Olga Prosyuk
You ask me, how I gеt acquainted with cultural-historical psychology? I am afraid it is not an easy thing to give clear and full answer. I can only try to describe my personal experience. Let me start from long ago…
We discussed the theory of Leo Vygotsky when I was the student of the teachers training college… We focused on Vygotsky’s works while I was studying at the University… However, I could not imagine what treasures books by Leo Vygotsky are. In those days I thought they were a kind of boring scientific texts not very useful in practice, so, being an ordinary student, I did not even bother myself to read them carefully….
Six years ago, I started to teach English language at school. I worked with very different groups of students: from 3 year olds to teenagers. Soon I found out that it is almost impossible to be a successful language teacher without deep psychological knowledge. This was the reason to start my postgraduate program on psychology. It was interesting for me how children learn to speak foreign languages. What kind of miracle happens inside one’s mind during the process of language learning, what plays the main role in the second language acquisition: genetic mechanisms, association and imitation, cognitive styles, memory processes or social interaction, why some children learn language better and faster than the others, what linguistic giftedness is and is there such a phenomenon. All these questions I asked myself, at the beginning of my research.
The problem of foreign language acquisition has cross-disciplinary nature. That caused new difficulties. Any linguist who forms an interest in the subject should know certain areas of psychological theory, while a psychologist cannot approach it without an adequate knowledge of linguistics. My knowledge of linguistics as well as of certain areas of psychological theory was not very deep, so there was no other choice as to read as much as it is possible.
One evening I found in the bookshop the book ‘Thought and Language’ by Leo Vygotsky, I had heard someone called Vygotsky ‘Mozart of Psychology’, I bought a book and started to read it. Reading ‘Thought and Language’ for the first time was catastrophic. I struggled with the text, but my understanding was poor. Anyhow, I had a feeling that there was something very important, very useful in that text. Maybe it is not a good comparison, but it was like reading a Bible, you do not understand certain things but you believe in the text, and you know that if you work hard, if you read and reread you will find something crucial! I believed that I could find in Vygotsky’s ‘Thought and Language’ answers for my questions.
Being a teacher of English, I know that when children are learning how to use a new language, they are developing a complex array of knowledge and skills. However, the most successful language learners are developing much more than knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the new language. We can say, I guess, that they are learning how to mean, how to communicate meaningfully, so, if it is true, the development of the system of foreign language meanings became the key thing in the language learning process. Rereading ‘Thought and Language’ for the second time I suddenly felt that if I found out how to develop in my students’ conscious the system of foreign language meanings I would find the instrument of making the process of English language teaching more effective.
That is the brief overview of how and why my interest in cultural-historical psychology and the fascinating ideas of Leo Vygotsky maintained. In conclusion, let me add only one thing. I noticed that I could understand Vygotsky’s ideas much better in the process of social interaction. I do need visiting lectures, asking questions about and discussing my own guesses – in such a way, new meanings are developing. So, the theory works! Amazing, isn’t it?