Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory In Haiti And Dominican Republic

As a lover of Haitian culture and literature due to my family’s heritage, I recall one of my most unique learning experiences as a high school student when I went to Haiti and Dominican Republic for a summer abroad study program. In sum, this wonderful experience embodied several key aspects of Vygotsky's theory since his framework is based on the fact that social interactions and authentic contexts help to foster and extend one’s learning significantly. Research also describes Vygotsky's sociocultural theory as it “basically offers that if we want to understand learning and development, we have to focus on process instead of product” (YILDIRIM, 2008, p. 301). Because I was immersed in the real culture of Haiti and Dominican Republic, for example,

My Haitian Creole professors and mentor strongly initiated this term as they assisted us by enabling us to problem solve in more of a guided participation type of approach, as we were given various problems and questions to solve and address on our own or in small pairs, rather than by the teachers merely presenting contents in rigid lecture formats. Since this course was so embedded with artifacts of and from Haitian and the Dominican Republic, it also adhered to Vygotsky’s theoretical concepts well since he regarded cognitive development as depending more on interactions with people & tools in a student’s life. These tools could be both real or symbolic in

Since Vygotsky advocate the ability for students to learn by offering contextualized, meaningful instruction in small or whole groups, this seminar definitely fulfilled these premises. Again, speeches and debates in the form of Socratic seminars also constituted a major part of my Haitian overseas learning. These verbal and social nuances also reflect Vygotsky’s theory since he emphasized how the social basis of learning as “Vygotsky propounds that children interact with their social environment by their speech experiences so that