Lev Vygotsky (1986) was a scholar devoted to the study of human mental development. Among the most important Vygotsky’s contributions can be mentioned his cultural-historical theory (CHT) which the main notion is that children learn through adults and peers and the social contexts they are surrounded by (Vygotsky, 1986). For this theory, Vygotsky (1986) analyzed the relationship between words and consciousness. Two other influential Vygotsky’s contributions are the terms inner speech and zone of proximal development. Inner speech takes place during language acquisition. It began as a social medium and then it is internalized by the child (Vygotsky, 1986). The zone of proximal development refers to the gap between what learners can do with help and what they cannot do without help (Vygotsky, 1986). …show more content…
For instance, it has transformed fields such as cultural studies, language and literacy, and linguistics among others (Portes & Salas, 2011). This theory, developed during the 20’ and 30’, is still in use since it has been extended in different directions (Portes & Salas, 2011). Scholars have recently entwined CHT multilingual speakers (Portes & Salas, 2011). Thus, this synthesis paper includes implications for educators to lead multilingual students to academic literacies in the 21st century. Such implications are related to two issues; academic literacies and translanguaging