1. PRACTISING VYGOTSKY IS MORE THAN THE ZPD
Lynette Faragher● LTS
University of Southern Queensland ● Springfield● Queensland ● Australia
Words and other signs are those means that direct our mental operations, control their course, and channel them toward the solution of the problem confronting us. (Vygotsky )
Writing … is a conversation with a blank sheet of paper (ibid:181)
The word is a direct expression of the historical nature of human consciousness… which is reflected in a word as the sun in a drop of water. A word relates to the consciousness as a living cell relates to a whole organism, as an atom relates to the universe. A word is a microcosm of human consciousness. (ibid:256)
Cognitive state in the task - metacognition
Affirming student potential
Student assessment is mostly based on their cultural artefacts. At first they often have recourse to innovative forms created in their inner speech in their effort to demonstrate self-regulation.
If, as academics, assessing this artefact, we ask ; What has this student actually done? What is their state in the task? We are more likely to arrive at a fairer understanding and be able to provide more appropriate enabling, empowering feedback that will be free of deficit assumptions and therefore more encouraging to the student, the aspirant entrant to the academic community
The Word
And thinking
The word I forgot
Which once I wished to say
And voiceless thought
Returns to shadow’s chamber.
Osip Mandelstam (cited in Vygotsky (1986).
Words have meaning and sense. Sense is dynamic and changes and develops according to context (Vygotsky 1986)– which resonates with Crow’s ‘web of associations inherent in each word’ (Crow 1986) which in turn resonates with the idea of constructing mind maps by association and relationship in the Tony Buzan style.
The Zone of Proximal Development
We know that the child can do more in collaboration than he can independently (Vygotsky, 1987, 216) cited in Daniels, 2001, 55. However in another text (Vygotsky ) ibid, he elaborates and seems to suggest that the ZPD is where the learner’s potential will be realised in concert with the teacher – (correlates with Krashen’s i + 1 theory) The caveat is introduced that there are constraints – the learner’s actual ability and development.
Eun et al suggest that for the ZPD to operate well …the most important quality … (is) the tutor’s ability to adjust his or her level of guidance to the current level of the child’s psychological functioning. (Eun, Knotek, & Heining-Boynton, 2008)
Double-sided transformation
Dialogicality – Bakhtin – discourse consisting of to and fro of movement of language. (Eun et al 2008) Has effects on both sides of the communication
Disagreement and differences might even bring about more dynamic results in the Zone (Valsiner, 1997 cited in Daniels, 2001)
According to Engestrom contradictions can be causative and disturbances are indicators of potential. (Daniels, 2001, 93)
Production of cultural artefacts
In the world of the ALL professional it is about producing academic discourse in writing.
‘Language is part of practice, and it is in practice that people learn.’
(Lave and Wenger 1991 cited in Daniels 2001)
Mediation – Sociocultural approach
Problematisation of the goals of the mediational dialogue is relevant to AALL work – independence or getting marks? (Eun et al 2008) If the latter then there is a failure to reach cultural competence and therefore no development
More knowing Other/ Lecturer
Student
Important to be aware of this danger – third voice (Eun et al 2008) – and to challenge the agenda…
Regulation
What is the mechanism that regulates intrapsychological functioning of the ‘teacher’ in the dialogues in the zone? (Eun et al 2008)
Books and other literary artefacts serve a mediational purpose and the capacity for carrying and shaping meaning has a formative effect (Daniels 2001:101)
Inner Speech
Self-regulation takes place here (Daniels 2001:100)It is where imagistic and syntactic thinking come together and generate a core image of the metaphor which is then expressed in outer speech. (Faragher 1994) Metaphors structure language, thoughts, attitudes and actions that come from experience (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980), they also convey cultural knowledge (Bock and Winburg 1993). That quality output indicates to the ALL practitioner that quality thinking is happening.
The ‘teacher’ is a member of the academic discourse community – powerful position and can constrain access of newcomers who need to engage in the activities of the knowledge community in order to learn.
Texts mediate and generate new meaning and learning according to the reading – providing entry to ‘academy’.
Cultural artefacts belonging to specialised discourses of the academy involving technicalities and abstraction have to be taught to enable access and conscious control. (Foley 1991 cited in Daniels 2001:160)
Discourse community
Insiders
Outsiders
So our students might have ‘tacit’ knowledge but lack the appropriate academic discourse to share it effectively in the academy (Daniels,2001 p. 52)
REFERENCES
Crow, J. (1986). Receptive Vocabulary Acquisition for Reading Comprehension. Modern Language Journal, 70(3),
Daniels, H. (2001). Vygotsky and Pedagogy. Oxford: RoutledgeFalmer.
Eun, B., Knotek, S. E., & Heining-Boynton, A. L. (2008). Reconceptualizing the Zone of Proximal Development: The Importance of the Third Voice. [Article]. Educational Psychology Review, 20(2), doi: /s
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Language and Thought. Cambridge: The MIT Press.