation in the activity setting brought about by the problem solving action which, in turn, opens up further possibilites for action. Finally, to the extent that one or more members of the group has changed the nature of his or her participation, there is also transformation in the social organization of the group and in the ways in which the members relate to each other. These transformations may usually be quite small, and they may not always be positively evaluated by all the participants involved. Nevertheless, it is such small transformations that, successively and cumulatively, lead to the actual outcomes of the activities in which they occur and, in the process, contribute to the construction of the developmental trajectories of individual participants, of collaborating groups and, thus, of whole cultures.
Vygotsky tended to emphasize the revolutionary nature of the transformations that take place periodically in the developmental trajectories of both individuals and whole cultures. Today, we are probably more aware of the constantly emerging nature of the activities in which we engage and of the extent to which they overlap and impinge on each other. This has certainly led to a more complex conception of development, but it has perhaps also led to a recognition of the developmental significance of each and every activity and, thus, of the transformative potential of the manner in which we participate, of the tools we select from the available toolkit, and of the way in which we use and reshape them in action.
The Role of the Teacher
Although Vygotsky emphasized the critical role of instruction in the zpd, he had relatively little to say about teachers and teaching. However, as we consider the way in which his ideas are interpreted today, it is perhaps here that there has been the greatest change, as is evidenced by the attention that is now given to teacher development.
The reasons for this are not hard to find. One of the most hopeful - due in no small part to the influence of Vygotsky's concept of the zpd - is the increased understanding among educators that teaching involves much more than appropriately selecting and delivering a standardized curriculum and assessing the extent to which it has been correctly received. Teaching certainly involves preparation, instruction and assessment; but to be truly effective it also involves the ongoing co-construction of each student's zpd and on-the-spot judgments about how best to facilitate his or her learning in the specific activity setting in which he or she is engaged. Of equal importance is the growing recognition of the multi-faceted nature of development, and of the need to respond to the diversity among the student population with more open-ended envisionments of their possible futures. To these must be added the increasing rate of cultural change, particularly in the technologies that amplify the traditional modes of semiotic mediation. Taken together, these changes in what is expected of teachers have finally led those who administer public education to recognize the complexity of the responsibilty that is placed on those who guide young people's development and, therefore, on the need for adequate teacher development.
For the most part, however, 'teacher development' has meant teacher training, that is to say, something that is done to teachers. Only recently has this begun to give way to a more agentive view of development: teachers learning in their zones of proximal development, constructing their understanding of the art of teaching through reflective practice, and drawing for guidance and assistance upon the same range of sources that is available to other learners (Tharp and Gallimore, 1988).
In this context, it is worth mentioning the growing number of teachers who are undertaking classroom-based action research as a means of simultaneously improving the learning opportunities they provide for the particular students in their care, and of increasing their own understanding of the principles that underpin these improvements. As might be expected, linguistic mediation has frequently been the object of their inquiries, particularly the quality of whole class and small group interaction (Mercer, 1995); however, some teachers are also beginning to investigate the potential of other, non-linguistic, semiotic modes for mediating learning in the zpd (Gallas, 1994), while others are challenging the ideological underpinnings of the discourses of power that regulate what will count as learning (Gee, 1992; Lemke, 1988).
A further significant feature of the growing practice of teacher research is the emphasis on community and collaboration with other teachers. As with peer groups solving problems in the classroom, teachers providing 'horizontal' support for each other often construct novel solutions to the problems they face that are more appropriate to their particular circumstances than the standard practices recommended by experts outside the classroom; in this way, they both challenge the traditional, 'vertical', model of teacher development, and enlarge and diversify the repertoire of strategies available for supporting learning. Equally important, they transform their own identities as teachers, as they take greater responsibility for their own learning and for the learning opportunities they provide for their students (Chang-Wells and Wells, 1997). And when, as is quite frequently the case, they also include their students as well as their colleagues as collaborators in their inquiries, a new, more equal and reciprocal interpretation of the concept of learning and teaching in the zpd is born (Hume, forthcoming) - one that Vygotsky would recognize, I believe, as a very worthwhile transformation of his initial formulation.
Conclusion: Toward a New Conception of Education
Since Vygotsky first coined the phrase "zone of proximal development", the concept that it names has itself undergone very considerable development. Starting as an insight about the need for psychological assessment to be dynamic and forward-looking so that it might maximize the effectiveness of instruction, the concept of the zpd has been expanded in scope and become more fully integrated into the theory as a whole.
