Juan Felipe Páez's Personal Definitions and Explanations.

TASK 1A: Definition of Language, Learning and Teaching

From my perspective and my own experience as a learner and as a teacher, we can define

Language as the skill that makes a clear difference between humans and animals. Language is a set of cognitive skills that allow us to survive as a specie. Among these skills we can find Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking. Language is a mental ability. In the other hand in my concept Learning is the process where we gain knowledge in a specific context. It is an implicit part of our development as humans. However, Teaching could be the opposite, but of course, we cannot teach if we don't previously acquire knowledge. I believe that teach is to put knowledge in other's mind.

TASK 1B: Constructivism and Vygotsky's philosophy.

We can define constructivism as a theory that explain the learning process or how the people learn. It show us that people construct their knowledge or their own understanding of a topic or concept through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences. The constructivism is a process where the learner is constantly reflecting on their experiences in order to improve. The idea with this theory is to never provide the answer to the learner in a simple way. The objective is to make the learner think and reflect about what could be the possible answer to the question. The learner or student have to find by himself the answers to his questions.

In my own words I could define the theory of Vygotsky as it follows: In order to learn, first, we have to be socially developed. That is because Vygotsky developed a sociocultural approach to cognitive development. For this Vygotsky said: "learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human psychological function" (1978, p. 90).

EXAMPLE:
A good example of Vygotsky´s theory could be that the teacher must plan activities that encompass not only what children are capable of doing on their own but what they can learn with the help of others. That is the importance of the collaborative activities in the learning environment or in the classroom. Children, Young-ones and adults usually tend to behave different in collaborative environments, so in the field of education and from the perspective of Vygotsky we could use this collaborative environment to develop the socio-cognitive skills.

Bibliographic references

Constructivism as a paradigm for Teaching and Learning, Concept to Classroom,

2004, Educational Broadcasting Corporation. Taken From:

http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/

McLeod, S. A. (2014). Lev Vygotsky. Retrieved from

www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html

Classroom Applications of Vygotsky's Theory. Ch. 2, p. 47. Taken from:

http://wps.ablongman.com/ab_slavin_edpsych_8/38/9951/2547689.cw/content/