Sociocultural theory and teacher professional development

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2.3 Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory

Sociocultural theory was first developed in relation to child development by the Russia psychologist, Lev Vygotsky. His main premise is that knowledge is generated through interaction in the context of social activities Daniels, 1993. These social activities are thus “the process through which human cognition is formed” Lantolf Johnson, 2007, p. 878. In this regard, Vygotsky 1978 claims: 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 p. 57. Learning therefore occurs on two levels: 1 through interaction with others social level, and 2 and then integrated into the individual’s mental structure individual level. Another important premise of Vygotsky 1978 is that the cognitive development of an individual depends on the cultural tools that the culture provides to assist in forming hisher own view of the world. In addition, Vygotsky 1978 suggests that cognitive development is advanced when an individual is presented with problems that heshe is able to solve as long as heshe is provided with the appropriate assistances Fullan, 1993. This is known as the Zone of Proximal Development ZPD, which is discussed further in Section 2.3.4 of this chapter. Critically for this thesis, within sociocultural theory, three interrelated concepts are involved: “that social interaction informs the development and character of mental processes, that cultural tools mediate psychological functioning, and that development advances through the ZPD” Lantolf Thorne, 2006, p. 287.

2.3.1 Sociocultural theory and teacher professional development

Sociocultural theory has significant implications in areas of child development, cognitive psychology, and education. Its claim that children learn through social interaction using language as the main tool has significant implications beyond child development. Some researchers Eun, 2008; Golombek Johnson, 2004; Huizen, et al., 2005; Johnson Golombek, 2011; Turuk, 2008; Warford, 2011 argue that 25 sociocultural theory is also applicable in teacher professional development contexts. Johnson and Golombek 2011 more specifically address the application of sociocultural theory within second language teacher education SLTE. They remark: A sociocultural theoretical perspective, as a psychological theory of mind, has the potential to explicate the origins, mechanisms, nature, and consequences of teacher professional development at all phases of teachers’ careers and in all contexts where they live, learn, and work p. 1. The above perspective explains that what teachers know about language teaching and learning, in particular how to teach, is based on the full array of their experience. Teachers are commonly familiar with everyday concepts, which are developed during long periods of experiences as students and learners of language in which the teachers situated in the cultural environment of language learning experiences in the everyday world. However, “these everyday concepts are limiting in that they based only observations and generalization gleaned from a surface-level understanding of what language learning and teaching is all about” Johnson Golombek, 2011, p. 2. When the teachers enter SLTE program, they are then exposed to scientific concepts, which based on systematic observations and theoretical investigations Johnson Golombek, 2011. Since teachers typically ground their understanding of teaching and learning as well as their notions about how to teach in their own instructional histories as learners Lortie, 1975, they must be able to move beyond their everyday experience, toward more theoretically and pedagogically sound instructional practice to establish themselves as professionals Johnson Golombek, 2011. In this context, Eun 2008 points out that: Grounding professional development within Vygotsky’s theories of development seems most appropriate, not only because of the emphasis on the concept of development they share, but also more importantly due to the fact that both professional development and Vygotsky’s theories of development consider social interaction to be the main source underlying human development p. 141. From the above statements, Eun emphasized the importance of social interaction between and among teachers to actualize their professional development. Similarly, Flores et al. 2007 indicated that teachers are able to develop their professionalism when they become part of a learning community. Furthermore, Eun 2008, p. 144 26 summarized how the key concepts of Vygotsky’s theories of development are realized in the practice of professional development as illustrated in Table 1. Key theoretical concepts Related professional development practices Social Interaction Workshops, colloquia, seminars, mentoring, study groups Internalization Individually guided activities video self- assessment, journal writing Mediation Continuous follow-up support that includes the three types of mediators: tools material resources; signs newsletters and journals; and other humans professional networks. Psychological systems Development of professional development programs that focus on changing teacher’s attitudes as well as instructional practices. Table 1: Realization of the concepts of Vygotskys theories of development in the practice of professional development From Eun, 2008, p. 146 This study uses three key theoretical concepts mentioned in the above table: social interaction, internalization, and psychological systems. The research participants engaged in collegial dialogues in which they had opportunities to interact with other teachers, discussing and solving the problems occurring in the classroom. Additionally, video recordings of lessons and teacher self-reflection questions used by my research participants potentially mediated the transformative process of internalization. Finally, a series of teacher self-evaluation activities conducted in my study provided a psychological system to help my research participants refine their attitude in their teaching, leading to improved instructional practice. Therefore, I argue that various self- evaluation instruments used in my study function as effective tools that mediate teacher professional development. Moreover, Eun 2008 stated that “combining various models of professional development and using them in conjunction with one another would be most conducive to development on the Vygotskian framework” p. 148. In addition, it has been previously noted that there are few studies on the implication of sociocultural theory in teacher professional development. Therefore, my study will increase the scholarly literature on sociocultural theory, in particular, with its interrelated concepts: 27 mediation, internalization, and the ZPD applied in teacher development, in the Indonesian contexts. I will review affordances of teacher self-evaluation instruments, internalization and mediation, and the ZPD in the next subsections.

2.3.2 Affordances of teacher self-evaluation instruments