Piaget and Vygotsky

1. Comparisons

1.1. While Piaget's sequence for his four stages maybe correct, the ages in which these stages are reached is debatable as some learners may reach these stages sooner. Learners with disabilities may reach these stages much later and modern Neo-Piagaten theorists also believe that there may be more than 4 stages depending on the subject/skill being learned.

1.2. Vyogotsky's theory focused more on the cognitive processes and can be much harder to test or confirm without the lack of a generalized sequence. The theory also does not take into account a child's inherit abilities like Piaget, instead placing a greater emphasis on who is teaching the learner and other external influences.

2. Vyogotsky' Theories

2.1. Vyogotsky's Sociocultural Theory (Ormrod, pgs 37-39)

2.2. A theoretical perspective that emphasized the importance of society and culture in promoting learning and development.

2.3. Children develop through the informal conversation and formal schooling provided by adults. Also, adults within every culture also provide needed physical and cognitive tools needed to succeed.

2.4. Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): The range of tasks that a learner can perform with the help or guidance of others, but cannot yet perform these things on his or her own.

2.5. According to Vyogotsky, learners can learn very little from activities they can perform on their own, but develop primarily learning things through the guidance of others.

3. Piaget's Theories

3.1. Piaget's Four Stages of Cognitive Development (Ormond, Page 29)

3.2. Piaget believed that human beings developed through a series of stages. These stages are:

3.3. 1.) The Sensorimotor Stage: Begins at birth. The child is unable to think about things that are not in front of them. Thus, they are only focused on what they perceive in front of them.

3.4. 2.) The Preoperational Theory: Emerges at about Age 2. The child's language abilities develop as well as their intuitive thinking and extended play skills (imagination). However, they do not yet reason in logical, adult ways.

3.5. 3.) The Concrete Operational Stage: Emerges at about age 6 or 7. Children are able to utilize adult logic in limited, concrete real life situations. They are able to recognize their own thoughts and feelings may be unique to them, are able to classify objects belonging to two or more groups, and understand the idea of conservation( the realization that amount stays the same if nothing is added or taken away).

3.6. 4.) The Formal Operational Stage: Emerges at age 11 or 12. Logical reasoning processes are applied to abstract ideas, concrete objects, and situations. The needed advanced capabilities to succeed in subjects like higher level maths and sciences such as properational thinking, formulation of multiple hypotheses, and separation and control of variables. They are also able to understand and envision different forms of Idealism, although may disregard realistic and existing circumstances.

3.6.1. Equilibrium and Disequilibrium,Ormrod (pg 28)

3.6.2. Piaget theorized that most children operate within a state of equilibrium, in which they are able to respond to new events through existing schemes.

3.6.3. Encountering unfamiliar situations brings about disequilibrium, leading to mental discomfort. This spurs a child to make sense of what they are perceving.

3.6.4. The process of understanding in order to move from disequilibrium to equilibrium is refereed to as equilibration. Piaget theroized that this concept along with the desire to maintain equallibriam is what promotes the deveolpment of complex throught.

4. Example: an ESL Classroom

4.1. Applying Piaget

4.2. Piaget's Four Stages are a good general outline to what classroom of students should or should not be capable of at a certain age level. A teacher should, however, have a thorough understanding of the student's strengths and weaknesses. In the case of an ESL classroom, knowing what cognitive stage the majority of his or her students can be used to determine what skills of language development to focus on.

4.3. Encourage students to make mistakes and to self correct when speaking. This also is a way of spurring equilibration as students recalibrate and learn with each correction.

4.4. Use Piaget's clinical method (which involves probing the learner about a task or problem through use of questioning) to assess a student's listening and speaking ability. This can be a useful summaritve assessment to test how much a student has learned after a unit or at the end of a course.

4.5. When engaging student's in the formal operational stage, find ways to bring forth and develop idealism and attitude towards languages as well as the cultures they represent. In order for a student obtain mastery within a language, they must also develop understanding of culture.

4.6. Applying Vyogotsky

4.7. Since oral communication is the most common use of any language, it is essential to create opportunities is for students to work cooperatively and interact through the target language. this also provides the opportunity for peer learning as students are able to not only correct themselves, but assist their peers in making corrections and receive assistance in kind. Activities can include question/answer surveys, mock conversations, show and tell, games etc.

4.8. Provide student's with the physical tools to aid them. Examples of this include dictionaries, grammatical rules worksheets/reference guides, translated copies of the instructions/work.

4.9. Select target vocab and grammar that is within reach of each student's ZPD with proper scaffolding in place in order to assist students with learning and using the language. Providing student's with goals that are too easy will not be enough to foster ongoing learning, and too high a level will leave student's frustrated or worse unconfidant in their ability to communicate.

4.10. Provide real life scenarios for language use in order to give student's the chance to use the target language within a real world context. An example of this is allowing students to come up with skits in the target language.