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Mitchell-Myles - The SocioCulturalPerspective
Mitchell-Myles - The SocioCulturalPerspective
Key Ideas
•Mediation and Mediated Learning
•Regulation, Scaffolding and the ZPD
•Microgenesis
•Private and Inner Speech
•Activity Theory
Mediation and Mediated Learning
• Humans rely on physical and symbolic
tools (artifacts created by human culture)
to mediate and regulate our relationships
with others and with ourselves.
• These “artifacts”(language, arithmetic
systems, music, art, etc) are modified and
passed on to future generations.
• Language = a tool for thought (a means of
mediation) in mental activity.
Mediation and Mediated Learning
• Through language we can: rehearse
information to be learned, formulate a
plan, articulate the steps in solving a
problem, etc.
• The nature of our “mental tools” can shape
our thinking to some extent (e.g. when
writing systems were invented our
understanding of the nature of language
changed)
Mediation and Mediated Learning
• From a SC point of view, learning is also
a mediated process. It is mediated partly
through learners’ developing use and
control of mental tools (language is the
central tool).
• Learning is seen as socially mediated
(dependent on face-to-face interaction and
shared processes, e.g., joint problem-
solving, discussion)
Regulation, Scaffolding and the
ZPD
• Self-regulation (autonomous functioning
of the mature, skilled individual)
• Other-regulation (when an unskilled
individual, child, learns by carrying out
tasks under the guidance of other more
skilled individuals, caregivers or teachers,
initially through a process of other-
regulation, typically mediated through
language)
Regulation, Scaffolding and the
ZPD
• The learner is inducted into a shared
understanding of how to do things
appropriately through collaborative talk
until they take over (appropriate) new
knowledge or skills into their own
individual consciousness.
• Succesful learning= a shift from
collaborative inter-mental activity to
autonomous intra-mental activity
Regulation, Scaffolding and the
ZPD
• Scaffolding: the process of
supportive dialogue which directs
the attention of the learner to key
features of the environment, and
which prompts them through
successive steps of a problem.
Regulation, Scaffolding and the
ZPD
The Zone of Proximal Development
• the domain where learning can most
productively take place.
• The domain of knowledge or skill where
the learner is not yet capable of
independent functioning but can achieve
the desired outcome if given relevant
scaffolded help.
Zone of Proximal
Development (ZPD)
Distance Between Actual and Potential Knowledge
potential
knowledge
potential
There is one game, however, that Andy has never learned. It’s the
card game Yu-Gi-Oh. Andy knows his brother plays it very well.
Andy would like to learn, but is unsure where to start.
This is an example of how ZPD can work in the life
of a child
Once Andy learns Yu-Gi-Oh, the skill moves out of the ZPD region and
is added to all the other games Andy plays independently. In
Vygotskyan terms, he has “appropriated” the necessary concepts and
should be able to regulate his own performance from now on.
In time, Andy becomes the more capable player, and begins to teach
his sister .
Regulation, Scaffolding and the
ZPD
According to Wood et al (1976), scaffolded
help has the following functions:
• Attracting interest in the task
• Simplifying the task
• Maintaining pursuit of the goal
• Controlling frustration during problem
solving
• Demonstrating an idealized version of the
act to be performed.
Microgenesis
The general principles of sociocultural
learning theory apply on a range of
different timescales:
• Phylogenesis: the learning that the
human race has passed through over
successive generations
• Ontogenesis: the learning that the
individual human infant passes through
during early development.
Microgenesis
• Learning is seen as first social then individual.
• Consciousness and conceptual development are
seen first as interpersonal phenomena (shared
between individuals). Later, individuals develop
their own consciousness, which becomes an
intra-mental phenomenon.
• Language = the prime symbolic mediating tool
for the development of consciousness.
Microgenesis
• As human beings mature they remain
capable of learning.
• New concepts continue to be acquired
through social or interactional means.
• This local, contextualized learning process
is labelled microgenesis.
Private and Inner Speech
Private speech: seen as evidence of
children’s growing ability to regulate their
own behaviour. For Vygotsky, PS
eventually becomes…
• A subject
• An object
• Actions
• Operations
Activity Theory
In the SL Classroom (e.g.)
Subject: a student is engaged in learning a new
language (activity).
Object: a goal held by the student and which
motivates his/her activity (e.g. participation in a
new culture, receiving a passing mark, etc)
Actions: to achieve the objective, goal-directed
actions or strategies are taken by the student
(e.g. guessing meaning from context, reading
newspapers in the SL, using a dictionary, etc.)
Activity Theory
• Operations: the operational level of
activity is the way an action is carried out
and depends on the conditions under
which the actions are executed.
• These operational aspects can become
routinised and automatic once the
conscious goal is no longer attended to.
The Sociocultural Perspective
Implications for SLL
• Application of the ZPD to SLL assumes
that new language knowledge is jointly
constructed through collaborative activity,
which may or may not involve formal
instruction and metal-talk, and then
appropriated by the learner
• Learner = active agent in his/her own
development
Vygotsky and Piaget
Piaget Vygotsky
Both agree children are active learners who actively construct knowledge
Thinking develops in recognisable Development of thinking is dependent
stages which depend on natural upon language and culture
maturation
Piaget Vygotsky