can provide children with different kinds of experiences and thus can foster different
kinds of development. Moreover, his claim that the stages of children’s development
are universal and common for all children of the same age implies that development is
an automatic process which can occur without any intervention on the part of an adult
or a teacher. This, as Shorrocks (1997: 271) emphasizes, limits the role adults can
play to a child’s development and could even lead teachers to a degree of inertia
‘…feeling powerless in the face of the apparently inexorable ‘internal’ developmental
processes.’
A second limitation, according to Brewster (1997: 3), is associated with
Piaget’s (1955) lack of attention to the role language plays in learning and cognitive
development. As Wood (1988: 23) comments, ‘language, for Piaget, is a system for
representing the world, as distinct from actions and opera tions which form the
processes of reasoning.’ and, therefore, it exerts no formative effects on the structure
of thinking.
The two limitations discussed to above are extensively covered in the theories
of Vygotsky and Bruner, as they are presented below.
1.1.3 The theories of Vygotsky and Bruner
Although Vygotsky shares with Piaget the view of the learner as an active
constructor of knowledge and he, too, believes that children do not think as adults do,
he adopts an interactionist view (Lightbown and Spada 1999: 23) which, as Brewster
(1997: 3) emphasizes, assigns a much greater emphasis than Piaget on the role of
instruction, communication and language in the development of knowledge and
understanding, as it is explained below.
1.1.3.1. The role of instruction and communication in development
As McLaughlin (1987: 9) stresses, Vygotsky put instruction at the very heart of
learning and development by stressing that, if children receive appropriate and
meaningful support, their understanding can be extended far beyond the
understanding they can reach alone. Vygotsky (1978) used the term ‘Zone of
Proximal Development’ (ZPD) to refer to
‘…the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by
independent problem-solving and the level of potential development as
determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in
collaboration with more capable peers.’ (Vygotsky 1978: 86).
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