[Xmca-l] Re: "Mediation" as Error Correction

[Huw Lloyd]

Perhaps you should respond in kind, David:

1.  A failure to understand that speech and systems of notation mediate,
i.e. guide and structure, activity which is the phenomenon that benefits
from contact with reality.
2.  Failure to understand that direct correction of these systems can
inculcate an erroneous sense that systems of notation and speech are the
"objective material" to be worked upon, rather than the efficacy of their
use in realising object systems from which natural feedback can be obtained.
3. Failure to grasp the opportunity to frame these minor situations in the
context of encouraging the student's own self-regulation and confidence in
thinking.

Any good?

Best,
Huw


On 10 February 2016 at 21:38, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:

> I am occasionally, out of deference to a few papers I once published in
> TESOL, sent articles to review on the use of Vygotskyan concepts in
> language learning. Time was that these articles were mostly about
> scaffolding and the ZPD; of late they have been mostly concerned with
> "internalization" and "mediation".
>
> The problem is that most of these articles have taken these concepts
> entirely out of child development and placed them in an alien
> context--classroom error correction, which is now referred to as "Dynamic
> Assessment".
>
> I am not sure what to do about this. It seems to me that one way to start
> to address the issue is to go back to the original Hegelian idea of
> "mediation" as using one force of nature against another: the force of air
> pressure against gravity in flying, or the friction of snow vs. the
> momentum of the fall line in skiing.
>
> When a teacher corrects an error in a classroom, e.g. when a teacher makes
> the student say "This is a book" instead of "This is book", what are the
> forces of nature that are being used against each other? Is this really an
> instance of mediation at all?
>
> David Kellogg
> Macquarie University
>