Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Human Development in ELT

Vygotsky was a Soviet and Russian developmental and educational psychologist. He is the originator of ‘sociocultural theory of human development’. This theory influenced instruction in various domains as it helped scholars understand how human beings learn. Related to the field of Second Language Acquisition, the sociocultural theory afforded conceptualizations about how human beings learn a new language and what factors promote this learning. Vygotsky conceptualizes a social plain of interaction related to language. According to him, unique human mental functions or the higher order psychological processes happen in this plain. This is the same plain where actual human interactions take place. The cultural development of a child happens first in this intermental plain where people interact. Only in the second stage does it appear in the intramental plain of the individuals ‘within’. Language development also follows this route as cultural development for internalization.

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896-1934)

Lev Semyonovich VygotskyWhat is the mechanism by which the transition from intermental to intramental plain happens? Explanation given by Vygotsky and like-minded scholars is of ‘mediation’. By mediation, they mean transformation of impulsive, natural and non-mediated behavior into higher order mental processes by using symbolic, technological or human tools like language/computers/human beings. This happens primarily through socially meaningful activities. Mediation presupposes human participation. This is because ‘meaning’ can only be communicated when there is participation and communicability. These qualities are afforded only by human beings. In short, this can be summarized as ‘human behavior is mediated by language.’

Point to Ponder: This then leads us to question whether technology-enabled communication which sometimes claims that machines can teach language is effective at all.

Such language mediation is the reason behind the existence of polysemy. In interaction, meaning exchanges guide mediation, and lead to internalization. How does this transformation from inter to intramental space happen? It is not a linear one-step process. It is a complicated process that involves the construction of the inner plain itself. In communicational exchanges, people share their inner plains. Such shared spaces later afford the internalization of language. According to Vygotsky, when experts guide non-experts towards internalization, something called a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is created. Instruction is supposed to be easier in this zone. 

Notes prepared from: Barohny, E. (2016). Bringing Vygotsky and Bakhtin into the second Language classroom: A focus on the unfinalized nature of communication. The Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, 6(1), 114-125.