As was suggested above, Vygotsky tended to characterize the zpd in terms of individual assessment and instruction, concerned chiefly with generalized intellectual development, and dependent upon face-to-face interaction. However, subsequent discussion and use of the concept in the exploration of its applicability in a variety of settings has considerably extended this characterization by emphasizing the holistic nature of the learning that takes place in the zpd and by making clear that it involves not simply speech but a wide range of mediational means, and not simply dyads in face-to-face interaction but all participants in collaborative communities of practice.
Viewed from the perspective of education, the most salient features of this expanded interpretation of the zpd are, in my view, the following. First, rather than being a "fixed" attribute of the learner, the zpd constitutes a potential for learning that is created in the interaction between participants as they engage in a particular activity together; furthermore, although there is, in principle, an upper bound with respect to what participants are able to take from their task-related interaction at any moment, this upper bound is, in practice, unknown and indeterminate; it depends as much on the manner in which the interaction unfolds as on any independent estimate of the participants' current potential. In this sense, the zpd emerges in the activity and, as participants jointly resolve problems and construct solutions, the potential for further learning is expanded as new possibilities open up that were initially unforeseen. Second, as an opportunity for learning with and from others, the zpd applies potentially to all participants, and not simply to the less skillful or knowledgeable. From this it follows that it is not only children who can learn in the zpd; learning continues over the life-span, and can at all ages and stages be assisted by others, including those who are younger and less mature. Third, the sources of guidance and assistance for learning are not limited to human participants who are physically present in the situation; absent participipants, whose contributions are recalled from memory or encountered in semiotic artifacts, such as books, maps, diagrams and works of art, can also function as significant others in the zpd. Finally, more is involved than cognition alone. Learning in the zpd involves all aspects of the learner - acting, thinking and feeling; it not only changes the possibilities for participation but also transforms the learner’s identity. And, because individuals and the social world are mutually constitutive of each other, transformation of the learner also involves transformation of the communities of which he or she is a member and of the joint activities in which they engage.
This enlarged conception of the zpd has contributed significantly to changing views of the role of joint activity and interaction in the classroom, as is to be seen in reform efforts in curricular areas as different as mathematics (Cobb et al., 1990), history (Pontecorvo and Girardet, 1993), literacy (Brossard et Magendie, 1993; McMahon and Raphael, 1997), and second and foreign language teaching (Lantolf and Appel, 1994), and in the efforts made to integrate exceptional students into mainstream classrooms (Englert, 1992). It has also been influential in the increased value that is attributed to collaboration in classroom activities (Sharan and Sharan, 1992), as students are encouraged to work on group projects, sharing their ideas with peers - their problems, questions and wonderings, as well as their tentative solutions - rather than treating the classroom as a site of individualistic competition (Scardamalia et al., 1994; Brown and Campione, 1994). This has led, in turn, to a different conception of the role of the teacher; rather than being primarily a dispenser of knowledge and assigner of grades, the teacher sees him or herself as a fellow learner whose prime responsibility is to act as leader of a community committed to the co-construction of knowledge (Rogoff, 1994; Wells and Chang-Wells, 1992).
The second major effect of continued exploration of the zpd has been to highlight its interdependence with all the main threads in Vygotsky's theory: the dialectical relationship between individual and society, each creating, and being created by, the other; the mediation of action by material and semiotic tools and practices; the multiple levels on which previous development both enables and constrains current action and interaction; and activity as the site in which these threads are woven together as the resources of the past are deployed in the present to construct an envisaged future. All activity involves change, and learning is that aspect of change that is brought into focus when activity is considered from the perspective of the human participants who are involved. In this pattern, learning and teaching in the zpd provide both the assurance of a degree of cultural continuity and the opportunity for creative transformation and further development.
At the same time, the concept of development has itself been undergoing change. Vygotsky's revolutionary vision of development as progress to the ideal society is now seen to be untenable. On the phylogenetic level, there is no biologically-given end point for development, although the continued existence of a species over successive transformations is evidence that the trajectory it has followed is still ecologically viable. On the cultural historical level, too, there is no universal goal to which all cultures aspire; as was argued above, development is always construed in relation to the values obtaining in particular times and places and, even within a particular culture, these values may be contested. When we describe or evaluate development on the ontogenetic plane, therefore, we should be clear that, in so doing, we are privileging one particular set of values and, by implication, rejecting or according less value to other possibilities that might prove to be just as - or even more - viable for the individuals concerned and for society as a whole (Lemke, 1995).
