LANGUAGE ACQUSITION 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 a 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.