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UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE EDUCACIN

ENRIQUE GUZMN Y VALLE-LA CANTUTA
Alma Mater del Magisterio Nacional

ESCUELA DE POSGRADO SECCIN MAESTRA

MASTERS PROGRAM IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES.

MAJOR: TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Course: PSYCHOLOGY FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS

Paper topic: From Piaget to Vygotsky. A comparative study of their

theoretical contributions.

Professor: M. Ed. Miguel Or de los Santos

Participant: Ana Rosa Gordillo Rios

October 23rd, 2016

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Escuela de Posgrado

Universidad Nacional de Educacin

Enrique Guzmn y Valle La Cantuta

MASTERS PROGRAM IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES

Major: Teaching English as a Foreign Language

DECLARATION OF ACADEMIC ETHICS

To be annexed to all works submitted for assessment

as part of the Med TEFL Program

Name : Ana Rosa Gordillo Rios

Course : PSYCHOLOGY FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS

Title of work submitted : From Piaget to Vygotsky. A comparative study of their

theoretical contributions

2,552 : Approximate number of words (counting by word

processor, . . . . excluding appendixes and bibliography)

I HEREBY DECLARE THAT THE WORK I AM

SUBMITTING FOR ASSESSMENT IS MY OWN AND DOES
NOT CONTAIN ANY UNACKNOWLEDGED WORK FROM
ANY OTHER SOURCES. WERE ANY OF ITS CONTENTS
PROVED THE RESULT OF CHEATING OR PLAGIARISM
ON MY PART, I ASSUME THE CORRESPONDING
PENALTIES ESTABLISHED BY THE POSTGRADUATE
SCHOOL.

Signature........................................................... Date; October 23rd, 2016

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I: Jean Piaget

1.1 Jean Piaget. Theoretical contribution

1.2 Piagets contribution to the Education

Chapter II: Lev Vygotsky

2.1 Lev Vygotsky: Theoretical contribution

2.2 Lev Vygotskys contribution to the Education

Chapter III: Contrasting

3.1 Comparative chart

Chapter IV: Personal appraisal / Classroom implications

References
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Abstract

In Jean Piagets terms children construct knowledge through their actions

on the world; for Lev Vygotsky the construction is to social processes. This
work will compare both perspectives considering their contributions to the
education of human beings.
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Presentation

Two of the most recognized cognitive psychologists, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky,
developed theories that addressed cognitive development and learning among children and
adolescents. Which theory is better? If Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky had to defend their points of
view, according to Hurst (2003), they would argue this speech:

Jean Piaget: My theory of cognitive development is comprehensive and is the only

perspective that should be viewed as correct!
Lev Vygotsky: I disagree. My theory of cognitive development is the obvious choice for
explaining how a child learns and develops.
There may be no right or wrong theory of cognitive development, but there are definitely
differences between both of them. This work compares the two points of view and their theoretical
contributions on learning process.

There are many studies about those theories that have been analyzed according to their
differences prospects, for example, McLeod (2015) published in his blog Simply Psychology Jean
Piaget Schemas are the basic building blocks of such cognitive models, and enable us to form a
mental representation of the world. Piaget (1952) defined a schema as: 'a cohesive, repeatable
action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a
core meaning'. Moreover, Pias, Fuertes and Miranda (2014) in their book titled Corrientes
Pedaggicas Contemporneas, consider that Jean Piaget is the father of the genetic psychology and
his theory has had great impact on education, because it has led cognitive development operational
stages into a new approach which is part of the constructivist view. Finally, the author of this
paper thinks that Piagets operational stages theory is somehow related to critical period
hypothesis, as Hurford (1991) mentions in his study The evolution of the critical period for
language acquisition; even though this hypothesis refers only to the acquisition of a second
language, because Piagets operational stages are divided according to the human beings
chronological ages (Wood, Smith & Grossniklaus, 2014), and there is a specific age for each
cognitive process of assimilation and adaptation stage, particularly for Language and Math. For
this reason, if the child does not develop this process at the appropriate age or stage he or she may
no longer do it properly.

