In the introduction to activity 5 we thought about the process of reading. What we would like you to do now is to think back to your own experiences of learning to read. (If you can’t remember these, then think of your own children learning to read). Did anyone (perhaps a parent or older sibling) read aloud to you when you were little? Then, as you learnt some words at school, did your teacher show you all a word, and then would you read the word aloud altogether? Did you take home cards with words on them, or your first book, for you to read aloud to someone? Do you remember reading in groups or along with your teacher?

The reason we ask you to think about learning to read is to demonstrate that in such a learning process, there is a lot of interaction between people. Learning to read does not just happen inside the learner’s head, it happens first between the learner and others. Learning to read is a joint meaning-making activity, happening between the educator and the learners, and between the learners and others, like parents, siblings, or fellow learners. It is only after engaging in the social processes of reading with the assistance of others, that the reader begins gradually to read independently. This is a step-by-step process, with the reader first reading aloud, and then learning to read silently. So, this form of learning is strongly influenced by social interactions.

This example of learning to read demonstrates the importance of the social apsect in the learning process. Vygotsky believed that this sort of process occurs in all forms of children’s learning. He believed that any learning activity occurs first between people (the child and another, or the child watching others), before it is represented in some way, cognitively, within the child. The important point that Vygotsky makes is that social processes and interactions in the environment are transformed to become internal processes within the child. (The learning activity takes place firstly between people on a social level, before it transforms or changes into an internal, cognitive process within the learner.) One of the aims of the rest of this section is to explore the ways in which this occurs.

When people interact with one another, they do so through engaging in activities together. Human activities, also called activity systems are strongly influenced by culture. Activities have their source in relationships, which have developed between persons and their environments. For example, in your home, the activities of welcoming guests, cooking a meal, cleaning up, having a party, and relaxing with other family members will all have certain rules which shape the way they happen. Also, different people take on different roles. In activities, there are physical tools to assist you (think of what you need to have an enjoyable party), as well as psychological tools, which are used (for example, the language that is used, the ways of doing things – the unwritten social rules).

In the process of children growing older in a home, parents and others guide the children in appropriate use of both material tools and psychological tools.

Just as older people in the home are important influences in teaching children about the appropriate ways of doing things in your community, so are you important as an educator. A part of the role you play is to help learners develop their capacity to use material tools (such as using a pen, or to use a calculator) and psychological tools (such as using language, working with mathematical symbols). The social rules that you teach your learners might be slightly different from those taught to you when you were young. Also, these ways will be different if we compare your classroom to a classroom in Japan. Thus the surrounding culture, which changes over time, and from one context to the next, is very influential in determining human activity systems. Vygotsky’s approach highlights the importance of the sociocultural in learning.

In the above paragraphs, one of the important features is:
The assistance given to a child by someone with more experience. It is this assistance which helps the child to learn.

From a Vygotskian perspective, teaching is viewed as ‘assisted performance’. Thus, as an educator, you assist the learner to improve in both the use of psychological and material tools, in order for the learner to keep improving her or his performance. This is a different approach to teaching from a ‘teacher tell’ approach: the role of the educator is to assist the learner in performing the tasks appropriate to the learner’s age level.

In a Vygotskian approach, teaching is often called mediation.

This refers to the process of assisting a learner through step-by-step explanation, demonstration, guided questioning, and feedback. It is through the mediation process, the process of interaction between children and adults, that learners learn how to memorise new information.

Unfortunately, many teachers do not recognise the importance of this social interaction, this process of mediation, whereby an experienced learner can share his/her knowledge with a less advanced learner. Many teachers believe learners’ capabilities are biologically determined rather than socially facilitated.

In other words, many teachers believe that what a learner has the potential for learning is already decided on a biological or genetic level from birth. This then rules out the option that learning can come about or be ‘mediated’ through social interaction. Believing that a learners’ capabilities are biologically determined, takes responsibility away from the teacher, because in this view, there is very little the teacher can do to get the learner to learn.

This is one reason why we have chosen to study Vygotsky’s theory, because he emphasises the importance of social interaction in the process of learning. When we read about the Zone of Proximal Development later, we will look more closely at the various ways in which educators can assist learners by mediating the learning process through the activities in which they engage. Read on to learn about the way that the words in external interactions become the basis of thought processes.