Private Speech and Socially Mediated Learning (Constructivism)

A cardinal tenet of constructivism posits that the acquisition of knowledge entails the transmutation and interiorisation of the social milieu. Language assumes a pivotal function in this undertaking. The present section shall address the manner in which private discourse serves to effectuate these critical processes of transmutation and interiorisation.

Private speech doth denote that assemblage of verbal phenomena possessing a self-regulatory function, yet devoid of social communicative intent (Fuson, 1979). Diverse theories—including constructivism, cognitive-developmental perspectives, and social cognitive frameworks—establish a robust connection 'twixt private speech and the evolution of self-regulation (Berk, 1986; Frauenglass & Diaz, 1985; Harris, 1982).

The historical font doth spring, in part, from the labours of Pavlov (1927). Recalling our discourse, Pavlov distinguished the first (perceptual) from the second (linguistic) signal systems. Pavlov discerned that the outcomes of animal conditioning do not wholly translate to humankind; human conditioning oft occurs swiftly with but a pairing or two of conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus, contrasting with the manifold pairings requisite in animals. Pavlov posited that these conditioning disparities 'twixt humans and beasts are largely attributable to the human faculty for language and thought. Stimuli may not invariably engender conditioning; individuals interpret stimuli in light of their antecedent experiences. Albeit Pavlov did not himself conduct researches upon the second signal system, subsequent inquiries have validated his conviction that human conditioning is complex, and that language doth play a mediating rôle.

The Soviet psychologist Luria (1961) turned his focus to the child's transition from the first to the second signal system. Luria postulated three stages in the progression of verbal control o'er motor behaviour. Initially, the utterances of others are primarily responsible for directing the child's actions (ages to ). During the second stage (ages 3 to 4), the child's patent verbalisations initiate motor behaviours, yet do not necessarily inhibit them. In the third stage, the child's private speech becomes capable of initiating, directing, and inhibiting motor behaviours (ages to ). Luria believed this private, self-regulatory speech doth direct behaviour through neurophysiological mechanisms.

The mediating and self-directing rôle of the second signal system is embodied within Vygotsky's theory. Vygotsky (1962) held that private speech doth assist in the development of thought by organising behaviour. Children employ private speech to comprehend situations and surmount difficulties. Private speech occurs in conjunction with children's interactions within the social environment. As children's linguistic facility expands, words uttered by others acquire meaning independent of their phonological and syntactical qualities. Children internalise the significations of words and utilise them to direct their behaviours.

Vygotsky hypothesised that private speech follows a curvilinear developmental trajectory: Patent verbalisation (thinking aloud) increases until the ages of 6 to 7, after which it declines, becoming primarily covert (internal) by the ages of 8 to 10. However, overt verbalisation may occur at any age when individuals encounter problems or difficulties. Researches reveal that, albeit the quantum of private speech diminishes from approximately the ages of 4 or 5 to 8, the proportion of private speech that is self-regulating doth increase with age (Fuson, 1979). In many research investigations, the actual quantum of private speech is small, and many children do not verbalise at all. Thus, the developmental pattern of private speech appears more complex than originally hypothesised by Vygotsky.

The verbalisation of rules, procedures, and strategies may serve to improve the learning of students. Albeit Meichenbaum’s (1977, 1986) self-instructional training procedure doth not find its roots in constructivism, it doth recreate the overt-to-covert developmental progression of private speech. The types of statements modelled include problem definition (“What is it I have to do?”), focusing of attention (“I must pay attention to what I am doing”), planning and response guidance (“I must work carefully”), self-reinforcement (“I am doing fine”), self-evaluation (“Am I proceeding in the right order?”), and coping (“I must try again when I do not succeed”). Teachers may employ self-instructional training to impart cognitive and motor skills to learners, which can then cultivate a positive outlook toward tasks and foster perseverance in the face of difficulties (Meichenbaum & Asarnow, 1979). The procedure need not be scripted; learners may construct their own verbalisations.