However, this new understanding of development in no way reduces the educational significance of Vygotsky's concept of working in the zpd; on the contrary, it serves to bring into focus the critical nature of the decisions that teachers have always had to make concerning the kinds of activities in which they engage with students and the manner in which they do so. When it was assumed that there was an ideal, predetermined end in view for development, it was possible for the teacher simply to rely on tradition or authority in making curricular decisions. However, that is no longer the case. As well as with the means to be used in awakening the potential for development, the teacher must also be concerned with the diverse directions that development may take; as well as making available to students the legacy of the past, the teacher must also support and guide them as they create their own alternative versions of the future. Teaching thus becomes more than ever a matter of making choices, and ones that are not simply practical in their implications but also moral, in that they concern ethics and values (Cole,1996 b).
Table 1 summarises the characteristics of this expanded conception of the zone of proximal development.
[Insert Table 1 about here]
At this time when confidence in public schooling is at a low ebb, there is both a need and an opportunity to make radical changes in the way in which it is organized. In this context, as increasing numbers of educators are recognizing, Vygotsky's genetic theory of learning and development can provide a starting point for rethinking the principles on which education should be based. And in that rethinking, the concept of the zone of proximal development has a central role to play. For, far from being simply a new and better pedagogical method, the zpd offers an insightful and theoretically coherent way of thinking about the complex nature of the transformations that are involved in learning and of the multiple ways in which learning can be assisted. However, as was pointed out at the outset, it is a central tenet of Vygotsky's theory that theories, like all other artifacts, are the products of the particular conditions in which they are created; if they are to be useful in other times and places, therefore, they must be treated, not as repositories of truth that are fixed and immutable but as helpful tools for thinking with, which can themselves be improved in the process. It thus follows that, if Vygotsky's theory is to provide the guidance that many believe it should, we should treat his ideas as a source of assistance in our zones of proximal development. We should certainly read his texts and try to understand what he had to say; but, in appropriating his ideas and putting them to use, we should also be willing to transform those ideas so that they can be of greatest use to us in meeting the demands of our own situations.
Table 1. Characteristics of an Expanded Conception of the Zone of Proximal Development
1. The zpd may apply in any situation in which, while participating in an activity, individuals are in the process of developing mastery of a practice or understanding of a topic.
2. The zpd is not a context-independent attribute of an individual; rather it is constructed in the interaction between participants in the course of their joint engagement in a particular activity.
3. To teach in the zpd is to be responsive to the learner's current goals and stage of development and to provide guidance and assistance that enables him/her to achieve those goals and, at the same time, to increase his/her potential for future participation.
4. To learn in the zpd does not require that there be a designated teacher; whenever people collaborate in an activity, each can assist the others, and each can learn from the contributions of the others.
5. Some activities have as one of their outcomes the production of an artifact, which may be used as a tool in a subsequent activity. Representations - in e.g. art, drama, spoken or written text - of what has been done or understood are artifacts of this kind; engaging with them can provide an occasion for learning in the zpd.
6. Learning in the zpd involves all aspects of the learner and leads to the development of identity as well as of skills and knowledge. For this reason, the affective quality of the interaction between the participants is critical. Learning will be most successful when it is mediated by interaction that expresses mutual respect, trust and concern.
7. Learning in the zpd involves multiple transformations: of the participants' potential for future action and of the cognitive structures in terms of which it is organized; of the tools and practices that mediate the activity; and of the social world in which that activity takes place.
8. Development does not have any predetermined end, or telos; although it is characterized by increasing complexity of organization, this does not, in itself, constitute progress. What is considered to be progress depends on the dominant values in particular times and places, which are both contested and constantly changing. The zpd is thus a site of conflict and contradiction as well as of unanimity; the transformations it engenders lead to diversity of outcome which may radically change as well as reproduce existing practices and values.
