Internalization: Institutionalized Or Assisted Performance?

SCT, as Ellis (2008) notes, distinguishes ‘learning,’ which is the assisted performance, from ‘development’ which constitutes self-regulated mental activity resulting from having internalized an assisted performance. According to Vygotsky (1978) “learning is not development” but “properly organized learning results in mental development and sets in motion a variety of developmental processes that would be impossible apart from learning” (p. 90, cited in Ellis 2008, p. 534).

Internalization, according to Lantolf (2000), does not wholly transfer from external mediation to what already exists internally. This means that, external mediations are not something existing out there and when we acquire it everyone would use it the same way as others.

When one wants to learn how to drive he or she goes to an instructor (other regulation). Meanwhile he or she consults some books on traffic rules (object regulation). During the first days of driving he or she would make use of private speech reminding him or herself of the steps he or she needs to take. After a while, this speech becomes subvocalized, that is if there is someone sitting on the other seat, cannot hear the driver talking, but in fact he or she is talking to him or herself about when and how much to apply clutch, break and gas, and not to forget to look at the mirrors before making a turn. One may have experienced that in early days of driving one is so obsessed talking to him or herself, he or she cannot hear the radio if it is on. Gradually, however, this very same driver can even be fined for texting while driving. This means that he or she has internalized the driving activity and has full control over it that he or she can do some other activities alongside with it, such as texting, eating and drinking.

Ellis (2008) notes that, the key to understand internalization is to understand what Vygotsky refer to as “imitation.” According to Lantolf (2005) imitation is not the mechanical activity assumed in behaviorism (cited in Ellis, 2008). “To imitate,” Vygotsky (1986) puts it, “it is necessary to possess the means of stepping from something one knows to something new” (p. 187, cited