Verbalisation is especially beneficial for students who oft encounter difficulties and perform in a deficient manner (Denney, 1975; Denney & Turner, 1979). Instructors have observed advantageous results with children who do not spontaneously rehearse material to be learned, impulsive learners, students with learning disabilities and mental retardation, and learners who require remedial experiences (Schunk, 1986). Verbalisation assisteth students with learning problems to approach tasks systematically (Hallahan et al., 1983). It doth compel students to attend to tasks and to rehearse material, both of which augment learning. Verbalisation doth not appear to facilitate learning when students can adequately manage task demands without verbalising. As verbalisation constitutes an additional task, it might impede learning by diverting children from the task at hand.

Research hath identified the conditions under which verbalisation promoteth performance. Denney (1975) modelled a performance strategy for normal learners of 6, 8, and 10 years of age on a task involving twenty questions. Those learners aged 8 and 10 who verbalised the model’s strategy as they performed the task did not score higher than children who did not verbalise. Verbalisation interfered with the performance of 6-year-olds. Children verbalised specific statements (e.g., “Find the correct picture with the fewest questions”); manifestly, performing this additional task proved too distracting for the youngest children. Denney and Turner (1979) discovered that among normal learners ranging in age from 3 to 10 years, the addition of verbalisation to a strategy modelling treatment yielded no benefits on cognitive tasks compared with modelling alone. Participants constructed their own verbalisations, which might have been less distracting than Denney’s (1975) specific statements. Coates and Hartup (1969) observed that 7-year-olds who verbalised a model’s actions during exposure did not subsequently reproduce them better than children who passively observed the behaviours. The children regulated their attention and cognitively processed the model’s actions without verbalising.

Berk (1986) studied the spontaneous private speech of first and third grade pupils. Task-relevant overt speech was negatively related, and faded verbalisation (whispers, lip movements, muttering) was positively related, to mathematical performance. These results were obtained for first grade pupils of high intelligence and third grade pupils of average intelligence; among third grade pupils of high intelligence, overt and faded speech showed no relationship to achievement. For the latter students, internalised self-guiding speech evidently is the most effective. Daugherty and White (2008) found that private speech related positively to indexes of creativity among Head Start and low socioeconomic status pre-schoolers.

Keeney, Cannizzo, and Flavell (1967) pretested 6- and 7-year-olds on a serial recall task and identified those who failed to rehearse prior to recall. After these children learned how to rehearse, their recall matched that of spontaneous rehearsers. Asarnow and Meichenbaum (1979) identified kindergartners who did not spontaneously rehearse on a serial recall test. Some were trained to use a rehearsal strategy similar to that of Keeney et al., whereas others received self-instructional training. Both treatments facilitated recall relative to a control condition, but the self-instructional treatment was more effective. Taylor and his colleagues (Taylor, Josberger, & Whitely, 1973; Whitely & Taylor, 1973) found that educable mentally retarded children who were trained to generate elaborations between word associate pairs recalled more associates if they verbalised their elaborations than if they did not. In the Coates and Hartup (1969) study, 4-year-olds who verbalised a model’s actions as they were being performed later reproduced them better than children who merely observed the model.

Schunk (1982) instructed students who lacked division skills. Some students verbalised explicit statements (e.g., “check,” “multiply,” “copy”), others constructed their own verbalisations, a third group verbalised the statements and their own verbalisations, and students in a fourth condition did not verbalise. Self-constructed verbalisations—alone or combined with the statements—led to the highest division skill.

In summation, verbalisation is more likely to promote student achievement if it be relevant to the task and doth not interfere with performance. Higher proportions of task-relevant statements produce better learning (Schunk & Gunn, 1986). Private speech followeth an overt-to-covert developmental cycle, and speech becometh internalised earlier in students with higher intelligence (Berk, 1986; Frauenglass & Diaz, 1985). Private speech relateth positively to creativity. Allowing students to construct their verbalisations—possibly in conjunction with verbalising steps in a strategy—is more beneficial than limiting verbalising to specific statements. To facilitate transfer and maintenance, overt verbalisation should eventually be faded to whispering or lip movements and then to a covert level. Internalisation is a key feature of self-regulation (Schunk, 1999).