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Lev Vygotsky ( 1896 – 1934)
Social Constructivism
Biography
Vygotsky earned a law degree from Moscow University in 1917. His studies included philosophy, psychology and literature. In 1924 he presented a paper at the Russian Psycho–neurological Congress. This led to his joining the Psychological Institute of Moscow University. His work was banned for political reasons and was not to emerge until the 1950's. His work has formed a foundation for constructivist theories.
Theory
Vygotsky shared many of Piaget's views about child development, but he was more interested in the social aspects of learning. Vygotsky differs from discovery learning, which is also based on Piaget's ideas, in that the teacher and older children play important roles in learning. The teacher is typically active and involved. The classroom should provide variety of learning materials (including electronic) and experiences and the classroom culture provides the child with cognitive tools such as language, cultural history, and social context.
The Zone of Proximal Development is a concept for which Vygotsky is well known. It refers to the observation that children, when learning a particular task or body of information, start out by not being able to do the task. Then they can do it with the assistance of an adult or older child mentor, and finally they can do it without assistance. The ZPD is the stage where they can do it assisted, but not alone. Thus the teacher often serves to guide a child or group of children as they encounter different learning challenges.
Vygotsky's observations led him to propose a complex relationship between language and thought. He observed egocentric speech and child monologues such as wrote about, as well as internal speech. He proposed that speech (external language) and thought have different origins within the human individual. He described thought as non-verbal, and speech as having a pre-intellectual stage, in which words are not symbols for the objects they denote, but are properties of the objects. Up to about age two, they are independent. After that thought and speech become connected. At this point, speech and thought become interdependent, and thought becomes verbal. Thus, children's monologues become internalized as internal dialog.
Vygotsky differed from in that he considered development after age 2 as, at least partially determined by language. He believed that egocentric speech serves the function of self-guidance, and eventually becomes internalized. It is only spoken aloud because the child has not yet learned how to internalize it. He found that egocentric speech decreased when the child's feeling of being understood diminished, as when there was no listener or the listener was occupied with other matters. These ideas, while intriguing, have never been adequately researched, so it is difficult to evaluate their significance.
While there can be wide variation of activities and content in a Vygotskian classroom, four principles always apply:
1. Learning and development is a social, collaborative activity
2. The Zone of Proximal Development can serve as a guide for curricular and lesson planning
3. Classroom activity should be reality-based and applicable to the real world
4. Learning extends to the home and other out-of-school environments and activities and all learning situations should be related.
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: - Piaget
A rather more serious figure in the field of developmental psychology is the Swiss philosopher and psychologist, Jean Piaget. Piaget was originally interested in the philosophical question of epistemology - how do we know what we know? - and decided that metaphysical argument needed to be grounded in a scientific understanding of how children's knowledge of the world develops. He began by studying his own children.
Piaget starts from the premise that human beings, like all other biological organisms, are active in their relationships with the world. Knowledge of the world is connected to actions in the world - thus he says -
To know an object or a happening is to make use of it by assimilation into an action schema.
Human beings know the world in selective ways - if a stimulus cannot be incorporated into an action schema, it will remain outside the domain of knowledge.
The construction of knowledge by the child, then, is an active process. At the beginning, the action is purely physical - then, through a process of internalisation, the actions become mental. Ideas are not given in the perceptive features of the brain, or encoded in language - that is, ideas are neither thoroughly mentalistic nor cultural - but are arrived at through the child's physical interaction with the world.
Piaget is centrally concerned with the development of such categories as space, time, number, causality and so on - the Kantian categories of knowledge. He sees this as going through four (sometimes three) stages
a) Sensorimotor Stage
From birth to eighteen months/two years
Up to 7/9 months, the child concentrates on her own body, and then enters a second sub period in which space and objects within space are recognized under the rubric of 'practical intelligence'. At the end of the period, the child has learnt to distinguish between objects and subjects, and has grasped the idea of a causal relationship.
Initial exploration of the world through perception is followed up by active exploration, using hands and arms. The child learns to 'make interesting events last' - a rattle, at first set off accidentally, becomes the object of intentional activity. Through this, the child comes to value repetition as a strategy within the world.
At the end of the stage, the child is also capable of symbolic representation - mental activity is now possible.
b) Period of representational thought
18 months/2 years to 6 years
The advent of representation leads to a knowledge explosion. One example is the rapid growth of language - but in Piaget's scheme of knowledge, language is not all-important - it is seen as a socially derived conventional system, and subsidiary to thought.
