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Lev Vygotsky's Social Development Theory

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Lev Vygotsky’s Social Development theory argues the following: “Social interaction precedes development; consciousness and cognition are the end product of socialization and social behaviour”- (Moll, 2014). In the following essay, I will discuss Vygotsky’s theory as one of the fundamentals of Constructivism and as a foremost contributor to our understanding of language learning.
Social interaction is crucial for development to take place. If a learner interacts with others, greater language perception, consciousness and reasoning will develop accordingly. An important aim which Vygotsky’s theory underpins, is that learners should eventually become learners who are self-reliant. The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and More Knowledgeable …show more content…

He views interaction with peers as an active way of developing effective language skills and strategies, as learners can learn from others. Vygotsky suggests that teachers use cooperative learning exercises in order to increase social interaction. Through the use of this strategy, Learners that are less competent will develop with the help from their more skilful peers. This development takes place within the ZPD.
When a student is in the ZPD for a given task, the provision of appropriate assistance will give the learner a helping hand in completing the particular task independently, states (McLeod, 2013) . Teachers and more competent learners assume the role of the More Knowledgeable Others (MKO) in the language learning classrooms. When we say that a teacher gives learners guidance towards the desired results, we are referring to “scaffolding”, which is guided assistance. Scaffolding will be explained in full later in the essay.
Vygotsky’s theory underpins Constructivism and Bruner’s theory. The relations between these theories are apparent, as we consider the methods and strategies suggested by the …show more content…

Incidental learning implies that learning can also occur as the by-product of another activity. When learners interact with their more knowledgeable others, they will also be granted the opportunity to expand their vocabulary by “picking words up”.
Both Bruner and Vygotsky lay emphasis on the child’s environment in their theories. The main focus is the social environment. The outcome of cognitive development is thinking. The intelligent mind creates from experience "generic coding systems that permit one to go beyond the data to new and possibly fruitful predictions" (Bruner, 1957). Bruner, similarly to Vygotsky, feels that learning best takes place through the assistance of a person who is more knowledgeable. Scaffolding involves helpful, structured interaction between an adult and a child with the aim of helping the child achieve a specific goal. “Scaffolding refers to the steps taken to reduce the degrees of freedom in carrying out some task so that the child can concentrate on the difficult skill she is in the process of acquiring” (Bruner,

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