On the other hand, Hurst (2003) in her blog Zone of Proximal Development and
Scaffolding in the Classroom states Le Vygotsky developed a theory of cognitive development
which focused on the role of culture in the development of higher mental functions In addition, I
state that Vygotskys sociocultural theory is based on learning by interaction of the social context
and the things students cannot understand lay in a specific zone called the zone of proximal
development (ZPD). Those things will be understood with a guiders help. In Vygotskys (1930)
words "The distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent
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problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving
under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers" .

The Comparisons between Jean Piaget and Lev Vigotskys theories are done considering
their contributions to the Education.
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Chapter I

1.1 Jean Piaget. Theoretical contributions

Jean Piaget was a clinical psychologist. He was born in Switzerlarnd in 1896 and
studied at Neuchatel University in Zurich where Piaget developed a deeper interest in
psychoanalysis. He married Valentine Chtenay and had three children Jacqueline, Laurent
and Lucienne to whom he observed their childhood mental development and created
highly influential theories on the stages of mental development among children. He
died in 1980.

As Cherry (2016) states that Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that
children move through four different stages of mental development. His theory focuses not
only on understanding how children acquire knowledge, but also on understanding the nature
of intelligence. Piaget believed that children took an active role in the learning process, acting
much like little scientists as they perform experiments, make observations and learn about the
world. In other words, that human construct knowledge and meaning from their experiences:
Constructivism learning.

Piaget divided his theory of cognitive development in four stages based on maturation
and experience. Below there is a chart that summarizes the stages:

1. Sensorimotor Stage Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

The infant knows the world through their

movements and sensations.
Children learn about the world through basic actions
such as sucking, grasping, looking and listening.
Ages: Birth to 2 Years
Infants learn that things continue to exist even
though they cannot be seen (object permanence).

They are separate beings from the people and

objects around them.

They realize that their actions can cause things to

happen in the world around them.

Learning occurs through assimilation and accommodation

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Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

2. Preoperational Stage Children begin to think symbolically and learn to

use words and pictures to represent objects.
They also tend to be very egocentric, and see things
only from their point of view.

Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and

Ages: 2 to 7 Years struggle to see things from the perspective of others.

While they are getting better with language and thinking,

they still tend to think about things in very concrete terms.
Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

3. Concrete Operational During this stage, children begin to think logically

Stage about concrete events.
They begin to understand the concept of
conservation; the amount of liquid in a short, wide
cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass.

Thinking becomes more logical and organized, but

Ages: 7 to 11 Years still very concrete.

Begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific

information to a general principle.
Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

4. Formal Operational At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins

Stage to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical
problems.
Abstract thought emerges.

Teens begin to think more about moral,

philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues
Ages: 12 and Up that require theoretical and abstract reasoning.

Begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general

principle to specific information
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Piaget was one of the first theorists to suggest that the way children think is
fundamentally different from the way that adults think. Many of Piaget's ideas came from his
observations of his own children, but his theory has also fueled an abundance of further
research on the intellectual development of children.

1.2 Piagets contributions to the Education

Piaget's contributions to the education are the constructivist perspective, the various
educational proposals that reflect the genetic psychology contribution that are also associated
with the social development of the student.

According to Wang (2014) Piaget's theory of constructivism argues that people

produce knowledge and form meaning based upon their experiences. Piaget's theory covered
learning theories, teaching methods, and education reform. Two of the key components which
create the construction of an individual's new knowledge are accommodation and assimilation.
Assimilating causes an individual to incorporate new experiences into the old experiences.
This causes the individual to develop new outlooks, rethink what were once
misunderstandings, and evaluate what is important, ultimately altering their perceptions.
Accommodation, on the other hand, is reframing the world and new experiences into the
mental capacity already present. Individuals conceive a particular fashion in which the world
operates. When things do not operate within that context, they must accommodate and
reframing the expectations with the outcomes. Williams and Burden (1997) give a clear
example in that point When we receive new input of the language, for example by listening
to a conversation, we need to modify what we already know about the language
(accommodation) so as to 'fit' the new information into our existing knowledge
(assimilation).