During this period, children are said to achieve 'semilogics' - that is, their thinking appears to get stuck half-way. For example, the child confuses 'longer than' with 'goes further than' - this Piaget derives from his results on experiments in the conservation of matter.
A child is asked to ascertain whether, when liquid is poured from one container into another, there is more of it, the same amount, or less. Up until the end of this period, the child is likely to say that if the liquid is poured from a short fat container into a long thin one, then there is more of it. On the other hand, if the liquid is poured from a long thin container into a short fat one, she will say that there is less of it. Similarly, a piece of plasticine is conceived of as changing in mass as it changes in form.
c) Concrete operations
6 - 11 years
At this stage, the child acquires rules that allow them to make deductive inferences. They also emerge from their initial egoism - in this, Piaget appears to agree with Freud - and recognize the other's point of view. Thus, the child at this stage will be able to appreciate that a view seen from one angle will not look the same when seen from another angle.
Deductive inferences allow the child to conserve weight, volume, length and so on. These inferences are reversible - that is, the idea that what has been taken away can be put back, and what has been added can be subtracted.
d) Formal Operations
At this stage, the child becomes capable of applying operations to operations - second order constructions. It is now that the child is capable of reasoning through an operation rather than solving the problem by trial and error. - that is, the child is capable of constructing hypotheses and then of testing them. Essentially, it is only at this stage that the individual becomes capable of fully scientific thought.
Piaget's work gave a basis for almost all subsequent investigation of developmental processes, and one cannot overestimate its importance. Nevertheless, there are a number of criticisms that can be made of it. in the light of subsequent research. Thus, Michael Rutter makes the following comments :
1. The idea of the child as an active agent in learning is still accepted today.
Children do explore their environments, do prefer novel stimuli to familiar ones, and do take an experimental attitude towards the world. Animal studies also back this up - animals that are allowed to explore an environment actively learn far more about it than do those who perceive it passively. Indeed, rhesus monkeys reared under conditions in which little movement is possible appear to be less intelligent than their genetic peers who are reared in environments in which they can move about and play:
2. The idea that development is achieved through a series of discrete stages, at each of which overall cognition functions according to a specific structure is misleading.
In fact, it has been found that children are quite capable at being at stage four on certain tasks, while remaining at stage three on others.
3. Many of Piaget's findings on questions such as conservation appear to be as much artefacts of his experimental method as they are measures of the real abilities of children.
It has been found that, if the question is put otherwise, and if there is a clear explanation of what the experimenter expects of the child, the tasks can often be carried out quite successfully by children who, according to the stage theory, should not be able to do so.
As a corollary, we can present experiments in such a way that adults fail them. Success is often a question of context - Brazilian street-vendors are capable of doing maths in their everyday transactions that they cannot do when the same problems are presented in schoolbook style.
4. special training can lead to the development of particular skills.
- children who are very good at chess develop advanced memory skills, and Australian aborigine children who have spent their lives navigating the vast spaces of the desert have superior spatial reasoning.
Piaget ignores both individual and cultural differences, assuming that there is a unique path to development that is followed by all human beings.
C : Vygotsky
Piaget's insistence upon the autonomy of the child in the construction of knowledge is salutary - and reminds us of Chomsky. Piaget's idea of the good parent is one who does not interfere in the child's free exploration of the world. However, not all psychologists go along with this - one who did not is L Vygotsky.
Vygotsky agreed with Piaget that the concepts used by children to order the world are not the same as those of the adult. However, whereas Piaget saw the child as developing through her own activities, Vygotsky insisted that the child functioned in a world in which she was surrounded by adults who would comment and help her in her tasks. The child's knowledge is socially constructed in interaction with significant adults, whose remarks validate the knowledge for the child.
This means that in order to understand a child's knowledge we must also analyse her social interactions. (We will do well to remember that Vygotsky, who died in 1934, worked in Soviet Russia - his theory is explicitly Marxist). Thus he says :
Child logic develops only along with the growth of the child's social speech and whole experience ... it is through others that we develop into ourselves and ... this is true not only with regard to the individual but with regard to the history of every function ... Any higher mental function was external because it was social at some point before becoming an internal, truly mental functioning. (My emphasis)
The context provided by the adult is one in which the child can act is though she already possesses the competence of an adult, even though this is not in fact the case. At first, the child needs considerable help from the adult, and the adult indeed provides almost all the cognition necessary for completion of the task. However, as the child becomes more familiar with the situation, so the adult may begin to take a back seat.
