Content and Pedagogy for the Mother Tongue

Constructivist Learning Theory Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky are two most recognized pillars of constructivist learning theory. Both puts high premium on how children acquire and construct meaning, however, unlike the behaviorists, both Piaget and Vygotsky do not view children as empty vessels (tabula rasa) waiting to be filled by an expert and learned adult. Constructivists argue that children are preformed to learn and acquire language as they go through different developmental stages.

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) argues that children are active learners who construct meaning from their environment. Piaget is the proponent of cognitive developmental theory that explains the interconnectedness of knowledge acquisition and language acquisition through qualitative changes of their mental processes as they develop (Crystal, 1987; Schickendanz, 1993; Vasta et al, 1999). He views children as active learners, constructing knowledge over time, as they interact with their environment through developmental states.

"Constructivism" has been a byword in education for generations, applied both to learning theory and epistemology— both on how people learn and the nature of knowledge. We do not need to adhere if it is simply a new fad, but we need to think about our work in relation to theories of learning and knowledge.

So we need to ask: what is constructivism, what does it have to tell us that is new and relevant, and how do we apply it to the universe of MTB-MLE? As they say, it will not take rocket science to understand and employ constructivism. There is nothing dramatically new in constructivism: the core ideas expressed by it have been clearly enunciated by John Dewey among others.

Constructivist's perspective of language acquisition is generally centered on brain development. Hung (1965)„ in Schickedanz (1993) provides a summary of Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development and how children construct knowledge and acquire a language.

Lev Vygotsky's emphasized that private speech, of children talking to themselves, for turning shared knowledge into personal knowledge (Slavin, 1997). Vgotsky proposed that children incorporate the speech of others and then use that speech to help themselves solve problems (Slavin, 1997). Vgotsky's theory implies that cognitive development and the ability to use thought to control one's own actions require first a mastery of cultural communication systems and then learning to use these systems to regulate one's own thought processes (Slavin, 1997, Crystal, 1987).

If Piaget's view of learning and language acquisition is centered on the , children's changes of logical thinking through stages based on maturation and experience. Vygotsky's view is centered on the role of culture and social interactions of children with other children and adults in the environment.

Vygotsky even argued that children's speech is a major tool in their development of thinking.

Content and Pedagogy for the MotherTongue