Page 27 - Teaching English at Primary Level: From Theory into the Classroom

The Constructivist Perspective

construct knowledge for themselves by actively making sense of their envi-
ronment’ (Pinter, 2006, p. 6).

Piaget and Active Learning
Jean Piaget, one of the most prominent figures in the area of child psychol-
ogy of all times, was especially interested in how children interact with the
world around them and the effect of this interaction for their mental devel-
opment. For Piaget, learning occurs through action and thinking develops
as action is internalised or carried out mentally in the imagination. A child’s
thinking develops gradually, through different stages in which knowledge
andintellectualskillgrowfromlargelyperception-basedtowardsformal,log-
icalthinking(Cameron,2001).Accordingto Piaget’sfamousframework,every
child goes through four universal stages of development: the sensorimotor
stage (from birth to 2 years of age), pre-operational stage (from 2 to 7 years of
age), concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years of age) and formal operational
stage (from 11 years onwards).
The studies which developed Piaget’s ideas have been criticised for under-
estimating what children are capable of doing at a particular stage and for
focusing attention on what they are not able to do rather than their achieve-
ments. For example, Piaget described pre-operational children as egocentric,
unable to imagine other perspectives than their own and unable to follow
the rules of formal logic. However, Pinter (2011) points out that while pre-
operational children are not likely to do well in tasks which test formal logic,
they still make important progress in their development, especially using ac-
tivities which are more appropriate for their age, such as repetitive games
and socio-dramatic plays. Despite these criticisms, several authors (Skela &
Dagarin Fojkar, 2009; Pinter, 2006; Cameron, 2001) argue that it is neverthe-
less useful to be familiar with the Piagetian framework since teachers who
teach a foreign language usually teach different age groups over a period of
time. This means that they need to be able to respond to the needs and inter-
ests of several age groups by evaluating and balancing materials, methods
and teaching styles.

Vygotsky and the Concept of Scaffolding
Comparedto Piaget,Vygotskygivesmuch moreimportanceto languageand
the interaction between the child and other people. The social-interactive
approach emphasises human social interactions, especially the role of the
relationship between an adult and a child in learning a language. In this re-
spect, the work of Vygotsky and later Bruner was significant as it shed light

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