Iaplications / 178
critlclsn of Piaget is supported and elaborated on by recent trends in
sone of the fields nentloned above.
Language deveɪopnent is not only one of the major areas of inquiry in the
construction of Vygotsky's general theory:
The acquisition of language can provide a paradign for the entire
probɪen of the relation between learning and develσpnent. Language
arises initially as a neans of Connunlcatlon between the child
and the people in his environment. Only subsequently, upon
conversion to internal speech, does it cone to organize the
child's thought, that it becomes an internal mental function
<Vygotsky ,1978:89)
Intemalization and Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD, see pages 45 and
48) are the two main constructs that are relevant to the present
discussion on teachers and L2 learning.
6.3.2 The Zone of Proximal Development at home and at sch∞l
If teachers conceptualize the relationship between instruction and
development in general, or learning and acquisition of language in
particular, in terms of ZPD, they would see the adult as the one who
'awakens and rouses to life an entire set of functions which are in the
stage of maturing, which lie in the ZPD1 (Vygotsky, 1934, quoted in
Vertsch,1985b:71). This reflects what parents do quite spontaneously in
their interactions with children (see pages 123 and 149): when they
sustain conversations and probe meanings, they 'gently lead [the child] to
elaborate his approximative system' (Corder,1981:78). Adults constantly
push further the boundary between 'given' and 'new' in the sense that the
'given' incorporates more and more of the shared experience, and becomes
the background for new predicates, which in turn are expected to become
more complex and articulate. In this sense, adults transform the