Beyond Piaget: Alternative Perspectives on Cognitive Development Limits of your mind are the Limits of Your Language!
There is nothing more than learning
as it has been identified as responsible for behavioral and conceptual
differences across one’s life span. Specifically, it has been questioned a
bunch of times what role plays in learning. The concept of learning entails the
development of one’s growth and the process of continuous self-construction as
it was highly labeled by the lenses of Piaget (as cited in Driscoll, 2005,
p.191). This label refers to constructivism since the knowledge is a skill that
is acquired through the interaction with the environment surrounded by goal-
directed schemas. There is a distinction between the term “schema and scheme”
which was discussed by Brainerd in 1970s. The term “schema” is a passive mode
of organization whereas the “scheme” is the active organizational principle
referring to active nature of children’s thinking. Learning occurs when new
information added to schemas while the scheme provides the basis for mental
operations. In addition, Piaget defined “knowledge” that children acquire as
physical, logical-mathematical and social knowledge (Piaget, 1969). The philosophy of mathematical reasoning
remarked by Kant as a construction of mathematical cognition and intuition (Friedman,
1985). Moreover, Piaget reciprocally distinguished it as a knowledge of
relationships that do not exist until we make them and it is a unique skill of
human beings and to some extent unique for some intelligent animals in a
certain degree. For instance, when I asked my fourth grade student to the color
of the sun, I got the answer: “yellow” but the answers changed once I showed
them the picture of the rise and the down of the sun. This refers to their
physical knowledge that they discerned through their senses as a spreading smell
of baked cookie from the kitchen. Then, another example referring to the “social
knowledge” which cannot be discovered through the senses; I taught my students
the celebrations and the national days all over the world, they have a
knowledge of our special days like “Republic Day in Turkey” whilst they do not
know the date of republic day in the USA unless it is told or experienced.
In the same vein, Wittgenstein’s
words, the greatest philosopher of 20th century, defines this
knowledge as the things in existence that are beyond our ability to imagine and
understand, that’s the reason there are no limits that we create, “The limits
of our language mean the limits of our world” (
Teaching and learning English can be defined as a
complex process which is not implicitly explained and identified by language
theories and methodologies by own account. There are numerous factors affecting
both L1 and L2 acquisition such as background knowledge, sociocultural
differences, regional dialect of target language, and complexity of language
learning situations; barriers and external factors so forth. Nevertheless,
there is a crucial factor in language learning which is starting from infancy
to adulthood that is how we do teach. It is been lead controversial theories up
to now. Studiously addressing learners’ needs, having pedagogical knowledge and
internalizing the language teaching methods along with the learning theories
aforementioned in basic tenets ought to be considered by the educators of
target language. Those are the fundamental needs of today’s teachers by virtue
of the fact that to have an effective start for ESL instructions in practice.
In this respect, we could exemplify the role of “practice” in Language Learning
Theories.
According to Behaviorist Theories, learner, who is
state of “flow”, does not aware what language it is in and he/she is in
creature of habit. It can be observed, manipulated
and described as it is described by Skinner (1957). For an instance from my
personal experience in practice based on this behavioristic perspective; my
friends has got a dog called “Peanut” in Ashburn, VA. I have observed Peanut as
an authentic example of “...Learning as response to environmental stimuli
through practice, repetition, rewards” (Skinner, 1938) I have trained him how
pretend to die by doing a lot of practices such as ordering to sit down and
then lie down on the back of a series repetitions supported by dry dog food as
a reward in each time. To give him a treat, I practiced him constantly by
ordering; “Peanut, come and sit, then roll over saying “ Bang Bang” with my gun
hand signal until he understood the right away. I gave treat each time and
repeated and praised till it turned into a habit. It may seem a simple but it
is closely related the stages I had experienced in the practice of this theory.
In a similar manner, I had another stance from my new challenge fourth grade
English class. I have been practicing “Whole Brain Teaching” with them and
there are five rules on my English Corner, one of them is “ take permission
before leave your seat” which is rule number three and if they are good at
obeying following rules, they get “city points” to become a mayor class.
Whenever someone breaks the rule, I call rule number three and they all repeat
what rule is. This became a habit and they learned how to manipulate my stimuli
by observing the input provided.
By referring to the article “Articles in Child L2
English” (Zdorenko&Paradis, 2011), it is mentioned about the “the definite
contexts” which surpasses learner’s accuracy in the indefinite contexts as
mentioned in my reaction paper; subject definite article in Turkish –de/-da
accusative case occurred objective suffix; (in the street; caddede). “Peripheral aspects are more
difficult to learn” (cited in Ipek, 2011; Ellis, 1994, McLauglin, 1987) because
of the fact that it derived from history of language. For instance, one of the
kids of my class uses “the Emra Teacher referring to vice principal” whereas
English article in “the vice principle” is correct definite subject NPs. Not having “definite the” in Turkish, the kid
misuses its form notwithstanding the level of proficiency since it might occur
in proficient learners either. Within this view, I have experienced that
teaching the core rules of language such as adjective order are not much
difficult to teach rather than Articles; a-an-the-(-) based on Universal
Grammar Theory.
