Yizleth Tatiana Maldonado

       

Concepts

• LANGUAGE:  In general terms, I think language is a system of symbols that people use to communicate and express ideas, thoughts and feelings. It’s acquired in the early stages of growing and it’s essential to social and cultural development in our lives as humans. There are many kinds of languages that are not only related to linguistics but also music languages, mathematics etc. Language it’s universal and necessary to all cultures for communication purposes , so this is why the learning process of the mother tongue it comes natural with growing, but the learning of a second language its’ definitively more complex and make us reflect on the different structures and basis of language acquisition. 

• LEARNING: Is the process of acquiring skills and knowledge through practice, experience or study. The activity of learning a second language its complex and it depends, in many cases, on different factors such as the social and cultural context, the age of the learners, the purposes, the learner’s characteristics and I personally consider that also the motivation and the teacher’s style (methodology) is key in the success of a L2 teaching program. When learners are exposed to different methodologies and many hours of language exposure (or any other knowledge), you can see that the learning process it’s faster and more effective. 

• TEACHING: It’s the act of imparting or giving knowledge to someone through lessons or instructions. It’s definitively a noble and important action that allows knowledge and wisdom to pass through generations. Teaching it’s also related to the activity of setting the right environment for learning processes, understand the learner’s characteristics in order to set the right techniques and methods that will enable learning.

Constructivism as a school of thought:

Constructivism is the idea that learning doesn’t happen by the traditional methods of teacher standing in front of the class, Jean Piaget was founder of constructivism and his theory say that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experience and their ideas. Social constructivism was developed by Vygotsky - “Children`s thinking and meaning-making is socially constructed and emerges out of their social interactions with their environment”, it emphasizes the importance of social interaction and cooperative learning in constructing both cognitive and emotional images of reality. Constructivist teacher help students how to learn, it means teachers guide students to construct knowledge, they provides tools and activities, then guide students to help them find their own solutions. Students are an active participant in the learning process because the build their own understand of the topic. The main activity in a constructivism classroom is solving problems and in constructivism collaborative work is a way to have new knowledge. In my experience as learner I have had traditional method and now I am applying constructivism, it is interesting to see that working with solving problem a share our knowledge in a collaborative group is another way to create new knowledge. Teacher can present different task, portfolio, journal writings, problem based-learning, mentoring, etc.

Vygosky´s philosophy in my own words

It is a dialectical theory which emphasizes both the cultural aspects of development and historical influences. For Vygotsky reciprocity between the individual and society, this being defined both historically and culturally, is very important. The context of change and development is the main focus, since that's where we find social influences that promote cognitive and linguistic progress. For Vygotsky speech it is essentially a social product. The language will precede the thought and influence the nature of this: the levels of intellectual functioning depend on a more abstract language. In addition, speech and action are intimately linked: the more complex the behavior and indirectly the goal, more important is the role of language. Total Perspective Language (whole language): The best way (to teach reading and writing) is one in which children learn to read and write but not where both are in a game situation. In the same way that children learn to speak, they should learn to read and write. Vygotsky expresses its conviction that the written language is developed, like the speech, in the context of its use. It indicates its holistic inclinations and their awareness of the need for students to see immersed in the language learning of literacy, prove easy. Vygotsky gives the teacher a key role to consider facilitating the development of mental structures in the student to be able to build more complex learning. It is emphasized and then rates the importance of social interaction in learning; students learn more effectively when it does cooperatively. Vygotsky also proposed the idea of ​​a dual career, defending all cognitive function appears first on the interpersonal level and subsequently reconstructed in the interpersonal level, i.e. interaction with other learning and development occurs when internally controlled process integrating new powers to the existing cognitive structure. The interaction between students and adults dare language is produced, so verbalize thoughts leads to rearrange ideas, which facilitates the development and makes it necessary to promote interaction in the classroom, increasingly rich, stimulating and healthy. In the starting point is the teacher's responsibility and the arrival the student will, with the consequent withdrawal of the teacher. Vygotsky's contributions as we have seen, have great significance for the constructivist theory and have made learning is not considered as a single activity and otherwise be understood as a social construction.

Classroom examples of Vygosky´s theories in action

In my English classes as a student at school to encourage group work the application of Vygotsky's theories in action for the promotion of group work was that the English teacher put us as activities to practice many group dialogues for present them, to practice pronunciation we tried the lyrics of songs in English like that among the whole group.