Vygotsky's Cognitive Development

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Piaget looks at children as one who continually interacts with the world around them and through this interaction try to solve problems, i.e. acts. This action is central to a young learner’s cognitive development. According to Cameron (2010), Piagetian psychology differentiates two ways in which development can take place as a result of activity: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation happens when action takes place without any changes to the child; accommodation involves the child adjusting to features of the environment in some way (p. 3). Assimilation and accommodation are initially adaptive processes of behavior but they gradually become process of thinking. Accommodation is an important idea that has been taken into second language…show more content…
Language provides the child with a new tool, opens up opportunities for doing things and for organizing information through the use of words as symbols (Cameron, 2010). Vygotsky’s principle of development is that a child learns actively by interacting with people with him/her. Vygotsky’s Zone of Promixal Development (ZPD) Vygotsky used ZPD to measure a child’s performance by looking at what a child can do with help from others (teachers, parent, and others). This he calls is the child’s zone of promixal development. Just as parents and caretakers know what a child needs and when, in a class of forty a teacher knows when a child needs assistance. Vygotskyan theory of learning has several implications for language learning amongst children. The first one is the importance of words as units and its meanings. According to Cameron (2010), ‘…words do have a special significance for children learning a new language…from the earliest lessons, children are encouraged to think of the new language as a set of words …’(p.7). Cameron developed a framework for analyzing tasks in textbooks that incorporated the concept of…show more content…
In order to do so, teachers need to analyse the activity in terms of demands it makes on learners and support for learning. If the demands are too high then learners get de-motivated to work on it; on the other hand, if the support provided takes away the demand from an activity, it does not challenge the learner enough to think about the language. An activity can be successful only when there is a balance between the demands of an activity and support for learning. Cameron (2010) proposes a frame work analysis task demands which is presented in the next
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