“The input should be comprehensible” (Krashen, 1982).
As Krashen named the Comprehensible Input Hypothesis by supporting the
arguments about the term of “comprehensible” should not be seen as input needs
to be simplified; it could be slightly beyond of learner’s existent level of
knowledge (i+1). Even though Interactionists approaches have some contradictory
responses such “Input undermines linguistic competence” (Ipek, 2011) over
Monitor Theory, we all teachers could have the benefits of these arguments to
detect our students’ needs for motivation and desire to improve. When the
child/ learner is not aware what language it is in, even it is compelling
she/he could acquire you are interested in improving or not. One of my students
from grade 6th has an excellent competence in understanding the
structure of English even using more informal social context and having
native-like pronunciation, at first it was quite surprising to figure out his
over confidence in English classes. In the wake of parent meeting, I have understood
that his mother, who is an English Teacher in a prestigious University,
contributed his learning process but just conveying meaning in some grammatical
structures. She said I do not force him to watch “documentaries but he loves
watching “National Geography and English Channels” in addition he makes fun of
me with his native like speech. Actually he is doing what he is interested in
and exposing the language on his own without any push or reinforcement either.
On the other hand, teaching occurs in phases gradually
and it is more psychological phenomena as Cognitive theorists Piaget and Bruner
defined in general. To increase their one of the psychological needs;
motivation, especially parental involvement in their childhood has crucial and
vital role to feed their growth intelligence through actively experiencing and
learning by doing. There is no doubt that most of the children today’s digital
world are kinesthetic learners who love touching, smelling, feeling, seeing the
input provided. Their motivation is a key for their learning, when they are
motivated; they become more volunteers to cultivate language by drawing,
imitating it their own mental representations. An exempt from my weekend course
class related with this theory: While revising seasons; In which season are the
leaves falling, I reflected a picture of maple tree leaf stressing “leaves”
irregular plural noun, by creating a context, you make a pancake and then what
do you put on it? Student B said “Syrup” then I said yes it is maple syrup and
it is originally extracted from maple trees in Canada. Then they drew a
conclusion from the information that I provided which was the saying “Oh
teacher, this maple tree leaf is in their flag too” correcting “well done, it
is true”.
Heuristically, one student can teach one another what
they have learned; they both negotiate meaning with a “scaffolded exercise”.
Referring Gordon Pask’s “Teach back” denotation, I am the one who leads her
students scaffolding exercises to repeat the structure with active student
involvement. After teaching a set of science experiment target vocabulary;
goggles, test tube, apron, powder etc., I gave my students task which is
“completing instructions in a science experiment; mixing colors. They really
enjoyed by doing it together, since they had fun of activity and stipulate each
other in conversation to complete the task. I agree that Conversation Theory
works in topic based units and preparing pupils for social dialogues of
language as well.
However, it has some interventions depend upon
classroom dynamics; as a teacher controlling what and how they are teaching
each other is crucial. Checking their comprehension and monitoring for the big
classes could constitute an impediment in practice if there is no explicit
explanation of subject matter provided by a skilled teacher.
In the aggregate, to become more integrated into
target language and its culture socially and psychologically, learners need to
be oriented in TL but this is a kind of critique period for the learners. For
instance, I had a friend who has gone to USA for two years in a language
school. She had culture shock for a while and disoriented with this new
culture’s rules and life style. It was not a comfortable environment for her to
share her knowledge with the other. Due to her limited contact with English
speakers, it was not surprising not to have good language skills reflected on
her grades. There was no negotiation of appropriate input and she was not able
to operate language acquisition.
As it is
aforementioned, there are some inhibitions affecting the learner’s readiness to
acquire or learn a language. Concepts and structures such as affective filter,
social and physiological factors mainly affective in nature, L1 background,
peripheral grammar of a language, dialectical differences are all correlated
with one’s degree of learning and acquisition process. In practice, all those
basic tenets of theories mentioned above are in the competence of educators and
parents in practice. As an educator or a parent if one comprehends his/her
learners’ difficulties that are not a processing of error but it’s a different
operating system for each unique learner.
References
Driscoll,
M. P., (2005). Cognitive and knowledge development (pp.189-201).
Friedman, M., 1985, “Kant's Theory of Geometry”, The Philosophical Review, 94 (4): 455–506.
Ipek,
Hulya. (2009). Comparing and Contrasting First and Second Language
Acquisition: Implications for Language
Teachers. English Language Teaching, 2 (2).
retrieved from ccsenet.org/journal.html
Lavadenz,
Magally. (2010). From Theory to Practice for Teachers of English Learners,
Marymount University,
Loyala. Catesol Journal, 22.1, retrieved
from
Zdorenko,
Tatiana & Paradis, Johanne
(2011). Articles in Child L2
English: When L1 and
L2 Acquisition Meet at the
Interface. University of Alberta, Canada.
doi:10.1177/0142723710396797,
retrieved from fl.sagepub.com
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