Apart from learning theories, Piaget's theory of constructivism addresses how learning
actually occurs, not focusing on what influences learning. The role of teachers is very
important. Instead of giving a lecture the teachers in this theory function as facilitators whose
role is to aid the student when it comes to their own understanding.
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Chapter II

2.1 Lev Vygotsky. Theoretical contributions

Lev Semyonovich Vygotski was a Soviet psychologist who founded the theory of
human sociocultural development. He was born in Russia in 1896. He initially studied
medicine at Shaniavskii Moscow City Peoples University then he switched to law at
Moscow State University finally he developed an interest in psychology and studied at
Shaniavskii Open University where he became an educational psychologist in 1917. He
married Roza Noevna Smekhova and had two children. In spite of his death at the young age
of 37, he made major contributions to the field of psychology, and education. This work is
focused on his educational contributions.

Vygotsky's (1930) theory says that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the
development of cognition,
Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social
level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and
then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to
logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as
actual relationships between individuals.
I may say that interaction with other people is crucial to occur the learning.

Williams and Burden (1997) assert that Vygotskys most widely known concept
is probably the zone of proximal development (ZPD), which is the term used to refer to
the layer of skill or knowledge which is just beyond that with which the learner is
currently capable of coping. In other words, ZPD is a level of development attained when
children engage in social behavior. Full
development of the ZPD depends upon full
social interaction. The student can develop
more skills with adult guidance or peer
collaboration than alone.

This figure plots how works the zone

of proximal cognitive development.
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According to Williams and Burden (1997) His work was suppressed and has only
become widely available in translation in the last thirty years. Vigotsky emphasized the
importance of language in interacting with people; not just speech, but signs and symbols as
well.

2.2 Vygotskys contributions to education.

Pias, Fuertes and Miranda (2014) state that sociocultural paradigm is also known as
ecological or conceptual, is based on the interaction of context- individual group and takes
into account the demands of the environment and the way it influences the learning process.
Intelligence and language are products of specific socio-cultural contexts; when learning, the
student performs a social practice which is mediated by his/her sociocultural conditions.

They also say that it is considered that everyone has zone of potential development for
this reason every person has the potential to learn, cooperative learning and context are
crucial to reconstruction of meaningful knowledge.

The teaching model is the learning - teaching and the context is the most important tool.
Teacher's role is socialization, he or she is a culture and learning mediator, who enhances
interactions, generates expectations, contextualizes content and adapts them to the demands of
the context. The teacher applies to the formation of a man who develops and uses his skills
and values to live harmoniously in the context where the student belongs.

The methodology is participatory and takes into account collaborative ethnographic

studies.

CHAPTER III
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3.1 Comparative Chart between both theories

Concept Jean Piaget LEV VIGOTSKY

Genetic Theory Socio-cultural theory
Constructivism initiation

It is organized in cognitive The student learns by him/

operational stages to be
developed by the person at a
specific age. Learning is
possible if the student has
The Learning acquired the formal
development level.
Knowledge is built from the
learners previous knowledge.
Learning occurs through the
processes of assimilation and
accommodation.
herself, though the interaction
of the social context. What is
out of his/her understanding
is called the "zone of
proximal development" that
will be known with a
guidance help.
Learning is the result of
socialization.

New knowledge is adapted to It is aimed to activate the

the cognitive structure of the
The Teaching student. Didactic action is
provided to the student.
zone of proximal
development. Teaching is
focused on the learning
environment rather than the
transmission of information.

The teacher is a viewer, The teacher is an observant

facilitator and provider of and diagnoses students
student discovering process. potential zone of proximal
Role of the teacher development based on their
prior knowledge. The teacher
is a facilitator of cognitive
development.

Role of the student The student is a builder of The student is an active

his/her own learning through constructor of knowledge
his/her experiences. through social interaction.