Learning can be seen as a process of apprenticeship. As the child becomes more competent, it acquires not only the skills relevant to a specific activity, but also the meta-skills necessary to embark upon new learning, so that by the time she reaches adolescence, she has become largely autonomous when faced with new skills and new material to learn.
Specific cultures have their own ways of learning, and their own underlying organizational models - which Bruner refers to as 'cultural amplifiers' - cognitive tools such as the Arabic number system or the electronic calculating machine.
Of course, one cultural amplifier may in fact be in conflict with another - literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis may prevent someone from understanding Darwinian theory
In Vygotsky's schema, language is far more important than it is in Piaget's - it is through conversations with adults that the child progresses, and it is her need to communicate with and to understand adults that presses the child to seek for the adult meanings of things that are said. Vygotsky wrote :
... it turns out that social interaction necessarily presupposes generalisation and the development of word meaning ...
The child approaches adulthood through the deeper understanding of words and of language. This goes with Vygotsky's concept of 'mediation'. Animals may experience the world directly - human beings do not, but grasp the world through the use of psychological 'tools' or ‘signs’ that change the relationship between world and social member. Among these tools are counting systems, writing and diagrams, maps and, of course, language. We approach the world differently, and we approach each other differently because we have language - which both represents reality and acts upon it. Speech, therefore becomes primary
(The child) plans how to solve the problem through speech and then carries out the prepared solution through overt activity. Direct manipulation is replaced by a complex psychological process through which inner motivations and intentions, postponed in time, stimulate their own development and realisation.
If we watch very young children, we will see their relationship to language passes through a number of stages. At first, until about 2 years old, the child does not possess language, but uses vocal activity as a means of social contact and emotional expression. Then the child uses language with simplified forms, which are not directly linked to problem solving. In the third stage, language becomes a problem-solving tool - we may hear children talking to themselves as they try to accomplish a task, just as they may use their fingers for counting upon. Finally, this form of conversation - talking to oneself, appears to go away - in fact, it has become internalised - it is what we call 'thought'.
Piaget had referred to this early form of speech - where the child talks to herself - as egotistical, implying that the child is unable to use speech to interact with others. For Vygotsky, this speech is social - it is a way of using a tool that has been learnt from others.
A central concept in Vygotsky's model is the 'zone of proximal development :
The zone of proximal development ... is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.
There are, then, at least two developmental levels
- one, which is the one usually measured by psychologists interested in intelligence and cognition, is the ability of the child to solve tasks set by an adult, but which the child tackles on her own.
The second is what the child can do with help from the adult. This second measure demonstrates the skills which the child has not yet mastered, but which she is working on now.
The teacher needs to know both of these measures, because, on the one hand, there is little point in teaching below the first measure, and on the other, there is little point in teaching beyond the second. Vygotsky says 'the only "good learning" is that which is slightly in advance of development' and which 'awakens and rouses to life those functions which are in a stage of maturing, which lie in the zone of proximal development."
Finally, Meadows refers to what she calls a 'paradox' . If, she says, learning through the kind of intense social interaction that the Vygotskian approach suggests is the best way of teaching, how is it that schools, which do not use this method, are at all successful? Her answer is that Piagetian modes, and even the old rote learning modes, so much decried by experimental educationalists must, in fact, have some value.
D : Conclusion
The disagreement between Piaget and Vygotsky is similar to that between Chomsky and Bruner. On the one hand, there is a model of the child as autonomous master of his own development, and on the other there is the model of the child set within a specific social milieu. It may be noted that Bruner sees himself as continuing the Vygotskian tradition.
But there are differences between Chomsky and Piaget. For Chomsky, language is inborn - Piaget does not altogether agree with him on this. Furthermore, Piaget saw the development of language is being dependent on general cognitive development, whereas Chomsky sees language as a specific skill that develops according to its own laws.
For our purposes, as future teachers, we may wish to derive from Piaget's work the importance of leaving the child the space within which to construct her own knowledge, and of allowing her to develop her concepts for herself. From Vygotsky, we may conclude that however large the part the individual child plays in her own learning processes, she may not be able to do it on her own, and has need of help from adults and other children. We will be looking further at the question of the social nature of knowledge in further lectures.