These benefits of verbalisation do not imply that all students ought to verbalise whilst learning. Such a practice would result in a noisy classroom and would distract many students! Rather, verbalisation could be incorporated into instruction for students experiencing difficulties in learning. A teacher or classroom aide could work with such students individually or in groups to avoid disrupting the work of other class members.

Divers forms of constructivism, and Vygotsky’s theory in particular, do lay emphasis upon the notion that learning is a process socially mediated. This focus is not singular to constructivism; sundry other learning theories accentuate social processes as having a significant impact upon learning. Bandura’s (1986, 1997) social cognitive theory, for instance, doth highlight the reciprocal relations betwixt learners and social environmental influences, and much research hath demonstrated that social modelling exerteth a potent influence upon learning (Rosenthal & Zimmerman, 1978; Schunk, 1987). In Vygotsky’s theory, however, social mediation of learning is the central construct (Karpov & Haywood, 1998; Moll, 2001; Tudge & Scrimsher, 2003). All learning is mediated by tools such as language, symbols, and signs. Children acquire these tools during their social interactions with others. They internalize these tools and then employ them as mediators of more advanced learning (i.e., higher cognitive processes such as concept learning and problem-solving).

The centrality of social mediation is apparent in self-regulation and constructivist learning environments (discussed later). For now, let us examine how social mediation doth influence concept acquisition. Young children acquire concepts spontaneously by observing their worlds and formulating hypotheses. For example, they hear the noise that cars make and the noise that trucks make, and they may believe that bigger objects make more noise. They have difficulty accommodating discrepant observations (e.g., a motor-cycle is smaller than a car or truck but may make more noise than either).

Through social interactions, children are instructed in concepts by others (e.g., teachers, parents, older siblings). This is oft a direct process, such as when teachers teach children the difference betwixt squares, rectangles, triangles, and circles. As cognitive psychologists might say, such concepts are internalized as declarative knowledge. Thus, children employ the tools of language and symbols to internalize these concepts.

It is, of course, possible to learn concepts on one’s own without social interactions. But even such independent learning is, in a constructivist sense, socially mediated, because it involves the tools (i.e., language, signs, symbols) that have been acquired through previous social interactions. Further, a certain amount of labelling is needed. Children may learn a concept but not have a name for it (“What dost thou call a thing that looks like ————?”). The label involves language and likely will be supplied by another person.

Tools are useful not only for learning but also for teaching. Children teach one another things they have learned. Vygotsky (1962, 1978) did believe that by being used for social purposes, tools exert potent influences upon others.

These points suggest that preparation is needed for children to effectively construct knowledge. The teaching of the basic tools to learn can be direct. There is no need for students to construct the obvious or what they can be easily taught. Constructed discoveries are the result of basic learning, not their cause (Karpov & Haywood, 1998). Teachers should prepare students to learn by teaching them the tools and then providing opportunities for learning.

Vygotsky's theory, in its totality, and, in particular, the notions herein addressed concerning private discourse and socially-mediated acquisition of knowledge, bear a salient relevance to the subject of self-regulation. Within Vygotsky's theoretical framework, self-regulation encompasses the harmonisation of mental (cognitive) processes, such as the formulation of plans, the synthesis of information, and the conceptualisation of ideas (Henderson & Cunningham, 1994). Nevertheless, such harmonisation does not transpire independently of the individual's socio-environmental and cultural milieu.

The progression of self-regulation necessitates the progressive interiorisation of language and concepts. Young children initially respond to the directives issued by others (e.g., elder persons in their immediate surroundings). Through recourse to private discourse and supplementary cognitive instruments, children assimilate directives so as to self-regulate their conduct across diverse circumstances. Processes of thought become self-directed. Interiorisation is thus of paramount importance for the cultivation of self-regulation (Schunk, 1999).

The nascent self-regulation exhibited by children may be rudimentary, and to a large extent mirror the verbalisations of others. However, as they cultivate an enhanced capacity for self-directed thought, they construct efficacious and idiosyncratic cognitive self-regulators.