Methodology The methodology is The methodology is basically

egocentric based on learners participatory, collaborative
schemata which can be and takes into account
altered through assimilation ethnographic studies.
and accommodation.
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CHAPTER IV

4.1 PERSONAL APPRAISAL / CLASSROOM IMPLICATIONS

I work at San Juan Bautista Private University. I teach large groups where English prior
knowledge is heterogeneous. There are students who have never had an English class, whom
Beare (2016) calls absolute beginners, and there are also students who have studied in
prestigious language centers. For both groups of students, English class is a mandatory course
and they have to use the same textbook.
I believe that Piagets stages must be somehow related to the critical period hypothesis
Lennenberg (1967) stated, focused on the phonological field because, according to my
experience, I can appreciate that absolute beginners have great difficulty with English
phonology. This confirms that if the brain has not assimilated and accommodated new
phonemes in his or her childhood in the stage Piaget (1936) pointed (which is stage 2
Preoperational Stage) it is extremely difficult for them to produce, retain and reproduce the
new phoneme, either oral or written when they are adults. The brain does not only respond to
the eye (to what they are seeing), in other words, it is not enough for the student to look at the
word or read the text to produce the new language he is listening to the teacher or to their
audio material, this new word has to be handwritten and pronounced by him or herself.
Moreover, his or her ears have to hear the command of his or her voice so that this word can
be written correctly by him or herself, only in that way that learning can be meaningful for
absolute beginners. Not so with students who learned some English in his childhood and now
they have to recover the information at the university, Beare (2016) calls them false
beginners; this group of students have to hear the out coming phoneme several times to
retrieve it from his or her mind to produce the new word correctly.
Applying Vygotsky's theory implications to the classroom I am in charge, I realized that
in oral and written group performances that students have to present, I could see that the
students who have a good command of English could help weak students to improve their oral
and written English production. The social English interaction among students helps beginner
students to understand the exercise faster. With this example the author of this paper thinks
that absolute beginners are in the zone of proximal development (ZPD) which Vygotski
(1930) stated and need the help of a tutor or a peer who knows more to make them get to
their full cognitive development.
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REFERENCES

Books

Pias, L.C., Fuertes, M.D., & Miranda, M.C., (2014). Corrientes Pedaggicas
Contemporneas. Huancayo: Universidad Nacional del Centro del Per.

Vigotsky, L., (1930). Interaction between learning and development. From mind and
society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Vigotsky, L., (1930). Mind in Society . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Williams, M., and Burden, R.L., (1997) Psychology for Language Teachers: a Social
constructivist Approach. Cambridge :Harvard University Press.

Web sites
Cherry, K., (2016) A Summary of Piaget's Stages Retrieved from
https://www.verywell.com/a-summary-of-piagets-stages-2795075, on October 15,
2016

Hurford, J. R., (1991) The evolution of the critical period for language acquisition
Cognition.40(1991)159-201. Retrieved from
http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~jim/crit.per.pdf, on Oct. 14, 2016..

Hurst, M. (2015). Differences between Piaget & Vygotsky's Cognitive Development

Theories. Retrieved from http://study.com/academy/lesson/differences-between-
piaget-vygotskys-cognitive-development-theories.html, on Oct. 3, 2016.

Mazarin, J. (2015). Egocentric Speech: Piaget & Vygotsky Retrieved from

http://study.com/academy/lesson/egocentric-speech-piaget-vygotsky.html, on Oct. 3,
2016.
McLeod, S. A., (2015). Simply Psychology Jean Piaget. Retrieved from
http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html, on Oct. 3, 2016.

Wood, K. C., Smith, H. & Grossniklaus, D., (2014) Piaget's Stages of Cognitive
Development. Retrieved from http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/index.php?title=Piaget
%27s_Stages
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Wang, H., (2014) On the Constructivist Teaching of Extensive Reading for English
MajorsRetrieved from http://waset.org/publications/9997857/on-the-
constructivist-teaching-of-extensive-reading-for-english-majors, on Oct. 15,
2016

Web Links

Why children are better language learners than adults (The Critical Period Hypothesis)
(June 18, 2013) Retrieved from https://languagesalive.me/tag/eric-lenneberg/, on Oct.
2, 2016.
The on line teachers resource Piagets theory of constructivism UNL2003 Data Sheet
Retrieved from http://www.teach-nology.com/currenttrends/constructivism/piaget/, on
Oct. 15, 2016.
Social development theory (Lev Vygotsky) Retrieved from
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/social-development.html, on Oct. 21.10.16