| Group
Activity 6
Consider what you have read
so far about the role of verbalising and dialogue.
1. Brainstorm, with your group,
a number of ways (at least 5) in which we can
include opportunities for verbalising and dialogue
in our teaching.
Note: Your tutor will explain how to go about conducting a group brainstorm online.
2. Wait for a period of time determined by your tutor and then use the final brainstorm lists to pick
the 5 best ideas (in your opinion). Share these with your colleagues
who teach in the subjects or learning areas described in those
ideas. |
In Mind in Society, Vygotsky
(1978) refers to the internalisation of psychological
functions: “we call the internal reconstruction
of an external operation internalisation” (p.56).
In internalisation, the signs, first used in interpersonal
interactions, are reconstructed internally.
Vygotsky emphasises the fact that
when external speech becomes internalised, the learner
changes it to some extent. Though a number of learners
might be exposed to the same events, this means that
the thoughts they construct will each be different.
The ways learners construct thoughts is determined by
learners’ past learning which influences what
they choose to remember from an experience.
Gal’perin, following on from
Vygotsky’s work, specifies three stages of internalisation.
The three stages are:
1. Making an external action maximally
explicit (or clear),
2. Transferring its representation to audible speech,
between people at first; and then
3. Transferring it to inner speech.
This process of internalisation implies
a number things for educators:
• discussion between learners can be valuable
in assisting learning
• there is a developmental process from dependence
to independence
• this process helps a person to gain more self-control.
Let us look at the second and third
of these points in a little more detail in the next
two paragraphs.
The developmental process in a learner
is the shift from dependency on guidance and discussion
with others to being more self-sufficient.
When a learning activity is new to
a learner, s/he will depend on discussions with his/her
peers and educator in order to process material. Later
on learners need to move toward greater self-regulation
and independence, and will need to talk about the process
far less to others.
Vygotsky also emphasises the role
of inner speech in controlling one’s activities.
The products of speaking, in dialogue with others, and
of listening to others may become the “means of
internal activity aimed at mastering oneself”
(p.55). Thus, a learner gradually develops conscious
awareness and voluntary control of the knowledge s/he
stores as he matures. Some inner speech may be termed
‘regulative speech’ because it is the internalisation
of the words which help the learner control thinking
and behaviour. Click
here to read about the zone of proximal development. |
Site
Map
