LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 201 - WEEK 7

What I learnt was that some key points about social

interactionism; these are active participants, interaction with
other people, humanistic approaches, whole person,
independent learning through exploration (Piaget), use of
reward and punishment (behaviorism), VYGOTSKY and
FEUERSTEIN(the founders of it). Vygotsky’s ideas were
restricted due to the Russian Revolution. He emphasized
language in interacting with people with signs and symbols.
He was opposed to teach by cutting the subject into small
pieces (behaviorism) and his approach was holistic. Mediation
(helping learners enhance their learning and understanding)
and the zone of proximal development (comprehensible
input I+1) are the important concepts of Vygotsky. As for
Feuerstein, he found out some skills and strategies to
overcome learning difficulties of Jewish children who
experienced dreadful traumatic experiences due to
Holocaust. He thought that anyone has the potential of
learning. I also learned some terms: structural cognitive
modifiability (people can continue to develop their cognitive
capacity throughout their learning), instrumental enrichment
(learning how to learn), dynamic assessment (in both ways
student and teacher), Brain Based Learning (as long as brain is
not inhibited, learning occurs). Lastly, I learned about social
constructivist model. In a social constructivist model, learner
is an active meaning maker and problem solver, teacher is a
mediator and in interaction with students, context (relaxing
environment), tasks (interactive tasks, group and pair works).
What I had difficulty in figuring out some new terms which
are unfamiliar to me apart from that everything is clear
enough.
I suppose I need to focus more on understanding these new
terms and studying what I learned today to associate with the
other theories I learned before.
I believe I may use in my teaching Feuerstein’s some ideas
and theories which seem reasonable to me. I believe that
everybody has the potential of learning as long as brain is not
inhibited and as a teacher we should find out some learning
strategies to overcome our students’ learning difficulties.
Moreover, Vygotsky’s the zone of proximal development
concept is another thing that I can use in my teaching since I
think it is a good way for the learner to move into the next
layer. Also, I think a teacher should be a good mediator for
his students and I hope I will as well.